Stillwater Pow Wow will come to Redding Rodeo grounds this weekend
From October 3–5, the Redding Rancheria will host a pow wow to celebrate Tribal ceremonial dances, food, art, and music.
For over 35 years in Shasta County, local Tribal members have organized pow wows to showcase indigenous cultural expressions from Mexico, Canada, and across the United States. This weekend from October 3–5, the Redding Rancheria is encouraging the public to attend this year’s Stillwater Pow Wow at the Redding Rodeo grounds.
The event, which is family friendly and alcohol-free, will feature competitive dance among Native troupes as well as a ceremony for honored elders from the community. The winners of the Warrior and Miss Stillwater contests – which include adult, young adult, and child age categories – will also be announced on Saturday night.
The etymology of the term “pow wow” comes from the Algonquin peoples of Massachusetts, referring to medicine men, but the term has since morphed to mean a ceremonial gathering of Native people.
The structure of the dance ceremonies that occur at modern interracial pow wows comes from the Plains Indians – Lakotas, Blackfeet, Comanches, and Pawnees among others – who came into contact with one another, and began exchanging cultural traditions, after being forced off their lands by settlers.
Open celebration of ceremonial Native dance has revived in recent decades, but for nearly a century — from the 1830s through the 1920s — it was banned by the federal Religious Crimes Code. In recent years the practice of cultural pow wows has expanded and there are now multiple pow wow circuits across North America.
“Pow wows allow a space to [for Natives] to come together as one people, even if they’re not from one specific area,” Redding Rancheria Tribal Chairman Jack Potter told Shasta Scout.
The Stillwater Pow Wow is free and open to all.
Do you have information or a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.
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