Tara Browner 

Professor, Ethnomusicology

UCLA

What’s a Powwow?

American Indians have held ceremonial gatherings since ancient times, but intertribal powwows—in which members of several tribes convene to socialize and exchange cultural traditions—are a more recent practice.

“Everyone claims that their powwow was the first,” says Tara Browner, 43, associate professor of ethnomusicology and American Indian Studies at the University of California in Los Angeles and author of Heartbeat of the People: Music and Dance of the Northern Pow-wow.

Contemporary intertribal powwows began in the 1880s with the establishment of Indian reservations, but whether it was the Poncas in Oklahoma or the Winnebagos in Nebraska who first welcomed all tribes is debatable.

“The concept of powwows goes back before European contact, but they were strictly clannish,” Browner says. The word “powwow” is derived from the Algonquian word “pau wau,” meaning “he dreams” and is associated with medicine men and healing.

[...]“What’s important about powwows is the sense of community,” says Browner, who is Choctaw and a dancer. “You feel strong and proud of who you are, and there’s a comfort level there for just a weekend. All families have stories of sadness and displacement, and you’re with people who understand your background and how it shaped who you are.”

Finding a powwow isn’t a problem, Browner says.

“I tell my students that there’s a powwow within three hours’ driving distance of anyone in the United States.”