Arizona's Famous All Indian Show

Arizona's Famous All

IN JULY 3, 4, and 5, Flagstaff will be host to seven thousand redskins, and several thousand more palefaces. There will take place during those three successive days and nights, the South-western All-Indian Pow-wow, sponsored by Flagstaff Celebrations, Inc., a non-profit organization of influential busi-ness men of northern Arizona interested in the welfare of the Indian. The Pow-wow is a glamorous pageant of Amerind ceremonies, riot ously beautiful costumes, Indian contests and games displaying the history, romance, culture, tradition and religion of Amerinds throughout the southwest beginning long before the dawn of the Christian era. The pick of the best of Indian cere-monial dances have been obtained for the three night performances and the two afternoon shows. Among them will be seen the beautiful Hopi Butterfly and Hopi Flower dances. Elaborate head-dresses, garments of buckskin and richly colored velveteens of these two dances make a picture against an aboriginal background long to be remembered. The thrilling Navajo Fire Dance is on the program as is the Apache Devil Dance. Perhaps this last number is the most startlingly real of all Amerind ceremo-nies. Dancers in black masks, wearing high headdresses, in paint and beautiful short skirts, seek the Devil and finally discover and put him to rout; a story told in pantomine of the triumph of Good over Evil.

Other ceremonials will be the Arapho Scalp Dance, war-like with scalps, shields and spears; the Hopi Buffalo Dance, given but a few times during the last 75 years; the Oraibi Hoop and Weaver dances; the Navajo Mud Dance that never ceases to startle spectators and send all Indians for the exits as the Mud dancers are no respectors of persons when that part of their ceremony is reached where "victims" are tossed into a hole of mud, clothes and all. There will be the Comanche War Dance, two Zuni dances each night, and the Hopi Clown, Navajo, Navajo Feather Dance, Navajo Chant at the Waterhole, as well as many others from various tribes all over the southwest. Interspaced between these ceremonials hilariously funny clowns, in fantastic adornments and paint will entertain the spectators, so there will never be a dull moment throughout the show. In between the numbers when the tom-toms beat and the voices of the chanters rise, singers and instrumental numbers, Indian solos and groups, will be heard from the loud speaking stage in the arena.

Three programs will be given at night, beginning at 8 p. m., on the first Friday, Saturday and Sunday in July. Saturday and Sunday afternoons, July 4 and 5, the all-Indian contests, games, ceremonials and rodeo will take place in the arena at Flagstaff's municipal park. These events consist of horse races of an eighth, one-half and one mile lengths; the far famed Navajo Chicken Pull requiring the best horsemanship and care-ful timing to pull the chicken from the ground and then escape from a horde of howling, savage riders to reach the fi-nish line to be proclaimed the winner. There will be other races, a tug-of-war and a half-mile horse race for womer. A baby beauty contest, and a contest for the best dressed Indian man and woman; wrestling bouts, native style which learned ethnologists claim are duplicates of the bouts of the Mongol tribes of Asia.

Of the all-Indian rodeo the high lights will consist of cowboys relay races and the bare-back bronco riding contest. This latter event will be limited to 20 riders each afternoon. Indian fancy rop-ers and riders will give exhibitions of their skill both afternoons.

Parades in downtown Flagstaff will take place each day of the Pow-wow. Indians from twenty odd tribes will com-pete for parade prizes. Each parade will be led by the noted Indian band from Tuba City. In an almost endless number will come dance teams, in full costume, race horses, gaily decorated wagons, riders both men and women, contestants, Indians in holiday dress, and finally local organizations who will assist in welcom-ing both Indians and whites to Arizona's seventh annual Southwestern All-Indian Pow-wow.

Indian Show Flagstaff Invites the World to Inter-tribal Ceremonies

The Pow-wow is a variation of and a more elaborate and ceremonial smoking of the traditional pipe of pace. The purpose of the Pow-wow is that of making the white man better acquainted with the Amerind, to bring the two in closer contact and to give the white man a better understanding of the Indians' problems, his culture and the value of his arts and crafts and products.

Arizona is proud of its Indians, of the huge strides they have made toward socalled civilization. Arizona has more reservation Indians, 50,000 of them, than any other state in the union, and the largest tribe, the Navajo, living on the largest of all reservations north of Mexico. The value of Indian business to Arizona, in particular to northern Arizona, amounts to five and one-half million dollars. It comes principally from two huge reservations, that of the Navajo and Apache. Excepting oil and mineral lands, using Indian incomes derived from agriculture, stock raising, and hand-work, Arizona's Indians rank first. Their nearest competitor produces slightly more than two million dollars in income. Arizona Indian products are made up chiefly of cattle and sheep hides for leather goods, mohair which reaches the furniture manufacturers in the east, goat skins used in the making of women's fine shoes, pinon nuts, wool that goes into the production of clothing and blankets sold back to them, native handwoven blankets that are sold all over the world, hand-made silver jewelry set with turquoise which today is worn around the globe, and artifacts and curios.

To encourage the continued use of valuable Indian products the Pow-wow brings the two races together in a gigantic, splendid celebration where one may meet and study the other; where whites interested in the Indian may purchase direct from the Indian such of his handwork as he needs and wants. The Powwow programs endeavor to exhibit the Indian in his best moods, his gayest in contests and fun-making, and his most serious in his religious ceremonials against the background of blazing fires and hordes of tribesmen collected from the entire southwest.

In past years every state of the union and many foreign countries have been represented by guests at the Pow-wow. This year it is expected their number will be increased two-fold. Sociologists, ethnologists, anthropologists and others equally interested in meeting the various tribesmen will be afforded opportunities to do so, as in the past, by having unhampered access to the Indian village.

The Indian village spreads over several hundreds acres of ground in a natural forest setting. To it the Indians will come three and four days before the opening of the Pow-wow. They will remain there two or three days after the Pow-wow ends. Each night while the village is in existence visitors may view the Navajo Squaw Dance (formerly it was the War Dance) from about midnight until dawn. This tribal dance has been little touched by the influence of "civilization."

Admission is, of course, free to the Mid-way, where a huge carnival is held for the entertainment of the Indian as well as of white visitors, to all the parades, and to the Indian village.

This gigantic, splendid display of games, contests and dances affords the out of state visitor and many Arizonans an unmatchable opportunity to view in one great collection so many Amerind spectacular ceremonials it would require a year's time to view them separately (Continued on Page 19)