Rites & Protocol

These images demonstrate the technique used to roll lids for jingle dress cones.Photo courtesy of Hungry Wolf, Pow-Wow: Dancer’s and Craftworker’s Handbook, 1999.

Pamela Attack Him of South Dakota wearing a jingle dress, 1991.Photo courtesy of Hungry Wolf, Pow-Wow: Dancer’s and Craftworker’s Handbook, 1999.

A young Jingle Dress dancer at the National Powwow in Washington, D.C.Source: Kristine Brumley / Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian

Powwow RegaliaThe powwow, which originally meant “curing ceremony” in the Narrangasset language, originated with the dances of Pawnee, Omaha, Ponca, and Osage warrior societies in the Plains. With the advent of Wild West shows, these dances became inter-tribal gatherings that celebrated native culture, particularly as expressed in music and dance.

Today, powwow etiquette includes special regulations regarding dress. Attendees should never touch someone’s regalia without permission. Certain parts of regalia, like eagle feathers, are sacred and treated with special respect. Other regalia, like the Jingle Dress, have special cultural significance to a particular tribe but are also worn in competitive dance by women in other tribes. Any woman who is not dressed in regalia must wear a shawl in order to join in the dancing during intertribal songs.

The Jingle DressThe earliest account of the origins of the jingle dress and dance goes back to the end of World War I and is attributed to Maggie White, a woman from the Whitefish Bay Ojibwe community. When White was a girl and fell ill, her father had a vision instructing him to make a jingle dress, which his daughter was to dance in to recuperate. And she did.

Admission to the first Jingle Dress Dance Society entailed a one-year berry fast during which time a young woman would abstain from eating blackberry, blueberry, raspberry, cranberry, and strawberry. Each day of the fast required a prayer and earned the young woman a cone for her dress. This is why Ojibwe jingle dresses traditionally have 365 cones – made from snuff can lids, tin can scraps, canning jar lids or roof flashing tin.

Today, powwow attendees may ask jingle dress dancers to dance in prayer for loved ones who are ill, offering tobacco and thanks in exchange. The jingle dress dance is also performed competitively by women from other tribes who do not associate the dress with healing. Categorized as a fancy dance, outstanding jingle dress dancers may win prizes of several hundred dollars. There is some disagreement as to the specific regulations of dress – for example, the wearing of eagle feathers, which Old Style jingle dress dancers do not use. Likewise, some women wear skin-tight dresses and lace and not all dancers wear 365 cones.

* Huenemann, Lynn F. “Northern Plains Dance.” 124-147. Native American Dance: Ceremonies and Social Traditions. Editor: Charlotte Heth. (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of the American Indian, 1992), 127.

The Eagle FeatherThey circle and approach the fallen feather as they would surround and attack an enemy. Each then extends his hand or fan over the feather as if counting coup on it - i.e., each imitates touching an enemy to gain war honors.*

No photographs of this dance are permitted. The dancer must also give the feather, along with a piece of their regalia, away in a ritual giveaway.

Historically, only chiefs or warriors were allowed to wear an eagle feather. A single upright feather was used if the warrior killed an opponent and a split or stripped feather was worn when a warrior had been involved in other acts such as scalping.

Today, the eagle feathers worn by powwow dancers represent fallen warriors and are kept away from alcohol, drugs and menstruating women (who are considered very strong during their menses). Dancers are counseled to smudge their feathers before and after dancing and to pray for the eagle whose feathers they wear. Smudging is a ceremony where sage, cedar, sweet grass and tobacco, which are considered sacred herbs, are burned and fanned on with the feather. Smudging helps ensure that a dancer will not drop any feathers. If a feather is dropped, only a veteran may pick it up because only veterans are allowed to wear or allow others to wear eagle feathers in their regalia. Four veterans will take part in a “Pick-Up” dance to a “Charging the Feather” song in honor of the fallen warrior: