a day in a pow wow

I was once invited by an American student that I knew to come to an Indian Pow Wow. At that time I was preparing for my TOEFL and GRE tests in a small university in Redlands California back in 1990. I could not recall where the Pow Wow was held but I recall it was an hour or so ride. So it should not be too far out. 

It was my first (and last) Pow Wow. Pow Wow is, by the way, a celebration of American Indian culture in which people from diverse indigenous nations gather for the purpose of dancing, singing, and honouring the traditions of their ancestors. There I see "the real" American Indian. Of course the term Indian is a misnomer. The word Indian came to be used because Christopher Columbus repeatedly expressed the mistaken belief that he had reached the shores of South Asia. Convinced he was correct, Columbus fostered the use of the term Indios (originally, “person from the Indus valley”) to refer to the peoples of the so-called New World. 

There I saw many tribes of Indigenous American. The have different costumes, obviously representing different tribes. California has the largest population of Native Americans out of any state in the United States, with 723,000 identifying an "American Indian or Alaska Native" tribe as a component of their race (14% of the nation-wide total). There are currently over one hundred federally recognized native groups or tribes in California. 

I do not recall seeing any horse, I saw only cars. I guess they are pretty much living like any other American, however I could sense how proud they were. They sell beads and other traditional hand made artifacts. I did not think those are imported from China like many stuff I found in any touristic places. They sang, they danced. For one day they could be themselves. The descendants of the first people who migrated there. 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the land bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to northwest North America (Alaska).

I am lucky that I had for once been in a pow wow. It was an eye opening experience. About people, about culture, about the heritage of human being. Later when I watched Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves I would recall my day in a pow wow.