UCLA Pow Wow showcases American Indian culture
UCLA alumna Nora Pulskamp dressed in attire fit for a pow wow.
By Gordon Murray
April 25, 2011 12:21 a.m.
An array of different booths line the North Athletic Field on Sunday during UCLA’s Pow Wow. The pow wow included dancing, singing and other exhibitions connected to American Indian culture.
As a member of the California Rincon Band of Luiseño American Indians, Liz Fast Horse lived on a reservation until she was 17.
When she came to UCLA, Fast Horse became part of a group that represents less than 1 percent of the student body.
Now a fourth-year American Indian Studies student, she has found community in the UCLA Pow Wow, an event that highlights Native American culture through intertribal singing, dancing and other exhibitions.
This weekend, the American Indian Student Association sponsored the 26th annual UCLA Pow Wow. Fast Horse, who co-directed the event, said it also helps recruit and retain American Indian students.
“(The pow wow) gives me a sense of family and community,” she said.
Attending a UCLA pow wow as a young child was all the inspiration Nora Pulskamp needed to select UCLA as her first-choice college.
Now, dressed in a bright blue and white costume, Pulskamp was selected as this year’s pow wow princess after competing in a pageant for the title.
She will represent the local American Indian community at other gatherings nationwide.
“This pow wow has been so much for me,” said Pulskamp, who graduated in 2003. “It’s an honor that people thought that I have qualities that they want to represent them,” she said.
Heather Torres, president of American Indian Student Association and a fourth-year English and American Indian studies student, said the organization has been working to make the pow wow more locally incorporated.
For instance, drum groups now come from nearby instead of from out of state. Also, the tradition of bird singing, a type of folk singing that hails from regional tribes, has been added as an official part of the pow wow in homage to the native peoples of Southern California.
William Madrigal is a member of the Mountain Cahuilla Bird Singers. He said bird singing is an oral history of the people, the universe and creation.
“We were created on this land by our creators, then began migration to other parts of the nation,” he said. Dancing competitions are another important part of the UCLA Pow Wow, said Elton Naswood, a UCLA alumnus and volunteer pow wow judge. He said competitions are a way to bring an intertribal perspective to the gatherings.
“It allows traditions to continue,” he said.
