The best days of summer end at the powwow, but Windy Girl takes the revelry of the gathering one step farther, into a dream world where the dancers and singers are dogs. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society
The best days of summer end at the powwow, but Windy Girl takes the revelry of the gathering one step farther, into a dream world where the dancers and singers are dogs.
Windy Girl is blessed with a vivid imagination. From Uncle she gathers stories of long-ago traditions, about dances and sharing and gratitude. Windy can tell such stories herself— about her dog, Itchy Boy, and the way he dances to request a treat and how he wriggles with joy in response to, well, just about everything.
When Uncle and Windy Girl and Itchy Boy attend a powwow, Windy watches the dancers and listens to the singers. She eats tasty food and joins family and friends around the campfire. Later, Windy falls asleep under the stars. Now Uncle’s stories inspire other visions in her head: a bowwow powwow, where all the dancers are dogs.
In these magical scenes, Windy sees veterans in a Grand Entry, and a visiting drum group, and traditional dancers, grass dancers, and jingle-dress dancers—all with telltale ears and paws and tails. All celebrating in song and dance. All attesting to the wonder of the powwow.
Brenda Childs and Jonathan Thunder will appear at Drury Lane Book store on Saturday, August 25 at 7 p.m.
Brenda Child (Red Lake Ojibwe) is professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota and author of Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940, Holding Our World Together: Ojibwe Women and the Survival of Community, and My Grandfather’s Knocking Sticks: Ojibwe Family Life and Labor on the Reservation, 1900-1940.
Jonathan Thunder (Red Lake Ojibwe) is an award-winning painter and digital media artist living in Duluth. View his work at thunderfineart.com.
Gordon Jourdain (Lac La Croix First Nation) teaches at the Misaabekong Ojibwe Language Immersion program for Duluth Public Schools.
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