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In the spirit: today Native American women give the powwow some of its fanciest moves.

Article Excerpt
When you see the brilliant regalia and ferocious feet of today's powwow dancers, you might wonder where these dances came from. Did the original women of America dress as colorfully and dance as vibrantly?

Long before Christopher Columbus began to explore, indigenous dance served religious and social functions among the many tribes that inhabited North America. The Pueblo Indians of the Southwest prayed for rain, while the Inuits of Alaska honored the whale and caribou that sustained them. Tribes of the Great Plains danced to the spirits of the buffalo and the good hunt, and throughout the continent, tribes performed corn dances to pray for a good harvest. Some dances marked rites of passage and others aimed to heal the sick. Many of these original dances have been lost, but many have survived, fiercely guarded by native peoples. Although virtually unseen by the general public, these sacred dances have given shape to the western powwow...

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