Drumming Up Culture Powwow Dancing A Family Affair Learned Early By Watching, Listening, Joining In

They dance as though possessed.

From the time they were toddlers, Gilbert Stewart’s grandchildren felt the beat of the drum. Barely able to walk, they learned to move their feet to its steady rhythm, to listen as if it spoke.

“As human beings, we are hollow tubes in which the Great Spirit expresses himself,” said Stewart, the Inchelium family’s patriarch and a traditional dancer of Sioux descent.

“The movements and sounds we make all show the Creator’s happiness.”

Like many Indian families, Stewart’s spends its summers traveling across the country to dance at powwows. While competing for prize money, they reaffirm their native traditions and pay homage to God.

“Dancing gives you a stronger sense of who you are,” said Stewart’s stepdaughter, Martina Welshula. “There’s pride that comes from knowing one’s own identity.”

Thanks to her stepfather’s teachings, Welshula, 39, has imparted that knowledge to her children. All six have some expertise in powwow dancing - from the traditional dance, which interprets an animal’s movements, to the fancy dance, when men wildly move their bodies with the passion of a warrior.

With their moccasin-clad feet quickly tapping the ground, the entire family spent one afternoon demonstrating their talents in this native art.

Dressed in feathered headdresses and bright-colored regalia, they danced in their back yard to the beat of taped drum music. Welshula, wearing a long dress with fringes and otter fur around her black braids, waved a fan fashioned from eagle feathers. Two of her daughters wore jingle dresses made of tin can lids that clinked with each step.

Her son, 21-year-old Kato Tomeo, swiftly cocked his head from left to right. Elbows bent, shoulders and hips moving in all directions, he mirrored the movement of the tall grass behind him.

In the same way some kids are made to take piano lessons, Welshula’s children were disciplined in dancing. They didn’t learn by taking lessons. They learned by watching, listening and going to the powwows. It’s like osmosis, Stewart said.

“It’s not only fun for them,” said Stewart, 49, a leader in the Inchelium Native American church. “It’s also a form of spiritual expression. There’s healing power there.”

The kids also used to compete at powwows, Welshula said, but it became too strenuous. The events involved driving great distances and dancing for several hours at a time.

Some families actually make thousands of dollars at powwows just by dancing, Welshula said. They use the prize money to buy gas or camping supplies to make it to the next gathering.

Tomeo, who teaches powwow dancing, still vies for titles in the grass-dancing category, but the rest of the family is content to simply dance.

“When you leave the powwow, you feel refreshed,” said Welshula’s daughter, Janelle Stensgar, 16. “The dancing is a release. It just happens to you. Nothing is forced.”

In addition to dancing, Stewart’s grandchildren are learning to make their own regalia. They sew, collect feathers and do intricate beadwork.

They’re a traditional family, they said, one that worships the Great Spirit and practices ancient Indian ways such as sweat lodges and vision quests. It’s the dancing, however, that keeps them together.

“(Dancing) is really about a celebration of life,” Welshula said. “It’s celebrating our (native) way of being in the world.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: THE POWWOW Thousands are expected to watch and participate as Native Americans celebrate their heritage at the eighth-annual Spokane Falls Northwest Indian Encampment and Powwow. The three-day event at Riverfront Park’s Lilac Bowl will include the dancers’ grand entrance on Friday at 7 p.m.; Saturday at noon and 7 p.m.; and Sunday at noon. The event is hosted by the Spokane Tribe, Colville Confederated Tribes, the Coeur d’Alenes, the Kalispels, the Nez Perce Tribe and the Yakama Indian Nation.