Algonquian Influence on Powwow Culture
by Iron Thunderhorse, March 2003
Tracing the History of Powwow through Algonquian Culture
Throughout the year Native American elders, adults, and youngsters from all four directions of Turtle Island (America) and every Indian Nation gather together in celebration for inter-tribal events that combine social, cultural, and spiritual purposes. Contemporary powwows feature dance contests, group dances, solo specialty dances, drum groups, traders, even educational presentations and workshops. The Powwow today epitomizes the enduring spirit of Native Americans and the aboriginal will to survive.
Indian children begin learning the songs, dances, regalia, crafts and protocols as early as age two and three. Powwow regalia in this modern time are divided into specific categories and even has its own special nomenclature with unique words and terms such as bustles, porky roaches, bone hair breastplates, hoop dancers, stomp dancers, gourd dancers, shawl dancers, chicken dancers, jingle dresses, forty-niner on and on — each with its own unique traditions.
Today, powwow dancers compete for trophies and big cash prizes, many of them hitting the powwow highway trail early, traveling far and wide. When they arrive at their destinations there is always a committee of people (selected far in advance) who organize, welcome, introduce and lead the various forms of dance and regalia contests and there is often an Indian Princess competition. Bill Walker’s column on powwow protocols is a regular feature of Whispering Wind which helps newcomers by demystifying the various elements with first hand experience.
All of these contemporary attributes derive from ancient roots of the Algonquian cultural traditions that are not commonly known. I have written this feature to introduce readers to these ancient roots of the powwow.
The word powwow comes directly from the Algonquian language family and before we explore this word it is important to know exactly who the Algonquian people were (and are). The Algonquian people are not a single tribe or one particular nation (for a thorough review about the Algonquian people see Wild West, 2002).
Joan Price, Ph.D., believes there were at least sixty Algonquian Nations and other scholars have identified literally hundreds of Algonquian groups from bands, clans, sachemdoms to vast confederations such as the Powhattans. At one time — prior to European exploration — the Algonquian linguistic and cultural family covered one-third of North America. Everything from Labrador, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia all along the Atlantic coast to the Carolinas and west above the American Bottoms and to the Rocky Mountains.
The Algonquian language is the largest of the seven major phylm (linguistic families) in North America. It has two major branches on the Algonquian tree including Proto-Algonguian (PA) and Proto-Eastern-Algonquin (PEA) which branched off from the former mother tongue branch several thousand years ago.
The word powwow has cognates in the PA dialects which include pawa = “to dream” (Ojibway), pawa-mowin = “dream power” (Cree), nitac8i/pa8a (Kaskaskia/Illinois, the ‘8’ symbol is equal to the sound of ou and w) = “to dream of (something).” Evan T. Pritchard in No Word For Time: The Way of the Algonquin People elaborates on its etymology. “Powwow was an old, old man who had dreams of such power, he could tell the future of the tribe, give healing advice … Powwow (later) became a title for the strongest medicine men…” The Algonquin title Powwamantowe indicates that the bearer has demonstrated incredible supernatural powers in the many Algonquian societies.
There were many such Algonquian societies which the powwow developed and each had its own annual ceremonials. At such ceremonies the powwow would recite their powerful dreams and to demonstrate their ability to summon the powatakan or “dream visitors” they erected ceremonial lodges like miniature arbors where they imitated various manitou/mandoo (spiritual entities) with special calls, and dances. Songes were also developed to honor them. Everyone had dreams and the Algonquians had other words for regular dreams, oracles, and visions. Powwow was a special category of dreams with supernatural powers related to divination, prophecy and healing.
In the PEA region of Long Island Sound the word “powwow” was a popular synonym for all Algonquian shamans. A passage from David L. Gardiner published in 1840 states: “They had small images and a regular priesthood who knew the will of the gods … the priests were called pauawas or powwas, and declared to the people what the gods required of them, when dances and feasts should be given, when presents should be given to the old people …” The traditional giveaway to honor elders and important people is part of the traditions.
The term powwow was given only to those who had such dreams and demonstrated their special abilities. The Algonquians believed in the concept of dual or twin souls one near the heart, the other near the brain. Professor Kathleen J. Bragdon explains that “one soul, the dream soul … traveled in dreams and left the body … was said to roam at night appearing as a light while the body slept…”
Bragdon also goes on to indicate that the “Southern New England pawwaws” are divided into “three categories” the prophets and diviners, the curers and herbalists and the ceremonial priests. They formed such societies as the Midewiwin/medawlinno/metarennawauk or “Grand Medicine Society” (who timed ceremonies and feasts using astronomy), the Wabeno/Wa’p’no/Wampanoo or “Men of the Dawn Sky” who paid tributes to the Thunderer and Thunderbirds in the sky world and the Pinessisok/Piyesiwok who were Thunder Clan Warriors and shamans who formed a special elite to protect the sachemdoms.
Ceremonies were performed at special times and in special dwellings. Historical records of my homeland (Connecticut) tell how my ancestors (the Quinnipiac) set aside a designated area for their “powwowing”. Charles Harvey Townsend wrote in the year 1900 how “the Indian trail southeastward through the old and new Indians fields … passing the Fresh Meadows (salt marsh) eastward (was) the powwow place, on the northeast part of the hill … was the burying place of the Quinnipiacks, and on the summit of the hill was their Palisaded Fort…”
My ancestors held eight traditional feast days (nickommo) annually. The longest was held as part of a twelve day midwinter solstice festival sponsored by the Bear Clan.
In 1670 Daniel Denton of New Amsterdam recorded the following information. “The powwaus pay particular attention to the sun, the moon, and the stars … The first moon … is greatly honored by them. They watch it with great devotion and, as it rises, they compliment it with a festival; then they collect together from all quarters, and revel in their way…”
Again near Long Island Sound in the year 1659 Samuel Taylor describes how a powwow society operated in healing ceremonials. “I send to the Record an account of a pow-wow or sort of Indian enchantment … as I was traveling from Shelter Island, I came into an Indian town, where my guide led me to a wigwam or house, the kind of huts … made like arbors … This was a great man’s house, next to the King (i.e. Sachem) and he was very ill; by and by came in a great many … men, Indians all, and sat down … and each one held a short truncheon stick in his hand … about 2 feet long. So they began to powwow, as they call it.”
These “truncheon sticks” are a type of ceremonial staff described in various accounts I have collected in the past 25 years and are known collectively as pagnawati — symbolic thunderbolts (Figure 1).
Quinnipiac
pagnawati, a Thunder Clan staff and dance stick made from wood of a sacred pine tree struck by lightning. Prior to the annual gathering and powwow in July each year, dew claws and hawk feathers with a piece of quartz and copper are added as part of the sacred decorations that hang down behind the staff.
Photo courtesy of
Kirouana Paddaquahum. Author’s collection
Algonquian Thunder Clan (Pinessiwekit) Society healers and the Great Mugwompoag (War Captain known as Pinesse) all carried various forms of this “truncheon stick” as a symbol of their supernatural powers. These are the very same staffs shown in the excellent article by Richard Green which he defined as “dew claw rattles with Thunderbird and Lightning imagery.” He noted the use of such staffs by the Wabeno and Midewiwin Societies and that one was found in a Potawatomi “war bundle” as well.
The most powerful of all the powatakan is the “Thunderer”. The Ojibway word for this is Animiki, and the Cree word is Piyessi and in the Long Island Sound Sachemdoms, this word is Pinessi or Pniese. Professor Sam D. Gill describes Pinessi as: “Thunderer, a visitor to the shaking tent (rituals) and a spirit who appears … He has to remain outside … because his tremendous power might cause the lodge to break apart. Pinessi is associated with success in war and with medicine.”
These thunder and lightning sticks represent the dual powers of the Thunder Twins who were actually the same being. Lewis Spence wrote about these North American “Thunder Gods” and stated that “the countenance of this divinity was divided into halves” which he associated with war and the hunt. He describes their powers as “mighty hunters” and how “the possession of the lightning spear or arrow … gives them in some cases the character of a war-god.” So finding a pagnawati in a war-bundle is completely understandable to me. The Potawatomi are known to other Algonquian Nations as the “People of the Place of Fire.” Thunderer was the entity who gave fire to the Algonquian people by sending his lightning spears to earth when the Stone Giant was created as the world began.
A closely related Algonquian Nation are the Menominee or the “Wild Rice People” who also have a Thunder Clan Society known as the Waipanow. This is similar (phonetically) to the cognates in the eastern domains known as the Wa’p’no, Wampanoo and the Wabeno of the Ojibway Nation. The Twin Brother and Alter-Ego of the Ojibway culture-hero and the Stone Giant (known as Winabozo but to others as Nannabush, Glooscap and Hobbomock) was named Wabeno.
Left — Animiki/Pinessi — the Algonquian Thunderer shown in its unique pictographic form.
Right — Thunderer — half man, half thunderbird as it appeared in a Menominee dream.
[Thunderhorse, 1990]
The Wabeno/Wa‘p’no/Wampanoo Societies were described by Professor Gill as “Fire handlers who use fire to interpret dreams.” He also goes on to verify that these societies “formed a specific (hierarchy) similar to the Midewiwin” with various levels of attainment. These implements of the sacred fire are connected to the special dreams as a form of divination. Richard Green’s article verifies that the Thunderer was “head of a hierarchal order of thunderbirds” (apprentices/novices in the society) and that at the end of their ceremonies these thundersticks were “set upright in the ground.”
Another long-standing Algonquian powwow tradition comes from the Menominee Nation and is known as the deweiganan omiigiwen (literally translated meaning “presentation of a drum”). Today this tradition can be observed in the many tribal drum groups but originally it represented “a gift of friendship from one tribe to another.”
In this tradition a special water drum was constructed and the drum head being painted with special symbols and then it was hung on four ornamental hooks. Both giving and receiving tribes held four days of preparations and this was followed by four days of singing and dancing. The drum was then presented in a formal ceremony and someone was selected to tell the original story of a mother named Tailfeather who watched her sons killed as she hid in the grass. Four days she waited and a vision came to her which said that a sacred drum’s sound would render all enemies helpless against the tribe who had such a drum.
As the centuries passed by and as the Algonquians migrated to the south and west of their original homeland in the far north these traditions were adopted with many other tribes. Also, when the U.S. Government outlawed Indian religions in 1892, Indian people celebrated American holidays as an excuse to get together and celebrate these traditions. Today, the Algonquian Nations can be proud of what began as ceremonial traditions into a complete inter-tribal lifestyle that celebrates the entire spectrum of what it means to be “Native American.”
So it was perhaps inevitable that these once ceremonial traditions would one day evolve as a celebration of the complete Indian spirit of survival against all odds (war, famine, disease, ethnic cleansing, religious conversion, etc.).
As an epilogue to this presentation, in the Algonquian tradition there is a story about our culture-hero being called back to the sky-world by Kici-Manitou. A big celebration was held on the shores of a great body of water and all the people and animals were there to feast. As this festival drew to a close they recalled his many wonderful deeds, and a promise for his return whenever the true people lost their traditions. This is one reason why the Quinnipiac held a new millennium celebration in July 2000 in Branford, Connecticut, called “The Return of Hobbomock.”
A graphic way of presenting Algonquian tradition, recording the dream-vision of Catherine Wabose.
Drawn by Captain S. Eastman and preserved in the work of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, 1852.
Today’s inter-tribal powwow are a time to get together to dance, sing, socialize, share news of births, deaths, new grandchildren; a time to feast and a time for outsiders to come and join to see, hear and feel the spirit of the powwow.
Bibliography
Bragdon, Kathleen J.
Native People Southern New England, 1500-1650. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1996.
Denton, Daniel. “A Brief Description of New York, formerly called New Netherlands.” Printed in London for John Hancock, 1670. Reprinted in Levine/Bonvillain, eds.,
Language and Lore of the Long Island Indians.
Gardiner, David L. “Chronicles of the Town of Easthampton, County of Suffolk, New York.” William Evers, publisher, Sag Harbor, 1973. Reprinted in Levine/Bonvillain, eds.,
Language and Lore of the Long Island Indians.
Gill, Sam D. and Irene F. Sullivan.
Dictionary of Native American Mythology. Oxford University Press, New York.
Green, Richard. “Eastern Great Lakes Dewclaw Rattles with Thunderbird and Lightning Imagery,”
Whispering Wind, 30:4, 1999.
Levine, Gaynell Stone and Nancy Bonvillain, eds.
Languages and Lore of the Long Island Indians. Suffolk County Archaeological Assn., New York, 1980.
Price, Joan E. Ph.D., with Lawrence Kahbah, Sr. “Ancient Sauk Cosmology.”
Ancient American, Issue 5, 1994.
Pritchard, Evan T.
No Word For Time: The Way of the Algonquin People. Council Oak Books, San Francisco, 1997, 2001.
Spence, Lewis (1914).
Myths and Legends of the North American Indians. Bracken Books, London, 1985.
Thunderhorse, Iron.
Return of the Thunderbeings. Bear & Company, Santa Fe, 1990.
— “The Powwow: Algonquian Traditions and Lore.”
Ancient American, 3:15, 1996.
— “How Algonquian Prophecies, Language, and Culture Transformed the American Way of Life Forever.”
Wild West, June 2002.
Towsend, Charles Hervey. The Quinnipiack and their Reservation. Tuttle, Morehouse and Taylor, New Haven, CT, 1900.
published in Whispering Wind magazine, Vol. 33, No. 3, 2003, pp. 14-17
