I Went to a Native American Pow Wow—This Is What I Learned

My pow wow invitation

Growing up a student of literature, I’ve been reading Sherman Alexie for a long time. He’s the Native American poet all teachers of the genre teach, giving outsiders a glimpse of what his sliver of the reservation was like as well as the deterioration of his culture. But while I know such deterioration exists, and that I can’t fully understand what it feels like, deterioration is not what I felt when I attended a pow wow nestled under the great humps of New Jersey’s Ramapo Mountain State Forest. Instead, a bond as strong as I’ve ever felt reverberated throughout the fields. Check out the top 20 places to go hiking in America.

I had been invited to the pow wow by a coworker, known as Little Wolf. He and his family are part of the Ramapough nation, who were the majority at the gathering in Ringwood, New Jersey. I decided to accept his invitation because I wanted to get a glimpse of this disappearing culture. When given the opportunity, I love to be able to look outside myself and see from another’s perspective, to learn about lives other than my own. Not only did I get to gather with the Ramapough, but also other esteemed nations that were in attendance as well, including the Munsee-Delaware, the Shinnecock, the Aztecs, and several more.

Before getting out of my car and heading to the pow wow, I already had a hundred questions whizzing about my brain. Would it be solemn or would it be festive? Would we be passing pipes? And if we were, what would we be smoking? Of course, all of this was based on a cursory knowledge of the culture, the majority of which was taught to me in the second grade. And to be sure, as I walked in I was entirely aware of my ignorance. But I was eager to learn.