Gourd dancing highlighted at the Southern Ute Tribal Fair's centennial celebration

by

Bean Yazzie

• Published on October 15, 2022 • Last modified on October 14, 2022

Jack Frost Jr. is a court security officer and bailiff for the Southern Ute Tribal Court in Ignacio.

IGNACIO, Colo. — In September, the Southern Ute Tribal Fair celebrated its 100th anniversary and held its 62nd Annual Pow-Wow in Ignacio, Colorado.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been a couple of years since the Southern Ute Pow-Wow Committee hosted these events and the organizers wanted to include their community and their sister tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute in Towaoc, Colorado, as much as possible for the centennial celebration.

In the spirit of community, the fair had two head gourd dancers: Afrem Wall, Ute Mountain Ute, and Jack Frost Jr., Southern Ute, Pawnee, and Southern Cheyenne. The purpose of the gourd dance is often to honor and support military veterans and those who are currently serving.

Frost, 60, is a court security officer and bailiff for the Southern Ute Tribal Court in Ignacio. He is also a veteran of the Marine Corps.

Frost enlisted in the military when he was still in high school. The summer after he graduated in 1980, he was initiated into the gourd dance societyand was sent to San Diego for boot camp. Frost served eight years in the Marines and was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant. He's now one of two co-heads of The Four Corners Gourd Dance and Southern Straight Dance Society.

“I think it's a big honor for me because for one, I represent my people, I represent myself, I represent my tribe, I represent the other tribes of which my bloodlines run,” Frost explained. “And I also represent those that cannot dance, those that are ill, those that are old, those that have walked on into a different world, those that are sick, those that are incarcerated, those that want to dance, who just can't dance. So, I dance for them.”

Colorado Voices

Gourd dancing at the Southern Ute Tribal Fair

According to Frost, the history of the gourd dance has various adaptations within the Gourd Dance Society community; everybody has their version of how it started.

Frost came to know about the history through his family. His version takes place in the late 1600s/early 1700s when a Kiowa warrior was separated from his camp.

The warrior wandered for quite a long time. He was out of food and water. As he was getting to the point where he was not going to make it, he heard something singing on the other side of a hill. When the warrior walked to the top and looked down, he saw a red wolf standing on its hind legs, singing and dancing. The warrior watched the wolf for a while.

After the wolf stopped dancing, he invited the warrior down the hill. The wolf gave the warrior food and water, and turned to him and said, "I want you to take these songs and this dance back to your Kiowa people.”

Most Gourd Dance Society clans were created based on this story, Frost said.

“From there it just kind of was adopted into other tribes as tribal members, with their bloodlines, carried it to different tribes," Frost added.

Afrem Wall, 51, is a culture and language teacher at Kwiyagat Community Academy in Towaoc. Wall confirmed there are many gourd dance origination stories.

In 1988, when young Wall was attending Riverside Indian High School in Anadarko, Oklahoma, an oral story from an elder about how the Kiowa People lost their sundance motivated him.

“Our Ute people, we do that every year. We have our sundances,” Wall explained. “That's why we do, it’s part of our tradition.” Explains Wall.

It wasn't always this way. In the late 19th century, The U.S. government threatened the Kiowa people not to do their sundance and pushed them down into Oklahoma Territory from Devils Tower, Wyoming. In 1883, U.S. Congress banned Native dancing and ceremonies. The traumatic changes and influences surrounding the Kiowa people left them no choice but to adapt.

“I felt really kind of bad about it. How it took place with the Kiowa people and this dance … So that's what influenced me,” Wall said.

Over time, the duties of a gourd dancer have changed. Some are members of a gourd society to represent their clans through the dance, while others who are not affiliated with a specific gourd society take part simply to dance and raise their gourds to the beautiful age-old songs.

The gourd dance and dancers continue to display the blessing of the ground.

Bean Yazzie is a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach them at beanyazzie@rmpbs.org.

The Southern Ute Tribal Fair centennial celebration