It’s Powwow Season: Watch How Four Indigenous Dances Blend Tradition With the Birds That Inspired Them

Nestled between the welcome warmth of early spring and the lurking heat of summer, the second week of April is by far my favorite time of the year. Along with the ramp-up of spring migration, this time marks a special occasion: the first local powwow of the year, and the start of the next few months that we call ‘powwow season’.  

 I’ll rise early and carefully thumb through the stack of skirts hanging in my closet, each one in distinct colors of handpicked fabric with rows of ribbons lining the bottom, before rifling through my overcrowded jewelry box for the perfect pair of earrings. On powwow day, I’ll look for the longest pair, the ones that brush the sides of my face just right in the breeze.  

 Powwows are an inter-tribal celebration where communities gather for a weekend of dancing, eating, and perusing tables upon tables of artwork sold by Indigenous vendors. The season’s earliest powwows may start popping up in March, extending through the summer and early fall.  

 As an enrolled member of the Seminole tribe of Oklahoma living in one of Texas’ biggest cities, there’s nothing quite like the experience of a powwow to make me feel right at home. In the embrace of the powwow grounds, the deep thump of a drum beating through the air fills my chest like a second pulse. Women walk by in long, vibrant, jingle-dance dresses, the tinkling aluminum cones on their garments complemented by the rattling steps of men with strings of shells around their ankles. These are the competition dancers who come to the powwow to showcase their various routines for the chance to earn prize money. 

Among the primary styles, such as the men and women’s Fancy, Traditional, and Jingle dances,  there are several dances styled after birds in both name and movement. If you ever visit a local powwow that is open to the general public, pay extra attention for these four bird-inspired dances: 

Men's Chicken Dance

Chances are that the ever-jovial dance competition emcee will hype up the crowd before this high energy dance, which draws its inspiration from the prairie-chicken. To perform this courting dance, which originated in the Blackfeet Nation, male dancers mimic the moves the birds take to the lek: ducking and shaking their heads as they hop, stomp, and wiggle their shoulders in a feather-ruffling motion on the “booming ground.” Chicken dancers typically come dressed in bright colors with feathers standing high on their heads and protruding from their backs. Like their namesake birds, the better they dance, the more impressed are the judges—and, in the wild, prospective mates!  

Women's Swan Dance

Graceful and fluid, this dance is typically practiced by women from the Citizen Potawatomi, Meskwaki, and Yakama nations. Dancers gather in a neat line, then slowly weave a circle across the grounds, holding their hands out from their bodies with elbows bent like wings, gently flapping. In some interpretations, dancers crouch to the ground before moving their arms in a waving motion. With its steady and delicate movements inspired by oral tradition of swans gifting women their song and dance, many dancers dedicate each performance to their ancestors before them. 

Quail Dance