Redbird's 2024 Children of Many Colors Intertribal Powwow
Schedule
Fri Jun 07 2024 at 06:00 pm to Sun Jun 09 2024 at 06:00 pm
Location
Oxnard College | Oxnard, CA
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Native American culturing gathering and celebration, everyone welcomeFriday evening June 7, 6 PM - 9 PM open flute circle and vendor preview. All wind instruments and their players welcome
Saturday, June 8 11 AM - 7 PM Gourd Dance and Intertribal Powwow
Sunday, June 9 11 AM-6 PM Gourd Dance and Intertribal Powwow
A powwow is a Native American ceremony and celebration which welcomes the general public. Powwows are true cultural gatherings, not performances. Powwows knit the social fabric that is vital to the indigenous community while creating an atmosphere of cultural immersion for visitors.
A powwow includes singing, dancing, drumming, traditional music, arts, crafts and food. There are two basic kinds of powwows - contest and intertribal. A contest powwow provides prize money for dance competitions, while an intertribal powwow is a more relaxed, family style gathering.
Redbird's powwow is an intertribal gathering which prides itself in creating a friendly and supportive atmosphere for both participants and visitors.
Powwows range from one to three days. The Redbird powwow begins Friday evening with an open flute circle, where everyone is welcome to take the microphone and share their songs. This includes the native and non-native community, professional musicians and amateurs. It is a friendly, supportive, relaxed way to begin the gathering. It provides a chance for vendors to settle in. It provides an opportunity for guests to shop with vendors who are ready for business.
Saturday the powwow proper begins with the Gourd Dance ceremony. The Gourd Dance honors the tradition of the warrior societies and today is often dominated by indigenous Veterans. In recent years we are seeing more and more youth brought into the way of the gourd dance, which emphasizes respect and honor.
Grand Entry immediately follows the Gourd Dance ceremony. This is what most people think of as the most spectacular moment of the gathering - when all of the dancers enter the arena at once, accompanied by the Eagle Staff and United States flag. It is indeed an exciting moment. The songs of the drums resonate within your chest and the experience of witnessing the representation of so many different indigenous people, not in some historical depiction but in real life...it is a difficult moment to translate into words.
Throughout the rest of the day there is singing, dancing, social dances where visitors may join in, ceremonies, exhibition dances and cultural sharing. The powwow itself comes from the Great Plains - an adaptation to the reservation era - but California tribal people now participate, dancing their own styles, singing their own songs and reconnecting with their own ancestral land.
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Where is it happening?
Oxnard College, Oxnard,CA,United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
