CSULB Pow Wow 2015

A pow wow is a gathering of the North American indigenous peoples. The plains Indians got this going awhile back, but now it's really about people from all tribes getting together to catch up and have a good time as they preserve and share their respective cultures. Think ISNA for Indians.

While  there are pow wows happening all the time, one of the more engaging ones I've been to is coming up this weekend, March 14-15 at California State University Long Beach. Clicking the link will take you to the flyer.

It's free, but bring money. Lots of shopping if you like Native American handicrafts.

It's also a good opportunity to see the extent to which drum and voice figure into the lives of our indigenous population. There are many other wonderful similarities between Native American and healthy Islamic worldviews, and that can be validating and interesting for some of us.

Take this picture of Zuni women:

Pretty incredible, right? There are very interesting linguistic relationships as well. Take this line from the Wikipedia entry on Zuni language:

"Zuni adults are often known after the relationship between that adult and a child. For example, a person might be called "father of so-and-so", etc."

Like abusajidah!

Anyway, you should totally go to the pow wow.

ISIS: Officially Not Cool

Now here's violence I won't stand for:

Not the drums, guys. Anything but the drums . . .