Powwow Dance Styles: Men's Southern Straight Dancers

The Southern tribes are nations that are from the Southern Plains of the United States. These nations include the Kiowa, Pawnee and Comanche among dozens of others. The Men's Southern Traditional Dance is considered a Gentleman's dance; also known as Straight Dancing, it is a slow and conservative sort of dance and its steps are more calculated than in the Men's Northern Traditional Dance category. One difference between Men's Southern and Northern Traditional dancing is the obvious difference in their regalia. While both use a number of items that are similar, such as a roach, fan, vest and leggings, even these are of different styles. Southern Men usually wear a otter turban, leg and arm sashes, as well as a full length otter trailer on their backs and carry a straight, fully beaded dance stick. During the dance, this stick is used as point for the dancer to pivot almost 360 degrees around, but not fully. This is a warriors' dance. Several of the Southern nations' warriors societies have a habit of staking themselves to the ground that they choose to defend. While defending this ground they must never fully turn their back to the enemy, so a total circle is never completed during the execution of the dance itself.

This dance style is popular in the Great Plains and Southern states. As I mentioned in my hub, What the heck is a Powwow? there are different powwow circuits in the US and Canada. Powwows in Northern California, for example, do not usually have as many Southern Mens' dancers of any age category as on the East Coast. One reason for this is that while many Northern dancers are taught by their fathers, and so on, in many nations' traditions, a Southern dancer must be invited into this dance. Just because ones father danced this style, it does not infer that his son will be a legacy. It truly is a fraternity in the cultural sense of the word. One must earn the right to the dance.

Be sure to look for this dance style the next time you attend a local powwow and enjoy some frybread. If you don't know, what that is and are saying "What the hell is frybread?", click on the hyperlink and find out.