Pow Wow #6
Bozeman, Montana
2015
A key component to a pow wow is of course the drummers and singers. Like this guy, they do not generally wear regalia, rather they dress in regular street clothes. We were standing about twenty feet from this particular circle of drummers and the sound they were putting out was impressively loud; I think my chest was actually noticeably compressing with the low bass vibrations put out by the drum. It’s hard to figure how this woman and her child could sit so passively right next to them. (The young girl may have her fingers in her ear. If so I guess that’s a reaction.)
I was on a fire in the Snake River Valley with the ICP in Imnaha Ore.- the middle of nowhere. Three Native Americans were killed in a deuce and a half rollover accident one afternoon. I don’t know where the drums came from but the tribe drummed all night long until the bodies were removed by helicopter the next morning. Very impressive sound and ceremony and made the hairs on the back of my head stand up. I was fortunate in that I was working night shift using infrared detection goggles mapping hot spots outside the line and so was able to get away from the sound down on the fire line. No one in camp slept that night.
Interesting story Steve. I can vouch for the impressive sound and even the hairs standing up on the back of you head. At least I found the immersion in the sound of the singers and drummers and also the dancers, along with the blur of movement to be strangely, eerie (for lack of a better word) at times. Perhaps I’ve watched too many old time westerns. I can also easily imagine not being able to sleep through the din.
Interestingly, the rest of the crowd also seems oblivious. That’s in marked contrast to the passion on
the drummers’ faces.
Perhaps the crowd was too mesmerized by all the sound and motion in the arena to visibly react.