amerindian culture / pow wows etc. {pddc}

[pretty dark]

i am a bit more than half native canadian.

i am part:
nothern MB cree
northern SK chippewyan (dene)
(and some other native that snuck in on my mom's family and was kept hush-hush back in the day because it would have been a scandal for anyone to know my grandpa was a 'breed. i bet his mama was cree.)

but i was not raised by my fathers' people.
my exposure to my native culture came on an indian reserve in southern manitoba. my mom was hired as the principal for the school there. we moved there when i was in kindergarten.
i didn't just grow up on a reserve. (in canada, they're reserves, not reservations)

i had a lot of exposure to traditional spirituality of the ojibwe people. i mean, like, quite a lot... i'm pretty secure in my understanding of a lot of concepts... i know about sweat lodges and fasts and spirit journeys and naming and stuff like that. and i've done a lot of inter-tribal study of other paths...

i've also been a pow-wow dancer for um.... almost 20 years. i didn't dance last summer 'cause i was recovering from childbirth, and i can't dance this summer because i'm pregnant, and it doesn't matter much anyway because i don't have really nice regalia to wear. (our pow-wow outfits are called 'outfits' or 'regalia' they are NEVER 'costumes' or anything like that) i dance in all three northern styles, which are ladies traditional (cloth), ladies jingle, and ladies fancy shawl.

any questions, or opinions or what have you? c'mon, talk about indians!