The Feather

A Spiritual Moment

The Feather

One fine March day, several years ago, Rikki and I attended the annual White Buffalo Pow-wow at the Denver Coliseum. Some 45 huge tribal drums encircled the dirt floor of the enormous arena. The drums were each played by teams of eight to twelve men of all ages – teenaged to quite elderly, sitting cross-legged on the floor or on low stools. Each drum group was led by its leader who set the tempo and the rhythm. Filling the vast inner area of the coliseum floor were hundreds upon hundreds of native American dancers, each wearing the traditional garb of tribe or family, or the dress associated with the type of dance he or she would be doing. The outfits for the most part were very colorful and complex, many were overwhelmed with feathers, most featured exquisite beadwork, and leather fringes were ubiquitous. For each dance, perhaps as many as five to eight drums thrummed in unison ... and the hundreds assembled on the Coliseum floor would dance, some in place, others while traversing the huge arena in a counter-clockwise direction. Some were holding hands; others were dancing side-by-side, yet never touching.

My focus zeroed in on one young man, mid-twenties or so, bare-chested, muscular yet lithe; he was wearing fringed leather pants and moccasins. Around the articulated muscles of his upper arms were red leather bands. A dark brown headband that fit tightly around his forehead framed an ample black ponytail. Protruding casually from the back of that headband were two eagle feathers – items permitted only to native Americans. The drum circles joined in increasing numbers, the sound in volume and tempo; the dancers kept pace. Here small leaping steps, over there pin-wheel like whirling movements; here four women wearing white leather fringed outfits beaded elegantly danced each in her own space side-by-side in sync down to the natural movement of head and torso. The dancers flowed around the arena, unpretentious, natural, their movements smooth reprisals of previous such occasions.

My young man was lost in his dancing. Arms akimbo, but controlled, he whirled and leapt and then again and again – athletic but not dancing the dance of athletes, passionate, and offering without pretense. Around and around in a small space he glided. Right foot tapping the ground twice, now left; head turning toward the ground, then skyward. Arms outstretched and then retracted – tracing and retracing his stylized movements. Dancing as if alone in the arena, he was lost in his own body.

I saw it fall. Really, I saw it. My dancer was turning his torso to the heavens and was in mid-movement, when one of the feathers in his headband came loose and drifted silently to the ground. He was just now turning downward his arms still extended – left toward the ground, right arm in mid-air, head following the arc made by his left arm ... when he saw it, too. He froze ... absolutely froze in mid-motion. Not a muscle moved once his eyes lit upon that fallen feather. Right arm remained above his head at an awkward angle, left arm pointed downward; left leg riveted to the earth, right leg off the ground; head turned facing downward at an odd angle. Frozen ... not a twitch, not a quiver, not a hint of movement ... a breathing statue.

An elder saw the dancer freeze and came running up to him. Then seeing the feather, he broke into a trot from this end of the arena to the other – a long run for one so old, and he raced back accompanied by an even older man in buckskins and wearing a baseball cap. As Mr. Buckskins noted the feather, the young man remained as he was, a carving, a contorted figurine on a thin pedestal, solid, stolid, rooted – flesh and bone locked in place. Mr. Buckskins removed his baseball cap and laid it delicately, reverently over the feather, bill to back, hiding it completely.

The feather now covered, the elder reached for a pouch dangling from a leather strap around his neck. Carefully, he removed several items from the pouch and passed them slowly over the cap and feather. Then Mr. Buckskins ever so gently removed the cap and put it back on his head, but the elder continued waving the totems over the feather and began chanting a series of incantations.

Dancers, as they neared the drama also came stock still ... and very silent. Now a drum ceased and another and another ... heads turned, whirling slowed, the side-by-siders stopped in place ... not daring even to turn toward the drama. The incantation grew louder, and louder still, and then abruptly ended. The elder returned his sacred pieces to their pouch, and with a small tuft of fabric, lifted the feather, holding it by its stem as one might a torch in a darkened room. To the four winds he offered the feather, bowing slowly as he did; his chanting resumed with each bow ... perhaps an apology for the insult to the eagle’s spirit, perhaps a prayer that peace replace the unrest of the moment, perhaps an offering for the spiritual well-being of the dancer?

I never did find out what, but I do know that for everyone in that arena this was a sacred moment fixed in time – dancer rooted on one leg, every other dancer fixed in place, drums silenced with some sticks resting on the skins, yet others held at the angle when recognition of the event occurred, and the hypnotic chant of an elder seemed the only breath in a massive space.

The young man, soaked with sweat, remained rock still. The elder brought the feather to him; he looked without moving – not a muscle, not a hair. The elder reached toward the young man’s topknot and deftly inserted the feather into its place in the leather headband. A moment passed and two. The human diorama continued, a still picture, not a hint ... not a notion of motion. The old man nodded slightly toward the nearest drum. A padded stick brushed softly against the large, round drum skin. Thrummm ... and as if in slow motion the diorama began to dissolve. The young man looked up, and stood. After fully five minutes, both feet were on the ground now. Slowly, ever so slowly, he thrust his hands directly overhead and broke forth in an ululation, an jubilant shout, though not of triumph but of thanksgiving, not of relief but of resolve ... as he moved to resume his dance.

The ritual play was transfixing, biblical in tone and proportion. Old buckskin man as Aaron – a high priest, offering sacrifice ... drummers as Levitical musicians ... feather as paschal lamb ... dancer making atonement for his sin. All this because an eagle feather, a holy relic fell from a headband. And to think, when we Jews drop a prayer book, our relic, sacred because it contains Gd’s Name, we simply pick it up and kiss it!