Soon after crossing the Red River from Texas into Oklahoma, you notice a preponderance of Native American imagery on signs, license plates, and billboards. Turnpikes are named for tribes, and official signs along the highways announce when you’ve entered an Indian nation—for instance, the Creek Nation or the Choctaw Nation. I have no idea what this means exactly. I believe these Nations within our nation are self-governing and separate from the U.S. government, though not completely autonomous.

The history of the Oklahoma tribes is tragic. So there’s some irony in the widespread evocation of Indian (this seems to be the preferred term) history and culture in Oklahoma today. We’d never explored this culture until our trip to Tulsa last week, when we attended a pow wow, a social gathering of Native Americans for drumming, dancing, and ceremony.

Here are some images from the Intertribal Indian Club of Tulsa’s 2008 Pow Wow of Champions. My zoom lens lacked the power to shoot with clarity across the dimly lit hall. Despite the graininess of the images, I hope you’ll enjoy this glimpse of the colorful, rhythmic dances of the pow wow, as we did.

Children and adults danced in a wide circuit to the thrumming beat from an all-male drum circle. These two boys, one solemn, one frowning in concentration, stomped and kicked with gusto.

Another look

The dancers wore elaborate, colorful costumes. Our program noted that different tribes might wear different types of costumes, and the various dances require special accessories. Many of the dancers had sewn flashy, distinctly modern elements, like shiny, silver CD disks, onto their sleeves. The young man pictured above was striking in a silver lamé tunic. Indian culture is a living culture, the program advised us, and dancers do not feel obligated to restrict themselves to traditional materials when making their pow wow costumes.

In contrast, this woman’s traditional-looking costume stood out among the dancers. I admired it as she shuffled with dignity around the floor.

Beautiful beadwork and ribbons on the back of her dress.

As she came around the circle again, she caught me looking.

A trio of young girls in shawls, warming up for the Shawl Dance, perhaps.

The men were the peacocks among the dancers. Their costumes glowed in almost neon colors, and many wore elaborate headdresses of feathers.

A trio of young men.

This boy was really dancing. I hope he won the children’s contest later on that evening.

The next generation

All material © 2006-2008 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Last night the family trooped down to Zilker Park for the Trail of Lights. My favorite tree in Austin, this majestic pecan, was encrusted from trunk to twigs with thousands of colored bulbs—a magical vision!

Other trees glowed beautifully too.

We also took turns spinning under the Zilker Christmas tree.

Have you heard Annie in Austin’s song about the tree?

A full moon shone that evening over Barton Creek, its reflection laying down a path across the water. Known this month as Cold Moon or Long Nights Moon, it added moonshine to the Christmas display in Zilker Park.

Wishing you a joyful holiday.

All material © 2006-2007 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

“Night Wing” bat sculpture at Congress Avenue and Barton Springs Road

I went a little batty this evening. Actually, the whole family did. We dressed up in our batty best (notice the earrings?) and went downtown to the 3rd annual Batfest, a street festival/live-music/bat-watching party held entirely on the Congress Avenue Bridge, also home to 1.5 million Mexican freetailed bats.

The bats, which make up the largest urban bat colony in North America, live in crevices under the bridge and are a big attraction for tourists and locals alike, who gather on the shores of Lady Bird Lake (formerly Town Lake) and on the bridge to watch them emerge at sunset. Batfest takes a natural phenomenon in Austin and makes a party out of it. Garden Rant gals, you’d have loved it. Here’s a tour.

How can you have a festival in Texas without big belt buckles for sale? Here’s a unique scorpion buckle. What, no bat ones?

The tattoos were on display as well.

A Corvette batmobile drew admiration from the guys and kids.

Several booths offered free bat-making crafts for kids.

I got to meet the friendly Pickle Sickle folks, who were recently profiled in the Statesman for making, yes, pickle-flavored popsicles.

We all tried a Pickle pop, but for me one taste was enough. My pickle-loving son ate about half of it. My husband’s face shows what he thought.

Afterward we browsed the booths. This bat-hatted woman was hawking T-shirts.

Even the jewelry makers had gone batty in their decorating. The bat lurking over this customer is Halloween-worthy. Scary!

This shirt vendor was wearing his wares. Check out that skulls-and-roses print! That’s something every gardener needs, right? Actually, we’ve seen this vendor before, and my dad has purchased that exact shirt. It’s a conversation starter anytime he wears it.

At the north end of the bridge, with the Capitol building in the background, Del Castillo’s crew was setting up for a closing show. I wish we could have seen them, but we had the kids with us and couldn’t make it that late.

Austin icons: music stage and the Capitol building

An art guitar titled “Keep Austin Batty” stood on one end of the bridge. Other cities have cows or penguins. Austin has guitars.

As the sun set, the waiting game began. When would those bats come out for dinner? We all gathered on the east side of the bridge to watch and wait.

Some opted to wait on boats.

Others waited on land.

Watching and waiting.

Not watching or waiting.

What was the hold up? An hour passed as people sipped their drinks, occasionally craning their necks looking over the bridge rail, and kids grew bored. Where were the bats? A chant of “Bats! Bats! Bats!” arose and quickly died. We fiddled with our cameras as daylight faded.

Meanwhile, a black swan visited each canoe in turn to look for handouts.

That was entertaining for a while.

Even the Hyatt got into the spirit.

Eventually, when it was fully dark, bats came out and flew in dizzying circles under the bridge, but they didn’t emerge in the big stream that I’ve always seen before. Even if they had, it might have been too dark to see. An explanation for the disappointing bat show that I overheard is that our rainy summer produced so many mosquitoes and other bugs that the bats are fat and happy. They aren’t as hungry, so they emerge later, and they can stay under the bridge and still find enough to eat.

By this time, the kids were cranky and tired, so we headed for the car. But an act at the south end of the bridge stopped us in our tracks. Ray Wylie Hubbard was jamming on stage, singing “Snake Farm.” The kids love that song, so we stayed for a few more, swaying to the music, watching people dance, and enjoying the soft breezes from the lake.

You gotta love Texas roadhouse music. Especially when you’re on a bridge downtown and the bats didn’t show.

That’s OK. We brought some bats home, and anyway we can go see them whenever we want. The next time you’re in Austin, I hope that you get to see them too.