Dancing for Our Tribe: Potawatomi Tradition in the New Millennium by Sharon Hoogstraten (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Dancing for Our Tribe: Potawatomi Tradition in the New Millennium by Sharon Hoogstraten Robert E. Lewis Jr. Dancing for Our Tribe: Potawatomi Tradition in the New Millennium. By Sharon Hoogstraten. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2022. 304 pp. Maps, illustrations. $80.00 cloth. Over the past decade, Citizen Potawatomi Nation member Sharon Hoogstraten took portraits of Potawatomi people and their relations in their regalia in Oklahoma, Kansas, and around the Great Lakes. Additionally, she collected statements from her subjects. In Dancing for Our Tribe, Hoogstraten offers a print exhibition of these portraits and statements. Hoogstraten explains her organization of the book in the following way: "Chapters are organized to respect cultural priorities and influenced by the patterns of Grand Entry" (v). The first three chapters—veterans, grandmothers, and dancers—address and are ordered to mimic the succession of the dancers one would see as they enter the powwow arena at Grand Entry. The next five chapters—tradition, storytellers, family, elders, and seven generations—explore themes that "respect cultural priorities" in the powwow (v). The final chapter—powwow—pans out on the powwow itself. The book recreates the exhibition experience. One will find themselves first taking in a large portrait. Hoogstraten sometimes places a landscape significant to Potawatomi history as the background for the portrait. Accompanying each portrait, one will then find a handwritten statement from each subject. The statements address the subject's regalia and other topics of significance. Hoogstraten brings additional history and culture into the book. She also explains the historical significance of the background in some of the portraits and, at intervals, supplements the portraits and the statements with photos and elaboration on a topic. This contextualizes the portraits and statements for the reader who may not be familiar with the content and enriches the book for those who want to know more about a topic. Some of the topics discussed include removal from the Great Lakes, the Potawatomi trail of death, former and present Potawatomi reservations in Kansas and Oklahoma, boarding schools, and Native American military history. The author started this project with the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Oklahoma and then expanded to include the nine nations who have hosted the annual gathering of Potawatomi nations over the past decade. The reader should note that the book still emphasizes the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, though. Additionally, the reader should note that the author does not directly address an inductive method for finding themes for her chapters; rather, readers are left to come to their own conclusions based on the stories shared throughout the book. Hoogstraten has put together a vivid and contemporary set of portraits and stories. Anyone wanting to learn more about Potawatomi people and their regalia would do well to pick up a copy. [End Page 251] Robert E. Lewis Jr. Gladstone, Michigan Copyright © 2023 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln