(drums beating) (men chanting in Native language) - Welcome to the 2020 presentation of Wacipi: My Dance, My Culture, My Story, and My Life.

(man chanting in Native language) (drums beating) My name is Scott Evans.

I'm one of the founders of Native American Jump Start.

Ta Kola Ku Ota Imitchape Our goal today is to break down barriers and build goodwill between the communities of Wyoming and the surrounding Native communities.

It's my great honor and pleasure to introduce our Master of Ceremonies.

He is an Oglala Lakota living in Lander, Wyoming on the Wind River Reservation, Chico Her Many Horses is an elder in the purest sense of the title and everything it conveys as a Native American elder.

Chico is a legendary many times world champion Fancy Dancer, Grass Dancer, and Traditional Dancer.

He's going to introduce the dancers and tell a little bit about each dance style.

- Greetings, at this time I'd like to introduce an individual here, an outstanding young lady.

She's my niece.

She's gonna demonstrate our Apsaalooke dance styles.

(speaks in Crow) - My name is Hunter Old Elk, my Crow name is Woman in the Front.

I'm from the Crow and Yakama Nations of Montana and Washington.

I started dancing as early as two or three, was when I received my first outfit.

I come from a long line of dancers, Sundancers, and pow wow and rodeo families.

My outfit was the love of many, many years.

So my bead work was actually made for a grandmother, and then it was given to me, My father and myself did my bead work from my waist up, and then many pieces are also antique items that have been passed down through many generations.

I dance Women's Crow Style, and so when I go back into my community, I'm one of many people who do that singular style.

When I think of education, I think of formal education, but also informal.

My cultural background, I was able to be raised by culture bearers in the Crow Tribe and culture bearers in the Yakama Tribe as well, so I'm both Crow and Yakama.

In a lot of the tradition, many children first belong to their grandparents, and are often, the oldest child is given to the grandparents to raise, this idea being that elders and children have a really special place.

And so you have one generation that's learned and another generation that is learning, and they're able to celebrate life in those ways.

So I was raised by my grandparents and my parents as well, but I was also raised by my clan system.

And so the Crow Tribe has a kinship system that we belong to, belonging to both our mother and our father, and so it's the responsibility of extended family of aunts and uncles to also help teach us in that way.

(drums beating) (men singing in Native language) (person whoops) (Hunter laughs) - All tribes have their own flag songs, whether Apsaalooke, whether Tsitsistas, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, they all have their own flag songs to commemorate this great country and all of the sacrifices that our soldiers have, and men and women, who have sacrificed for us.

The song you're about to hear, comes to us from the Lakota Nation.

It was composed during World War II.

The story was told to me when I was a very young boy, and it continues to resonate in today's society.

During World War II, there was a man from Wanblee, his name was Ellis Chips, of the great Chips family.

As we well know, Crazy Horse, one of our leaders, was a cousin to Chips, the older Chips, and that's where he formulated and received his medicine and his protection.

Well, Ellis Chips during World War II had a favorite nephew that was sent to the Pacific theater of operations.

He passed on defending this great country.

And the story goes that the old man took it hard, took it very hard.

So he cried.

He cried for our soldiers.

He cried and he felt very bad.

So he went out walking in the Badlands, north of Wanblee, South Dakota.

And as he wandered and as he walked, the song came to him.

The Creator gave him the song, gave him the lyrics, gave him the words to the song.

Basically the song says, wherever the president's flag flies, our people will be under it, and we will flourish.

Wherever the President's flag flies, we will always be there.

Now, this is from Ellis Chips, who was part of that great family, of the Chips family, that medicine and all the honorings that went to all of our tribes.

So this is what you're gonna hear.

This is our flag song.

Wherever we're at, whatever goes on, basketball games, gatherings, we honor the sacrifices of our soldiers, men, and women, with our own flag songs.

If we're different tribes, our tribes have their own, have their own songs also.

So with that, our flag song.

(drums beating) (men chanting in Native language) - Greetings.

At this time I'd like to introduce my friend, Jared Wahkinney.

He's a Comanche from Lawton, Oklahoma, and he's gonna be performing Men's Fancy Dance.

If you notice that all of these styles are a little bit different than each other, the origin of the style they say came from the Buffalo Bill shows when they were performing overseas to the kings and queens of the royalty in Europe.

He asked him to jazz their dance styles up just a little bit more for the royals' pleasure, and so that's one of the stories how this came about.

The other stories we have up north here, is that the men just start feeling the song, started feeling that feeling that the song gives, and then they start freelancing and doing other things.

It's a very demanding dance, and at this time we're gonna turn the floor over to Jared.

- My name is Jared Wahkinney, I am Comanche.

I started dancing about 10, 15 years ago.

I think it's important for Native youth to get a formal education because, you know, you grow up understanding who you are culturally, and maybe some students, maybe they didn't have that full idea of who they are yet.

But when they go into the formal education system, going into higher education, it's important to find those resources on that campus who can support you as an American Indian student, and, you know, better your career field, because, you know, you're getting that education as a American Indian student and making sure that wherever you go next, these communities that you're going into could be similar to your communities back at home, and that you can really find relation within that to make who you are your job and build whatever career that is around that.

The dancers I idolized were my grandfather and my grandparents before them.

You know, just looking at old photos and watching them do what they did, you know, inspired me and my family members to keep that up.

So in my family, it's a tradition for us who dance to do Fancy War Dance.

There is a difference between Northern Fancy Dance and Oklahoma Southern Style Fancy Dance.

Southern style keeps it a little more slow and a little slower pace, and there's different rules and signals that we have compared to the Northern style.

For instance, you know, the times we spin around and how we move our feet.

(men singing in Native language) (drums beating) (person whoops) (people clap) - We're gonna talk a little bit about the Women's Fancy Shawl Dance.

You know, originally back in the '60s, in keeping with our heritage a lot of our women performed our Traditional Dance.

In the early 1970s, the late 1960s, women start putting shawls on and freestyling, getting that feeling that the Men's Fancy Feather Dancers had.

At the time two of the most important ones that are out there were the late Gladys Jefferson from the Apsaalooke Nation in Crow Agency, and the late Rita Metcalf of the Black Spotted Horse family from St. Francis, South Dakota.

These two young ladies became very fast friends, and they had the audacity to put their shawls on and to kick up their heels, and to spin and turn and just enjoy themselves.

The traditional societies of our Indian people at that time forbade all that.

But these two young ladies started doing creative dances and feeling the song, much like we talked about earlier.

And so this is what you're gonna have here.

It has evolved, and it has evolved greatly throughout Indian country, and it's become one of the most outstanding dances that we have.

So here we have, ah, my granddaughter, Amaya Her Many Horses, whose Lakota name when you translate it is Brings Three White Horses.

And so, Women's Fancy.

- My name is Amya Her Many Horses.

My tribes are Arapaho, Northern Arapaho, Paiute, and Lakota.

I started dancing when I started (speaks in Araphao) when I started walking.

My father made my bead work, my mother, she made the outfits for me.

Who influenced me to dance was my grandma Grace, Lauren Oakes and Irene Oakes.

They're like really, I like how they dance and how they have so much footwork in the movement.

(drums beating) (men singing in Native language) (people clap) (person whoops) - [Spectator] Yeah, Amaya!

- Greetings ladies and gentlemen.

At this time, we're gonna be talking about Men's Northern Fancy.

As with a little earlier we talked about Fancy Dancing too, we have own Northern Style dancers.

Our Northern Style dancers dance to a little bit different beat on the drum.

Songs are a little bit longer and a little bit slower.

A lot of our dancers will use eagle bustles, bustles made out of eagles, but we can legally have.

There is a big process that's involved with this.

Now, if you're a Men's Fancy Dancer, anything goes, you're freestyling, and you gotta stay in shape.

You're running, you're lifting weights, you're living a healthy lifestyle, you're biking, you're deep in your thoughts, 'cause a lot of the stuff that you get, things that we're dancing to, it's off the cuff, it just, whatever comes to us.

And we have one of the outstanding dancers here.

His bead work is tribal specific.

You'll see a lot of the Shoshone rose on his beadwork.

And a lot of our tribes in the past, you could tell what tribes were by the style of the beadwork and by the style they dressed.

So at this time, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. George Abeyta.

- My name is George Abeyta, member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe.

I've been in the Wind River Country for close to 50 years now.

My mother was raised by her grandma Josie, Josie Trehero.

She married George Washakie, who was the son of Chief Washakie.

- [Interviewer] Wow.

- So the same hands that fed Chief Washakie in his last days also fed my mother.

And it was Washakie who said, "I fought to protect our land, our water, our hunting grounds, and our sacred sites.

Today, education is the weapon that my people will need."

And that's been passed down from generation to generation.

So my mother made sure that was an important value, just as many of our cultural values are so important to sustain us, whether it be respect, honor, spirituality, education was held in that same regard.

I think it's extremely important for our Native youth to get an education, because when you see the possibilities, when you can understand what's available out there, when you can learn about your own talents, your skills, and your abilities, and find a match, it's like magic, you can make great things happen.

So to get an education is to gain understanding, and to gain power beyond measure, power to provide for your family, power to make things happen for your people.

We have so many things to do as Native people We have rights that are being undermined, swept under the rug.

We have natural resources that are endangered.

We could lose them.

We need attorneys.

We need water engineers.

We need doctors.

We need scientists.

We need all these very, very highly skilled individuals to protect our resources and to make a beautiful future for the next generation.

The old ones tell us that through our songs and through our dances we bring blessings of strength and happiness to the people.

So when we have the opportunity to dance, we should share that gift with the people.

My mother always told me before I dance to pray, pray that people will be uplifted and inspired by this dance.

So that's what I try to do each and every time out, that people will see the dance for what it's worth, but most of all, that they'll feel it in their hearts.

A really good friend of mine put her heart and her soul into this outfit.

Her name is Sandy Arrow White.

She resides in Fort Hall, Idaho, member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe.

The roses that you see represent our Shoshone people.

The wild rose will grow in the mountains and can withstand cold temperatures and high winds.

The red rose represents the strength and the beauty of Mother Earth, and represents our Shoshone people.

You'll also see that, not very prevalent, you have to look really close, it's with gold beads, you'll see boje, buffalo, and you'll see bia gwinya, the eagle.

These are medicine brothers.

They carry our prayers and they brought sacred ceremony to our Shoshone people.

If it were not for them, we might not be here today.

So represented in my beadwork is also the mountains, the mountains of the Wind River, where that sacred water flows and that powerful medicine grows.

The prayer places and the sacred burial sites of our ancestors, the Wind River Mountains.

(drums beating) (men singing in Native language) - Greetings.

At this time, we're gonna talk about Men's Grass.

You know, it's a unique style.

It doesn't have any bustles made out of hackles, or fancy, or eagle feathers, or anything of that sort.

It is fringe, it represents the grass that grows on the Northern Plains.

There's a number of different stories that are associated with this dance style, and some of 'em are Blackfeet, some of 'em are Lakota, some of 'em are individuals up here on the Northern Plains where the grass is real tall.

One of the stories that I know that was explained to me, talks about the fact that at one time there was a young boy.

He was crippled in some form.

And so a lot of the children, being children, sometimes they're mean.

They used to tease him about it.

A lot of the times during play, he would be behind, constantly trying to catch up, constantly trying to do what they did.

And at some point in their life, they came to this point where he thought about ending everything.

He wasn't good enough.

Couldn't keep up with his friends.

And so he went out in the prairie and he sat there for a long time, contemplating.

And the Creator came to him in his mind and said, "Look around, look around.

What do you see?"

He see all that grass moving.

Constant swaying, moving, power of Creator and Mother Earth.

And so he took that, he took that.

And he went home and he talked to his father, 'cause he explained to his dad about possibly ending it at all.

And he and his dad sat down, and they created this dance outfit.

My grandson, now, Elias Her Many Horses, standing next to me.

He's got a Grass Dance outfit on.

And you'll see the long fringes on it, those represent the grass out there on the Northern Plains.

- My name is Elias Her Many Horses.

I am Oglala Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, Taos Pueblo, Meskwaki, and Ojibwe, and I started dancing ever since I could walk.

I think it's important for Native youth to get an education because that's really something that people don't think like we can achieve in life, and like, once you like have that degree, like no one can take that away from you.

And like, you can come back and help like your, your community that you grew up in.

So like, for me, I wanna go back and like help, like the community I grew up in and like potentially install like solar panels on like our Native, or Indian center.

And like, it's just another, it's a way to get your foot in the door, I guess, to be successful.

When I dance, I think of trying to do one thing on one side, and then reciprocate it on the other, as well as just staying low and trying to be smooth.

My outfit and bead work, my mother and my sisters had a big part in making everything.

They all came up with the design, and they sat down and took the time to, to come up with just putting all the love, and creativity, and time into making my outfit, my regalia.

(drums beating) (men singing in Native language) (person whoops) (people clap) - At this time I'd like to introduce some of our singers (indistinct).

See, to be singer is a real special gift.

I had an older gentleman in our community, Mr. Ben Blackbird, explain things to me when I was a young man, and he started a drum group up called Ironwood again.

And we used to ask him questions.

He said, "Singers are so special and so sacred that they're the only ones that the Creator can give a song in the mind's eye.

The only ones.

These individuals, they don't have a tape recorder to keep it in there in their brain.

A song comes to them, it stays here, and it stays here forever.

They can always pull it up."

One time we asked old man Ben about those.

He said the Creator gave 'em that lyric 'cause it was so beautiful it did not need any words in it.

And so that's always stuck with me.

And some of our songs, we put words in 'em.

Commemorating welcoming home a soldier.

Commemorating a loved one that's passed on.

Commemorating a religious activity.

These singers are special, and we can't have anything in our community, we couldn't do anything in our community without them.

So at this time I'd like to introduce Mr. Jayce Old Coyote, he's Apsaalooke.

He lives in Wyoming.

He's one of our singers.

Another one of the individual singers for us tonight, like I said earlier, is one of our grandsons, Elias.

Come on over here, Elias.

Next individual is also one of those who is an outstanding Men's Fancy Dancer, an outstanding singer, an individual who's still working on his golf game, I've heard.

Mr. Gerimiah Holy Bull.

Comes from a very well-known family up in the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate.

So these are our singers here tonight.

They've done an outstanding job for us.

Thank you.

Greetings again, we're about to explain the Women's Jingle, Jingle Dress Style.

Women's Jingle Dress Style came to us from the Anishinaabe people, Whitefish Bay, Ontario, Canada.

In the early 1900s a sickness went through the Anishinaabe nation, a sickness that our Western medicine could not cure, or had no idea what it was.

A sickness that our traditional medicine men, our traditional holy men, our traditional people who gather herbs and things in a forest could not find a cure for also.

Her grandfather, this is Maggie White's grandfather was a holy man in a local tribe there.

And he went to bed one night and he was very, very upset and very worried about his granddaughter, much like we are today.

So he went to sleep that night, and the Creator came to him in his mind's eye in a dream and told him, "You need to create this dress.

You need to take these cones, twist 'em, Copenhagen lids.

You need to sew 'em in a certain pattern.

You need to make sure that dress is black, yellow, red, and white.

You mean need to make sure that it's all together.

You need to make sure those cones number 365 for every day of the year, and that those cones would be on the bottom section up the dress.

You need to know that these songs need to be sung."

Much like the gifts these singers have, that song stayed with him in his mind.

So he woke up the next day, and he was really concerned.

His granddaughter was getting sicker and sicker.

So he thought about it, much like our Indian men, older men, they take pause before they do anything.

He thought about it, walked around, and he called all the leaders of the community together.

And he explained what happened.

And they told him, "You have to do this.

You have to do this 'cause you were given a gift."

So he called the singers in and he taught them the songs.

Then he called all the people in the community together to gather, and he made this dress for this young lady.

She was real small at the time, granddaughter, figure she was like six years old.

They made this dress specific, then they put her out in the middle and they sang the songs.

And she danced.

And she got better.

A little while later, other sicknesses started popping up with other young children in their community.

And so they continued this Jingle Dress Dance.

To the point, they used to put the sick people in the middle and dance on the outside to heal 'em.

This dance style has come to Indian peoples all over continental United States, North American, Canada and the United States.

It's gone to all different tribes, tribes that have never even danced in Northern Plains style.

They've adapted it and adopted it to their needs, and it's become one of the most outstanding dance styles out there.

But I think at this time in life, we need to come together and pray for the whole of everybody.

My granddaughter, Alsee Her Many Horses, is here to Jingle Dance.

Her Lakota name is Red Breasted Woman.

There are two different styles of Jingle: flash, spin, turn, and there's the old style, the original style, much like all the styles are.

Hau granddaughter.

- My name is Alsee Her Many Horses.

My Lakota name is (speaks in Lakota) which translates to Red Breasted Hawk Woman.

I'm enrolled Northern Arapaho, I'm also a Lakota and Bishop Paiute, and I've been dancing for as long as I can remember, from I guess birth pretty much.

(drums beating) (men singing in Native language) - Hey, at this time, well, we'd like to showcase our young ones.

You go to our doings or celebrations or gatherings, we don't forget our young ones.

If the young ones are in our dance circle, our young ones are in there where we're watching them, they're gonna be safe.

We wanna encourage 'em.

We wanna do the best that we can for them.

We also wanna make good outfits for them so they don't feel left out.

Again, we're trying to push our children out in front so they learn, they learn these good habits, they learn these good roles, they learn these ways to carry themselves.

And so we have teen dancers, and we have junior dancers, and we have tiny tots.

Because we encourage all our children to develop in this world here.

So we have two here.

We have Hokie and Letty who are gonna come out, and they're Fancy Dancers.

(drums beating) (men singing in Native language) (people whoop and clap) - These last two dance styles we're getting into are probably the oldest styles on the Northern Plains.

These have been around for time immortal for us.

Our Women's Traditional Dance Style differs amongst our Northern tribes.

Some of our women, they'll go in a circular motion.

Some of our Northern women they'll stand still in a certain spot and they'll dance to the beat, keeping the even rhythm.

Our Lakotas, we stay in one spot, but our women stay closer to the inside.

There's a reason for this, and we're gonna tie these two together here in a little bit.

Our old days, our old warriors, our old men, they learned from the elements and the animals, those were our relatives.

They're not just animals.

They're our uncles, and some of 'em are our grandfathers, and they taught us things.

We Lakotas, when we get to the Traditional Style, the women dance on the inside for protection.

The men are on the outside going counter-clockwise.

If you get to a celebration, you'll see that, and you'll wonder, "Why is this?"

Because in the days of old, our buffalo herds used to come down from Canada, go all the way down to Texas and Northern Mexico.

And while they traveled, migrated, the big bulls were on the outside constantly moving, constantly moving to protect the women, the children, the calves, the grandmothers, the wives, the sisters that we see today.

- My tribe is Sicangu Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation.

My Lakota name is (speaks in Lakota), meaning Circle Cloud Woman.

My dress was beaded by my brother, Terry, and it was supposed to be my wedding dress, but he was going to college then and didn't get it done, so I got married in my blue beaded dress that he beaded prior.

(drums beating) (men singing in Native language) (people whoop and clap) - Our last dance style here is probably, like with Bev and Women's Traditional, is our oldest dance style.

This came to us from the Omaha people.

Our dance style in the Omaha society has certain objects, items that are gifted from the community to an individual.

In doing so, you have aroused the responsibilities to carry yourself in a certain way, to help and to feed people, to make sure of their wellbeing in hardships and in distress.

Our dancer today is our son, Taylor Her Many Horses.

I'm gonna have Taylor turn around.

If you turn around a little bit, Taylor, and show us the bustle.

This bustle that comes unique with this dance style was gifted from the Omaha people to the Lakotas.

This bustle represents a battlefield.

Everything in that round bustle is torn, is shredded, is chaos, the same as a battlefield.

All the birds on these feathers are birds that eat meat, and they eat so much meat, they defecate.

And so you see spots on the bustles to represent that they had so much to eat.

This dance style, the Omaha style, also has a wolf hide to represent the first animals on a battle scene.

They eat meat.

Total confusion.

Every part of this young man's outfit has a meaning that came to us from the Omaha people.

- My name is Taylor Her Many Horses.

I'm Sicangu Oglala Lakota.

I currently reside in Ethete, Wyoming.

My outfit was a high school graduation present from my parents, but it was made by my uncle, Tiny, Emil Her Many Horses, and over the years I've added onto it.

I kinda self-taught myself how to bead.

And then once my uncle had found out I learned how to bead, he was probably a big influence on me 'cause he helped me with not only my beadwork, but bead work for my daughters, and helped me get things together.

My outfit is, is actually, it's older than my children.

(chuckles) My moccasins are older than my girls, so.

(drums beating) (men singing in foreign language) (people whoop and clap) - We'd like to thank you all for coming and viewing what we showcased here, our dance styles.

We hope you take that good feeling home.

A lot of our dance styles came to us from the Creator and we tried to explain that.

We explained our singers over here, what a special gift a lot of people don't have.

We've seen how our tribes interact.

The non-Indian says we were enemies all the time.

We weren't enemies all the time.

We got together for the common good.

And here the common good is to get our young Native people to graduate college, financially stable, so they can go to school so they don't have to worry about this part of their finances.

We know that the world is at a difficult time.

It seems like it's always at a difficult time.

But for us, our Native people, our Indian people, education seems to be our step forward.

Our new battlefield.

And the more we get out there, the more that we can get trained, the more they understand that we come from a very complex society.

We're complex people.

Besides our education, we have to keep our ceremonial, traditional songs, our dances, we gotta keep those vibrant and going.

A little step forward can lead to 26 miles, 285 yards, a marathon.

It starts with one step.

For those of you watching, for those who are participants, our dancers, our singers, their families who traveled with them, had the hardships of coming all the way across here to see beautiful Wyoming, which is home to a lot of different tribes, Arapaho, Shoshone, the Crow at one time, Lakotas at one time, the Comanche at one time, and Kiowa at one time, and Flathead at one time, Blackfoot at one time.

So you can see how we evolved, interacted, and got along with each other.

Thank you very much.

(men chanting in Native language) - [Announcer] Funding for the recording of Wacipi was provided by Native American Jump Start.