Week 24: Dance Lodges of the Omaha People: Building from Memory by Mark Awakuni-Swetland (University of Nebraska Press, 2008, paperback)
This is the third of four books I am reading for a National Endowment for the Humanities workshop on the Plains Indians. This book focuses on a period of transition, when the Omaha tribe was moving from their historical earth lodges to reservation homes. In the process, the communal aspect of the earth lodges-ceremonies, dances-were temporarily replaced by dance lodges.
This is a fairly brief text with a very focused topic. While the other three books focus primarily on the period up to reservation life, this one covers how the tribe attempted, through these communal wooden structures, to hold on to some aspects of their disappearing culture. Understanding that context gives this text more value, but ultimately its brevity and lack of clear contextual explanation gives it limited appeal.
I respected Awakuni-Swetland’s research and information, but this book just didn’t provide enough information, of itself, to make it valuable. I wanted more explanation of the cultural changes these dance lodges symbolized than this book provides. It is primarily an extended article with transcripts, and is more appropriately viewed as an article and not an extended research project.
Next week . . . The Lost Universe: The Way of Life of the Pawnee by Gene Weltfish.