Cool Stuff #1: Native American and African

Cool Stuff #1

When watching the Pow Wow Trail video in class, I could not help but notice the beautiful and colorful clothing that they wore while they danced. In the beginning, their clothes would resemble animals that were common in their cultures like feathers of large birds or the skin of a buffalo or a buck depending on where the tribes are from. Men usually wore something similar to a loin clothe called breechclouts or breechcloths and varied from tribe to tribe depending on the weather. Women would usually wear skirts and leggings and depending on the tribe women would sometimes not require a top and in others, they would wear tunics or they would sometimes just wear a dress. Once the Indians were being driven from their homes they started coming into contact and styles such as fringe, feather headdresses, and woven blankets were adopted between tribes. Heres a video with deeper explanation:

Another interesting clothing comes from Africa and because of the different weather and animal life, the clothing was much different compared to Native Americans. One style is bark clothing where the bark is stripped from a tree and then beaten on a rock until the fibers are soft enough to use as clothing. Another is linen which is made from flax and is the most common and would be dyed bright colors by tie-dying. Here is an extensive video of early African clothing:

One thing that I loved about the culture was the amazing dances they would perform and usually,
they told a type of story that they wanted to portray. Many tribes have a dedicated authority
whose sole purpose is to pass along the tribe’s traditional dances. There may be myriad dances
special to each tribe, and it is the purpose of the "dance master" to ensure that everyone knows
the proper movements without question. Dances are often passed down through the ages, and
many African dances have been danced for centuries without alteration. It is important that many
of these dances were performed in a particular way with no room for improvisation. Some of their
dances can be traced to dances performed today in America and got here through the slave trade.
These dances stayed with their people throughout the centuries even as they were sent to new lands and have since evolved into some of the world's most popular dance styles, including the charleston, tap dancing, the lindy hop, the jitterbug, the twist, jazz dance, hip hop, crunking, twerking, zouk, capoeira, and more.