Native Americans at Dartmouth will hold its 24th annual pow-wow at Thompson Arena this weekend, after unsuccessfully lobbying for permission to hold the celebration on the Green.
The event was originally scheduled to be held at the Bema, but the pow-wow committee, which organized the weekend's events, decided last Thursday to move the celebration to the arena. The committee's decision was made public yesterday.
"The Bema is too small," committee co-Chair Deanna Dick '96 said. "It's not big enough for all the people coming and doesn't provide an adequate site for the vendors."
NAD President and committee member LaWanda Johnson '97 said the committee expects at least 1,500 people at the pow-wow.
The College did not approve the committee's request to hold the events on the Green because of College policy limiting events on the Green, Ty Tengan '97 told The Dartmouth last week.
NAD circulated a petition last week to raise community support for a pow-wow on the Green.
Johnson said yesterday the petition had 563 signatures, but soliciting would continue through Friday, and the group hoped to present the petition by the middle of next week.
She said she was encouraged by the community's response to the petition.
"I was pleasantly surprised that we have this much support from the Dartmouth community," she said. "It was the whole student body that was supportive."
She said NAD decided not to press the issue this year because they did not want to create animosity between the administration and the students.
"The purpose [of the pow-wow] is celebration," she said. "It's not a political venue for anything."
"We also wanted to focus on getting prepared for this event," she said.
Dick said Thompson Arena had been the rain site for the pow-wow, so NAD had already booked the location.
She said she hopes the remote location of the pow-wow will not influence student attendance this weekend.
The two-day festival runs from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Free basketball and volleyball tournaments Saturday night are also part of the pow-wow festivities, and students can register for the tournaments at the pow-wow that day.
This year's pow-wow will offer a variety of music and dance performances, as well as a number of food and crafts vendors.
The festival master of ceremonies will Buddy Gwin, according to a College press release.
Gwin, who is from Mandaree, N.D., is of Mandan and Hidatsa ancestry, according to the release.
The head dancers are Marvin Burnett, a member of the Lakota tribe who lives in Nashua, N.H., and Muriel Lewis, who is from Nedrow, N.Y. and is a member of the Onondaga tribe.
Dance performances include dancing competitions, intertribal dances and exhibitions by a variety of different tribal groups, Dick said. Intertribal dances are social dances where the audience can participate in the arena.
Sequoyah Simermeyer '97 will be performing a hoop dance at 1 p.m. Sunday, pow-wow committee co-Chair Georgianna Tsouhlarakis '99 said.
The weekend will also feature six "drums," groups of Native American singer-drummers varying in size from six to 18 people, Tsouhlarakis said.
Two host drums, the Whitefish Bay Singers of Whitefish Bay, Ontario and the Otter Trail Singers of Staten Island, N.Y., will function as the principal singers at the pow-wow, she said.
The Whitefish Bay Singers represent the singing of Northern native tribes, while the Otter Trail Singers perform songs characteristic of Southern tribes, Tsouhlarakis said.
"The main difference is the geographical regions they are from," Tsouhlarakis said. "The singing pitch is a lot higher in Northern drums ... and specific endings to songs distinguish Southern and Northern songs."
