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Ed DeMattia

The Arbor

At a signal from somewhere, the low level of sound is shattered by an intense drumming. It rattles the roof. The drumming is accompanied by chanting that boils my blood. It is the loudest singing I have ever heard, and it is coming from the group of chanters seated around a four-foot drum less than ten feet from me. It has its intended effect, which is to agitate. Eight big men in cowboy hats and sunglasses are hammering on this drum. I have never heard anything like it. The singing is eerie. The language is so old, so archaic, there is no sense of time.

The song marks the Grand Entry, the official start of the powwow dance competition, which will run afternoon and night for the next three days. A column of dancers is filing in to the center of the arbor, led by a color guard of Indian military veterans.

An arbor is a simple structure of posts with some sort of cover, used as a shady area in a garden. An Indian dance arbor, however, is more complicated structurally and representationally. Structurally, it consists of two circular rows of posts, one inside the other, separated by maybe ten or twelve feet, and roofed over. It defines an area about two hundred feet across. At one end are a raised judges’ stand, VIP seats, and a PA system. There is another roofed-over area, like an open-sided shed, where announcers and spotters are located. They sit at a long built-in table, all wearing cowboy hats dangling eagle feathers and look out onto the grassy area in front of them, which is the dance arena. One end of the circle is open, permitting access for lines of dancers to enter.

The arbor is the ceremonial center of the powwow. This powwow is on the Crow Reservation and has been held here since 1904. We are near the location of the Battle of the Greasy Grass, known to white people as Custer’s Last Stand. Surrounding the arbor are about fifteen hundred tepees, twenty feet tall, campsites for the families that visit and participate in the events. The earth we stand on is nourished by bones, weapons, bravery, dreams, and spilled blood. Listen, and hear hoofbeats, gunfire, cultures clashing, battling for this turf, agony, and death. It’s all in the drums.

The veterans are marching, and the dancers are moving rhythmically to the drumbeats. They circle clockwise around the grass, winding into a mass of color. The colors are as intense as the music. In about ten minutes, the circular area is packed with Indians in their dance outfits. It is all I can do to stand there. There are twenty other drums waiting, with eight or ten singers each. I can lean against the drumbeats. I want to run. I am not in the stands - - there are no stands, and spectators are allowed to be anywhere they don’t interfere with the drummers or dancers. I am in the shed, next to the announcers, where I have set up a small video camera. No one cares at all that I am there. One of the crew moves his things to give me a spot at the end of the table.

The arbor is considered as sacred as a church during the powwow. It is blessed before the ceremonies begin, and special rules of etiquette apply to the space. Various tribal ceremonies are held in the arbor at other times of the year, but outsiders are not invited.

As an example of the traditional meaning of this spiritual place, a ceremony is planned for today for a boy whose father had been killed in an accident while at work. The boy’s uncle and family will formally adopt the youngster. The ceremony will be conducted in the Crow language, in the traditional way. Some commentary in English will be provided by a narrator, but that won’t lessen the impact of it all.

Hanging onto my arm is a woman named Linda, who is a reporter for the Washington Post. I met her at the parade that morning. She and a couple of friends are here in Montana visiting a relative of hers. She is almost overwhelmed by the sensory barrage. It is so loud that neither of us can talk. The music has choked off my ability to say anything. We can’t understand the words, but they are as formal as a high mass would be.

The drum beat is getting more definite, the pounding heavier, and the ululating voices are rising and getting louder and more intense. Suddenly, there is silence. I almost fall over from the absence of pressure. The opening ceremonies have begun.