Indiana grad student gives lecture on Native American dance culture

The traditional Native American regalia known as the “bustle,” and the dance styles associated with it, filled the air of Farber Hall on Tuesday night.

Indiana University graduate student Nicky Belle gave a talk entitled “Back That Thang Up: A History of the Bustle on the Northern Plains” in which he presented some of his research on powwow and dance culture of the Plains Indians.

About 20 USD students were present for the lecture, which lasted for about an hour.

During his research, Belle said he traveled across the United States and Canada to personally view the powwows and bustle styles of various Native American groups throughout the regions.

The styles among the dance bustles vary tremendously by region and time period, Belle said.

Much of the lecture focused on the history of the bustle, which Belle said probably originated in the Pawnee-Iruska tribe, supposedly when a tribe member named Crow-Feather dreamed of such a garment several hundred years ago.

Belle said that in many cultures the bustle was a sacred garment only worn during special occasions by members of high ranking and status.

The earliest European-American mention of the bustles occurs in the diaries of Lewis and Clark, who Belle said collected several bustles from Native Americans in this region in 1804, possibly somewhere near present-day Yankton. Those bustles are still on display in museums today.

A century later, the federal government had largely banned tribal dancing on reservations except for occasions such as federal holidays, which they did in an effort to crush traditional Native culture and encourage integration, Belle said.

However, the tribes sometimes used their dances, when allowed, in subversive ways – including in the languages used in song, which federal agents often didn’t speak.

After showing some footage, including an 1894 clip of Native Americans dancing produced by Thomas Edison, Belle moved on to describing modern dance bustles, which have evolved further due to a scarcity of some traditional feathers and have become somewhat more complex in order to hide an occasional lack of dancing skill.

Belle, who plans to finish his dissertation at the University of Indiana sometime this year, also said he would like to compile his research into a book, which he said will be “the book I always wished I had in my research.”