Yes, there are vendors. Many of them barely make enough to pay their way there and home. Putting on a powwow is not free. Admission may be charged to pay for event insurance, port-a-potties, licenses needed etc etc. The vendors pay a fee to be there. Many times vendors are selling things they made themselves and trying to help support their families. Some vendors may be selling beads, or other supplies that many of us may purchase for use on our regalia. So the vendors are there for the participants as well as whoever may be there just to watch.

When I go out in that circle in my regalia to dance, I am doing so for me. I don’t care who is looking, watching etc. The drum resonates through me and I move as if the people in the circle are the only ones who exist for me at that time. (To anyone wondering about the clothing: regalia, outfit, traditional clothing are all correct terms, costume is NOT.) The powwow is for US and not designed as a vehicle to entertain others. The public is invited as a way to share information about us. That is a token of friendship. An invitation to have a window into our lives, NOT a performance for you to watch. After the public leaves, sometimes we keep on dancing for a while. Sometimes we sit around campsites and/or fires and sing, laugh, talk, tell jokes. If you are invited to stay and visit with a family and/or group then you are very very lucky.

I have been stopped at many powwows by those wanting to ask questions. I answer the best that I can. Sometimes I am asked things that I would never ever think to ask another person in ANY culture, but I do my best to be respectful and kind. The MC often shares information during the event in an attempt to educate also. It’s a good idea to listen and also to read the program if there is one.

All in all what I am saying is this. When attending a powwow (yes even if you paid a fee to get in) you are being invited into our “home” for the weekend. Would you go into a friends home and ridicule them? Would you laugh and denigrate them or would you stop and ask them about things you didn’t understand. To us this is what we are doing, inviting friends into our home, even if it is just our home for that weekend. We are not performing for you. We are dancing for ourselves and our families.

I realize that Germans and Native Americans are not equivalent. I was showing that commercialized festivities are not the same thing as an entire culture.

Soso, while you’re correct about how the referent “Indians” came to be applied to the population of Indigenous people in the Americas, if the majority of that population wants to use “American Indian” as a collective* referent for themselves, then that’s their choice.

*By “collective” I mean all the nations of American Indians, and not just specific populations or nations that were (or still are) referred to as “tribes”.

I believe that since I’m not a member of that population, it’s inappropriate for me to say that “American Indian” is “wrong” because it was historically misapplied. There are social meanings, and geographical meanings
for group referents.

It also appears to me that there’s some flux in (and perhaps even some mild or strong disagreements) about which formal referent most members of American Indians nations (in the United States and Canada) prefer as the formal collective referent for themselves. Hence, people’s often well-intentioned use of different terms or “the wrong” terms.

This is similar to the changes that occurred in the formal and informal referents for African Americans in the late 1960s to 1980s or so. Even in 2011 some people who aren’t a part of that population may still be unsure what is the most acceptable formal referent for Black Americans.

As an African American, I think it’s “African American” , with “Black” as an acceptable informal referent, though “Black” also refers to some people who aren’t African Americans. And still to date some Black Americans will disagree with the use of the referent “Black” or the referent “African American”. See how confusing this could be to well meaning people?

**
Also, as a friendly ammendment, Molly I would delete the (or any other white person) phrase in your comment. I’m not “White” and I believe that it doesn’t matter what any other person outside a certain population thinks should be the collective referent for that particular population of people. I believe that that decision needs to come from those people themselves.

I went with American Indian because the event in question was sponsored by the American Indian Studies Program and the American Indian Student Council.

(One of the lamer editorial corrections I’ve ever seen was a brochure for a conference held in D.C. that identified the “National Museum of the American Indian” as the “Native American Museum.”)

That is NOTHING like oktoberfest.

Columbus thought he’d found India and referred to the people as Indian. He was wrong. It was inaccurate then, it is inaccurate now. Continuing this ‘tradition’ is always going to be inaccurate. Are White people really that dense? These people are not from India! How difficult is that?

Larry was making a relevant point that had a direct relation to the article posted by Gwen (about a white person denigrating a Native American cultural event and by proxy Native American culture).

You, however, seem to be attempting to derail said thread by belittling Native American experiences by saying that others have suffered similarly.

Let me just state that you fail. Hugely.