Thanks to Hollywood, most people are not aware of the diversity of native culture, songs, dress and spiritual traditions.
Facing the Wind (right) presents three men in traditional regalia from three different nations (Plains Grass Dancer, desert Apache, Northeast woodlands tribe); they are diverse but unified, unique but moving together, because we need each other to be strong.
In the painting below, Spirit of the Drum, these men may not be the image of what the general public has in mind when they think "American Indian" and yet they are. The singing of ancient songs still has the power to transport them into an alternative consciousness of spirit implied by the ethereal sky and auras surrounding them and the drum beaters they hold.
You can see that native people are not a homogenous group, but individuals, like the men who participate in this modern pow-wow drum circle. There's the army vet with short hair, the cowboy in a gallon hat, the man wearing Nikes who may be a member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES)—a national organization that most Americans don't even know exists. Continued