Many Trails Indian Club of Los Angeles Powwow (1973)

(Note: there are several breaks where the footage goes green and silent.) Various head and shoulders shots, including from the side when a man with a mic is visible, of a Native woman with short hair and long beaded earrings addressing the camera; (at 3:32) a close-up of another Native woman with glasses and short hair addressing the camera; followed by a close-up of a Native man with long hair in braids; then an older Native woman with grey hair and long braids; when a young Native man with short hair; then an older Native man wearing a cowboy hat and suit jacket; then a middle-aged a woman with long hair pulled back in a pony tail, long beaded earrings; an older woman who declines to speak; another older Native man with a large cowboy hat and braids and lots of jewelry; followed by a Native man wearing a large feathered headdress; followed by another Native man with glasses and a black wide-brimmed hat; (at 7:53) a dance performance by Native men and boys in ceremonial attire; (at 8:35) an older man with short grey hair, holding a cowboy hat then pan over to other audience members of all ages watching the dance; (at 9:18) back to the audience and then pan over to the drum circle; (at 9:51) then after a quick break, back to the dancers; (at 10:24) a return to a previous interviewee from near the beginning, the man with dark hair in long braids; (at 10:43) back to the audience — a woman with a boy sitting on her lap, a row of elders, a baby, an older couple; (at 11:04) back to the very first interviewee; (at 11:54) a close-up on a male drum circle drummer/singer and then the drum as the group play; (at 12:22) back to an interviewee from earlier — the man with glasses and wide-rimmed black hat; (at 12:54) back to dancers’ feet as they perform, then back to the drum circle and then the dancers — women and girls have joined the performance; (at 14:27) close-up of one drummer/singer then down to the drum being beat; then a man with long hair in braids and a distinctive white streak in his hair (the Rosebud Sioux man who is later identified as giving the invocation) speaks into a microphone until he passes it off; (at 15:44) back to the first woman interviewee, and back to the dancers, including a close-up of a woman dancing with a baby, dancers’ feet, a small boy dancer, and others, the first interviewee — who smiles at the camera — dancing alongside other women; back to the larger group dancing; (at 18:02) close-up on the drum and then the interviewee with the glasses and big black hat drumming/singing; (at 18:50) young dancers, then a break and back to the drum circle, and a close-up of a tiny boy dancer — camera freezes on him as a still image for a few seconds; (at 19:46) back to the dancers; back to an interview with the man in a cowboy hat and suit jacket; (at 20:12) back to the first interviewee shot from the side and man with mic visible; super close-ups of a younger Native woman and her friend; back to a previous interviewee — the man with a large black hat and jewelry and the Rosebud man for just a sec; children taking boxes and small bags of treats out of cardboard boxes and going back to their seats; then a lady helps hand them out to a large group of young people and then older folks surrounding her, camera follows people they spoken to or concentrated their camera upon; close-ups of the Rosebud man and the young woman who came with her friend; (at 24:20) back to the man with the very large black hat, braids and jewelry; (at 24:45) back to the man with a black cowboy hat and glasses; back to the dancers; back to various shots of the drum circle and dancers (including a close-up of a large emblem for the Many Trails Indian Club on the back of one woman’s shawl and the first interviewee dancing).  

"It comes from a reel of outtakes from a Los Angeles TV station that was preparing a report on off-reservation Indians in Los Angeles. It was filmed at the powwow of the Many Trails Indian Club of Los Angeles in 1973.  For the same report the TV crew filmed a 'Golden State Gourd Dance Society' and 'How to Make Frybread' segments found elsewhere in the (Tribesourcing and) American Indian Film Gallery website(s).  This latter group has a website; Many Trails seems to have dissolved some time ago."  --J. Fred MacDonald

See also: Joan Weibel Orlando, Indian Country, L.A.: Maintaining Ethnic Community in Complex Society (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 210 and following.