Tail Dance, 2025

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What is it about Pawnee drums that reverberate to your very bones?
The big, round drum, set on the ground
With sixteen men beating in unison with their long drum sticks.
Then they sing.
One man starts the song, and other men join in.
The women join in on the second verse, their high voices balancing with the cries of the men.
It is loud.
It is powerful.
It is meaningful.
So much so that it sinks into my soul, right down to my bones.
We’re in the roundhouse, patterned after the roundhouses of old,
Each band sitting together around the outer wall, talking, laughing, smiling.
It smells of sage and cedar,
The smell of purification smoke.
This is the Tail Dance, only for Pawnee people,
Only traditional Pawnee songs and dances.
No competition powwow songs.
No Fancy dancers.
No Jingle dancers.
No non-Pawnee, unless you’re related or invited.
The men in regalia sit on benches in front of us,
Sitting on their folded Pendleton blankets,
Waiting for the drum to begin again so they can dance again.
We dance on red earth, trucked in from the homeland to the reservation When the roundhouse was built.
It is packed down from thousands of dancing moccasins over many years.
We dance around the drum, counter clockwise, on that red earth.
Men, women, children, babes in arms.
An elder dances in place while holding tightly to his walking stick.
His eyes are closed and his head bobs to the beat as his old feet shuffle.
I dance with my cousin, also an elder, who is softly singing
While she fans herself with her beautiful eagle feather fan.
She knows all the old songs, but she only sings her favorites.
“Don’t bounce,” I remember another old cousin once telling me.
“Mama always said you should dance like you’re skating on ice. Smooth.”
I attempt to dance “smooth.”
My cousin dances slow, and the young men carefully,
Courteously dance past us,
Their bells jingling and their roached heads bobbing.
Many young men have shaved their heads in the traditional hairstyle,
Leaving only a strip of hair down the middle of their head.
Pierced ears complete the Pawnee look.
They are so tall, so imposing!
The passion with which they dance is palpable,
The heat of their bodies radiating towards us as they pass.
Women pass us, as well,
The fringes on their colorful shawls swaying with the beat.
Their hair braided and decorated with beautiful beadwork.
We have not forgotten that these dances were illegal
not very long ago.
That our grandfathers and grandmothers were jailed for
dancing these very dances and singing these very songs.
I heard a few of those stories from my own grandfather.
Occasionally, one man will whoop, and others will answer.
Women join in their high-pitched “lulululululu!”
It’s a war dance this time, but the announcer tells us that
the battles we are fighting today are different than
the battles our ancestors fought.
He encourages us to take strength from the war dance,
Take strength from each other,
And go out and conquer the obstacles that are out there,
Waiting for us.
We dance in defiance.
We dance in remembrance.
We dance for joy.
We dance for the future.
The Pawnee people are most definitely still here.