2002
Tribal vs. Pan Indian
As we have pointed out many times – Indians exhibit a remarkable amount of variation between the tribes. None the less, a kind of pan Indianism has developed – most clearly with a Plains Indian base to it. Plains Indian culture has “spread” into areas it had not been.
Popularity of Plains Indian culture may be based more on Western ideas of "The Indian" because this was the group that was contacted after the coasts had become ehavily settled and were no longer in any real contact with the various groups.
Another major difference that can be found is the one between urban and reservation (or perhaps better, country Indians. In most cities Indians don’t even constitute a sizeable minority, but none the less are often aware of other Indians. Indian “neighborhoods” even in cities like New York which has over 10,000 Indians are unknown.
In small towns and on reservations the density of Indians goes up and “culture” tends to be better preserved in some ways.
Full vs. Mixed Bloods.
In many cases, the percentage of mixed bloods (sometimes reckoned as having parents from different tribes, and sometimes as having one Indian and one non-Indian parent) are rising.
Music and Dance:
Like languages, music and dance are cultural variables and one can find patterns in specific places. Plains Indian Music differs from that of the Apachean speakers (Navajo and Apache) in the SW and from that of the NW Coast.
Plains Indian Dancing is sometimes divided into ritual vs. social dancing. Ritual dances, like the Sun Dance, Ghost Dance, the Kiowa-Apache Manatidie, and the Kiowa Black Legging Society are examples of Ritual Dancing. In the SW the Apache Gan dances (Fire Dancing – Mt. Spirit Dancing) are examples of ritual dances while the Apache “back and forth” are social dances. In most instances men and women dance quite differently. Some dances, like Fancy War Dances are basically the domain of men, while in round dances, 49s and back and forths both sexes dance and the steps are the same.
The Plains Indians have a number of “social dances” like straight dances, round dances, two-step, snake and buffalo dances and the popular fancy dancing, a version of the war dance. Straight Dances and Fancy War dancers dress differently and the fancy dancers deal with faster music.
A typical Pow-wow where these dances happen is usually sponsored by a specific ritual dance group and they will perform at the pow-wow. After that is finished, there will be social dancing. – round dances, war dancing etc. After the pow-wow there are often dances called 49’s which go on off the dance areas usually in a field.
CULTURE AREAS
Of the culture areas that split up the US and Canada , the one known as North West Coast, runs from northern California through Alaska, but largely along the coast and a short bit inland. These people had as their main food supply fish – specifically salmon (remember the like in Smoke Signals – “Dances with Salmon”. In these groups fishing was an important aspect of food getting. The film today is set in and around Seattle Washington and hence the Spokane Indians who are depicted in the film come from the Pacific Northwest coast area.
Things to watch for:
After the Film
There are several clues rather early in the film, that give us information about specific characters:
The opening shot under the titles of Seymour dancing a shawl dance, which is done only by women.
Breaking of Stereotypes
Gay or "Two Spirited" Indians This term is currently in use in English, but again, attitudes towards homosexuality vary dramatically from group to group and oftern the whole conseptualization of "gender" and "sex" is quite different.
Indians with beards and facial hair. Not uncommon among some of the NW Coast tribes and some of the SW Apache and Navajo.
The idea of “stealing” peoples' lives and publishing them. Relates to not only the writer in the fiml but people who study Indians
Text and Sub-Text
The film deals with three male Indians attempts to reconcile the problems of how to be "Indian" in the 21st Century: Seymour, Mouse and Aristotle. Each is identified with the other and each has a different solution. Mouse commits suicide (and sparks the story line as people gather for the funeral); Aristotle rejects Western culture and goes back to the reservation; Seymour abandonds the reservation (and Indians) and chooses to present himself as "Indian" to the Anglo population.
In the film, there are equations visually of the three together. Aristotle and Seymour narrate a story about picking apples in which they alternate in the narrative each picking up the story where the other drops off.
In the scene at the AA meeting, Seymour is suddenly replaced by Aristotle.
Aristotle and Mouse are placed against each other in a long revolving shot, where we see them alternately
Seymour winds up with an Anglo lover, Aristotle attacks a white motorists and forces Mouse to follow suit. Is this what finally pushes Mouse over the edge? Can one only be Indian by being anti-Anglo?
Title
The title refers not only to fancydancing as a kind of war dance, but also to the problems of trying to balance between the two cultures. The final shots of Seymour dancing in the film show him fall - unable to keep his balance between the two. As he sits on the ground, he begins to remove his fancy dance costume. At the beginning of the film he is putting on his tuxedo and fasten the cumerbund by fastening it in the front and the rotating it so the fastener is in the back. In the final shots he removes his belt by rotating and unfastening it and removing it - in effect getting away from (rejecting) Indian things and by extension from the beginning of the film, accepting the western ones.
Agnes reads kaddish over the body of Mouse - she is mixed blood half Spokane and half Jewish as she puts it.
Images of Seymour in the mirror show him on the edge of the mirror so that his face is "fragmented" indicating both his cultural split and well as his "two spirited" nature.