The principal cultural expression of the Canadian Dakota, or Sioux Indians at the present time is the Grass dance, also known as the War dance. This dance is the modern, secular, form of what was at one time a ceremonial performance staged by one of the warrior societies of the tribe. The name "Grass dance" is the translation of the Dakota name Pezhin wachipi, and is said to derive from the former custom of the warrior-dancers wearing bunches of grass tucked in their belts to simulate scalps. The dance seems to have reached the Canadian Dakota in the 1870's from the Dakota still resident in the United States, who had learned it from the Winnebago, Ponca, and Omaha.

The older form of the dance, still remembered by older Canadian tribesmen, was limited to the men of the tribe. There were special songs for various officers in the dance, and ritual features such as the ceremonial unwrapping and fumigation of dancing regalia.

Today, the dance has shed most of its ritual features, and women and children join with the men in its performance. It is performed mainly to provide entertainment for the dancers, singers, and spectators. it also allows modern Dakota, and other tribesmen, to express their pride in being Indian and to meet one another in an "Indian" atmosphere. Even today, however, the songs are still in the characteristic Grass dance style, and the characteristic costume items of the male dancer, the roach headdress and the "crow belt" or dancing bustle, are still very much in evidence. The roach headdress is a graceful, waving crest, made of the long back hair of the porcupine and the tail hair of the deer. (Fig. 1 and 2) The "crow belt" or bustle is an ingeniously constructed ornament of feathers, hide, and cloth worn at the level of the hips, in back, so as to float out behind the dancer as he moves forward. (Fig. 1)

In Canada the liveliest Grass dancers and Grass dance singers come from the southern portions of the three Prairie provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Each reservation community in this area, if they can possibly find the resources to do so, sponsors a large intertribal pow-wow once each summer, inviting dancers and singers from far and near to come and dance and feast with them. Cash prizes, awarded for the best dancing and costuming in various classes determined by age and sex, draw participants from distant points in Canada and the United States.

The pow-wow held at the Sioux Valley reservation (formerly Oak River reserve) a few miles north of Griswold, Manitoba, is typical of Canadian gatherings, and is featured on this disc. Various singing groups, both local and visiting, position themselves around the margins of the "big top" under which the pow-wow takes place. These singing groups change off with one another, in rotation, to provide the music for the clockwise circuit of the dancers, who often number in the hundreds. Each dancer, beautifully arrayed in his or her most gorgeous costume, "does his own thing" in terms of individual steps and style of dancing, but at the same time maintains the rhythm of the singing and the drum. When the final drumbeat of a particular song sounds, it coincides exactly with the final clash of the dancers' bells.

Grass dance music is martial and exciting, reflecting the warrior-society origins of the dance. Rhythm of drum and voice, though geared to one another are nevertheless somewhat independent, providing a syncopated effect. Formerly many songs had words, telling of the warlike deeds of members of the Grass dance society, but today most employ only vocables, or burden syllables. Each song is repeated several times, then ended. After a short pause the second part of the song, the "tail" is repeated. Formerly, at this point, the song was concluded. Today, however, it is the custom to start the song all over again at this point and sing it through several more times. This is a modern pow-wow phenomenon, frowned upon by purists. Often one song may be continued for as long as a half hour.

A song may be prolonged even further if one of the dancers, a man carrying a shiyotanka, a long wooden whistle carved to represent a screaming crane, leans over the singers and blows his whistle over their heads on the last rendition of the song. When this occurs the singers must repeat the song, and must continue to repeat it as often as the "whistle man" continues to sound his signal at the appropriate point. More than four whistled repeats are considered bad form, however.

New songs are composed and introduced each season, and the better songs soon become a part of the standard repertoire. Visiting singers and dancers often tape these new songs to bring back to their home community. Thus a Grass dance song composed on a reservation in Manitoba or Saskatchewan begins its diffusion, and in the course of a year or two may turn up at pow-wows in such far flung locales as Oklahoma, Arizona, or Washington. Costume and dancing styles also spread at these inter-tribal pow-wows. Thus the so-called "Oklahoma fancy dance" style of costume and dancing, featuring staccato footwork and elaborate stylized shoulder and back bustles of feathers, reached Manitoba in 1970, and now threatens to displace the older "Northern style" of costume and dancing. At the Sioux Valley pow-wow in 1972 skillful exponents of both styles could be seen. Whatever its musical or choreographic transformations, it is apparent that the Grass dance, in its contemporary pow-wow form, is a vigorous and vital art form, a characteristic cultural expression of native North America.

THE MUSIC

This record contains six Grass dance songs, which were recorded live at the Sioux Valley Pow-Wow, Sioux Valley, Manitoba, Canada in July, 1972. The songs have no individual titles. Each is different, and consists chiefly of vocables. They are not written, but are carried in the minds of the singers. The singers are the SIOUX VALLEY JUNIORS, and consist of Sam Hapa, song leader; Kelly Johnson, Richard Elk, Brian Pratt, Donald Pratt, Gary Taylor, Oswald McKay. Among Indian singing groups the term Juniors does not refer to the age of the singer. Rather it refers to the age of the singing group - meaning it was the second singing group in terms of time organized on the particular reservation.