The annual Oneida Pow Wow is happening on June 26-28. The powwow draws 10,000 visitors to Oneida to experience traditional music and dancing.
This is the 52nd year the powwow will be held in Oneida, but it dates back much further than 52 years. Oneida Nation’s Marketing and Tourism Director Michelle Anderson Danforth says she traced the first powwow back to 1840.
“We had a chief, his name was Daniel Bread, and he actually kind of adopted it as a celebration to celebrate Independence Day. And for a long time, they would do the celebration over the Fourth of July weekend weekend… and then it kind of went away for a while. Then the powwow ended up resurging in the 1970s. We actually would host it at our local civic center, and then eventually it moved up the road to the Norbert Hill Center where it is actually goes on today,” Anderson Danforth says…