Examining the Gathering of Nations Powwow and a NCCA Division I basketball game

Abstract

Powwows are ceremonial gatherings of North America’s indigenous peoples that deliver ritual focus, solidarity, collective identity, cohesion, and cultural persistence through song, dance, and social interaction. Powwows underwent significant transformations after indigenous peoples’ contact with European colonialists. The Gathering of Nations Powwow is a large intertribal contest powwow (LICP) that attracts over 3,500 dancers who compete for prize money in front of more than 15,000 spectators. This paper examines the construction of a large intertribal contest powwow and an NCAA Division I basketball game. The purpose of this study is to determine in what ways the structure of the Gathering of Nations Powwow and a New Mexico Lobo (NCAA Division I Institution) basketball game are similar and different in promotional and staging activities. This study focused on two questions “Are both LICPs and NCAA Division I basketball games rightfully considered spectacles?” And, “If LICPs are, indeed, spectacles, to what extent do they share the structural characteristics of sports spectacles such as NCAA Division I basketball games?” The participant observation method is utilized to make comparisons between the two events. All field ethnographic observations were conducted during the 2018 Gathering of Nations Powwow and a University of New Mexico men’s basketball game held during the 2018-19 season. We determined that the Gathering of Nations Powwow is a spectacle and that it is highly similar to an NCAA Division I basketball game in terms of its structure.