Shinnecock Pow Wow in Southampton

For labor day weekend I took a trip to South Hampton (Southampton NY) to go to the 62nd annual Shinnecock Pow Wow!

"It's a celebration of Native people and of Shinnecock ancient history here on Long Island".

Read More About it Here

There was a lot to do and see at the Pow wow, there was more than 100 vendors from more than 60 tribes that were selling their wares, including native foods, art, crafts, jewelry, books, music CDs, beaded work and leather goods. Dancing and drumming competitions were going on throughout the day as well. The categories include the Eastern women's blanket dance, Eastern men's war dance, men's fancy dance, ladies' fancy shawl dance, grass dance and jingle dress dance. It was all very interesting and a very different site to see. This is held every year on labor day weekend in the Shinnecock preserves.

Here are some pictures from the event
(click on the images below for a larger view)

Here is a tribe dancing around the fire with numbers on them, around them are a few judges who judge each of them and after each tribe is done dancing they all get judged and placed. All their dances are preformed around a big fire pit! Its part of their tradition.

An upclose of an indian who just finished preforming walking around for people to take pictures of him!

Part of the grand entry ceremony. The grand entry will step off daily in majestic form, led by the Shinnecock Nation's tribal leadership, trustee chairman Fred Bess and trustees Lance Gumbs and Gordell Wright. Flag bearers will carry the traditional eagle staff of the Shinnecock Nation, the Shinnecock flag and the U.S. flag, followed by tribal elders and dancers.

In action! What a beautiful costume! All of the Indian costumes are made by them and they are all very colorful and have A LOT of work done to them!

A full view of the stage they perform on! There was thousands of people there!

More Beautiful costumes!! This is at the end when they all came out on stage for the finale!

This was one of the vendors they had there. I thought it was pretty cool! It's all medicine creams and tinctures for pain relief. Some were you rub cream on your back to fix your lower back pain, some were for stress relief, they also had liquid to smell and it relieved headaches and other things. This is what they believe helps pain, not medications and pills like we do!

There was also a man there that had a handmade bow and arrow machine! He sat on it and carved wood to make bow and arrows! This is the peice the Indians used back in the day to make the bow and arrows!

Here are some of the bow and arrows he had made on the machine!

And heres a wooden sculpture he designed!!

The Eagle War Hawk Cries Loud "Pow! Dance! Pow! Dance!"

This colorful outfitted dancer is from the new rave city Native American group, represent in.

Carrying the ancient blue fire torch, get the Cerosene!

Great picture of a church town clock in South Hampton.

Some cool art work in the back of some stores in Southampton.

Watch this video of some young dancers that are dancing around a fire!

All in all the Pow Wow was a great Day! I would recommend it to be something for anyone to see, for all ages! It's fun and interesting to see how different other cultures live, believe, and practice!