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Show -X ' A ; ft .- -Ryv v x v ... mm - V- -vi, .vie. ' V- v; i i l l. f i I ' i s ii -Xy . Y j , X- I fB ' " I L 'j Ten count them! That's how many hoops are being whirled by this dancer during one of the pow-wow activities at Bluff during All Tribes Indian Days. (Photo by Alvin Reiner) Indian Days informal but a lot of fun By Alvin Reiner Once again the southeastern southeast-ern Utah community of Bluff came alive during its annual All Tribes Day Celebration. The parade which v usually provides a colorful beginning to the day's activities was cancelled this year. One reason rea-son given was the recent death of one of the prominent local Navajos as those in his large clan are in a state of mourning. The field events started in the morning with the youngsters young-sters participating in a candy scramble and many other footraces, including a centi- pede race in which 4 youngsters young-sters must team up and run while straddling a large Cottonwood Cot-tonwood branch. There were fry bread and traditional dress contests for both men and women. In the fry bread event, the Warren family garnered all the honors with Julia taking first and her daughter, Lena, placing second, sec-ond, while Jim won the men's division. In these events, the spectators and tourists were assigned as the judges. Other field events included foot races and tug-o-wars in four divisions. Some of the tug-o-wars seemed to go on for eternity, and it looked like possibly the heavy rope would give out before the contestants! contest-ants! The latter part of the afternoon was taken over by the equestrian events, such as barrel racing and the chicken pull. As the colors of the nearby sandstone cliffs increased in intensity, followed by a pastel chromatic display in the des ert sky, the evening's powwow pow-wow got underway. There was an infinite variety varie-ty of dances: Navajo, Ute, Plains Indian, etc. to delight the large audience. Alfred Draper of Fruitland, New Mexico once again did a professional job of making sure the program ran smoothly. smooth-ly. In most of the dancing (as well as all the day's activities) spectator participation was encouraged, and in some instances, in-stances, the dancers seemed to outnumber the spectators. The day's activities were under the direction of David Yanito, with Fernandez Re-gay, Re-gay, Willie Skow, Ben and Richard Yanito heading various var-ious committees. There were many others who contributed their time and energies to man the admission booth and clean up the grounds before and after the event. The lights, wiring and water hookups hook-ups were donated by townspeople. towns-people. All monies collected go for the awarding of pri2es and paying for the professional profession-al dancers in this non-profit event. |