17 x 22 Giclée print on archival inks on acid-and lignin-free paper Original painting in acrylic on canvas  12” X 9”  1994

Collection of Marty Holm

The  songs of the Plateau Owl Dance are love songs and often have English phrases like that in the title.  Here two young Yakama* singers of the turn of the 19^th century accompany their song on hand drums.  Unlike the singers for the “War Dance,” the popular men’s social dance, who sit around a big drum at one end of the dance house, the singers for the Owl and Rabbit Dances, which are danced in couples, or the Circle Dance, which usually alternates men and women, traditionally stood in the center of the dance floor accompanying their singing on single-headed hand drums.

The singers wear panel leggings of the Plateau type, and the long loop necklaces that are characteristic of Plateau and Northern Plains festival dress.  Their beaded belt pouches and tack studded panel belts with long, decorated pendants were essential elements of men’s fancy dress.  One singer carries a coyote skin war medicine and wears otter skin braid wraps. The long, plaid shawl breechcloth was another common feature of men’s dress of the time.

*Yakama is the tribe’s preferred spelling today.