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9. Celebrations and Dress: Sources of Native American Identity
- The University of Alabama Press
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Introduction In 1981, while a new faculty member at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, I met the people who call themselves the Waccamaw Sioux. In the fall, two representatives from the Waccamaw community entered my of¤ce on campus and explained who they were and why they had come to see me. They needed an anthropologist (or a sociologist, since I was in a joint department) to help them research their history for a federal acknowledgment petition. After they left, I remembered a book that a former colleague at Hiram College in Ohio gave me before I left to come to Wilmington. That book, by Karen Blu, was entitled The Lumbee Problem (1980), and upon re®ection, it seemed almost prophetic of my future involvement with the Indians of North Carolina. Over the years, my own research interests and those of the Waccamaw have led me to investigate a variety of topics. First, between 1982 and 1985, my research focused on ethnohistory and community (Lerch 1988, 1992a). Later, in 1985, family genealogy became important to the Waccamaw. Then, in 1989 and 1990, I examined the 1990 federal census of the Waccamaw for the Center for Survey Methods Research. From 1990 to 1992 my attention turned more closely to the powwow (Lerch 1992a, 1993; Lerch and Bullers 1996), and ¤nally in 1998 to the Waccamaw ’s desire to research the history of their community and its links to surrounding communities. The powwow intrigued me from the beginning. In 1982 the Waccamaw invited me to sit on a panel of judges for the princess contest. Having outsiders (white people) on this panel was not unusual, but it made me a bit uncomfortable at ¤rst. I had to overcome my own bias against “beauty contests” and my reservations about how to judge the standards of beauty and talent in their community . It was clear that being a judge was an honored position, so I accepted it and 9 Celebrations and Dress Sources of Native American Identity Patricia Lerch then did the best I could, although I never really felt quite legitimate in this role. However, this experience made me aware of just how important the powwow was to the Waccamaw. Since 1982, I have collected information on every powwow I attended (all but two) through participant observation and conversations with dancers, organizers, and visitors. A survey in 1990 collected data on the meaning of the powwow to a sample of the Waccamaw (Lerch and Bullers 1996). Purpose and Goals An anthropologist’s background and interest direct him or her toward certain perspectives and interpretations of ¤eld data, and I ¤nd that I am no exception. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to explore how my previous ¤eldwork on umbanda, a Brazilian spirit possession/trance religion, can lead to another way to interpret the powwow in the Waccamaw community. In order to provide the necessary background for this comparison, I begin with a brief history of the Waccamaw and their adoption of the powwow. Then I review the work of my mentor, Erika Bourguignon, professor emeritus at Ohio State University, showing how she has in®uenced my thinking. Next, I compare ¤eld notes on a typical umbanda trance dance and spirit impersonation to notes on a typical powwow dance featuring fancy dance regalia at a Waccamaw powwow. My intent is to offer a comparative perspective and an outsider’s interpretation that can point toward some important research questions for the future. I do not intend to imply that this interpretation does or should hold up for other southern Indians generally (although it might do so), or that this is the only way to explain these events. Powwows among the Waccamaw Sioux Today, Native American powwows are common events from the southern Plains (Gelo 1999) to the East Coast. In North Carolina, these public celebrations of Indian heritage and identity have drawn many tourists and visitors for more than 20 years. What is a powwow? A powwow refers to a festival held and sponsored by one or more tribes or communities. It can occur at any time of the year and for any occasion. Most powwows include secular dancing, last a few days to a week, and include “games, craft displays and sales, giveaway ceremonies, and other features, along with the main attraction, costumed dancing” (Lurie 1971:450). In 1976, anthropologist Rachel Bonney observed that from the earliest days, the Waccamaw powwow generally followed this pattern. Communitysponsored powwows, as Paredes (1965:1...