Stomp dance

The stomp dance is performed by various Eastern Woodland tribes and Native American communities in the United States, including the Muscogee, Yuchi, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Delaware, Miami, Caddo, Tuscarora, Ottawa, Quapaw, Peoria, Shawnee, Seminole,[1] Natchez,[2] and Seneca-Cayuga tribes.

Stomp dance communities are active in Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida.

These houses are casually referred to as "camps" and depending on the traditional level and financial situation of the community may be relatively nice cottages, shanties or in between.

It is important to note that mekkos are not supposed to publicly address the entire grounds and as such that responsibility falls often on opunayv.

Each round is led by a selected man who has developed his own sequence of songs from the multitude of variations on traditional rhythms, melodies and lyrics, sometimes with personalized content in the mix.

The remaining dancers follow, alternating male-female in a continuous spiral around the central fire, with visitors, then young children, and the odd numbers trailing at the end.

The dancers circle the fire in counterclockwise direction with deliberate stomping steps set to the rhythm created by the women with their shell shakers.

The Eastern Band Cherokee stomp grounds is currently located in Raven's Roost, North Carolina, on the Qualla Boundary.

[1] Ethnomusicologist Victoria Lindsay Levine writes that, "Stomp dance songs are among the most exhilarating and dramatic musical genres in Native America.

The men wear blue jeans or slacks and hats, which are usually cowboy or ballcap styles, usually with a single eagle, hawk or crane feather in the hatband.

Cherokee women typically wear full cotton skirts featuring ribbonwork in a rattlesnake pattern.

[11] The shakers are hollowed out tortoise shells which have holes drilled in them and are filled with certain river rocks that will make them rattle.

Lydia Sam, a Natchez-Cherokee traditionalist, was the first to dance with tin, condensed milk can leg shackles in the 1920s.

The ceremonies are religious, and many participants do not feel comfortable discussing details with visitors that are not part of the tribe, particularly in regards to medicine.

Caddos,[13] Delaware, and other Woodland and Southern tribes have a secular or social stomp dance tradition.

This is because, over the years of assimilation through American Indian boarding schools, much of the culture was beat out of the Chickasaws, leaving few medicine men left to doctor the ground (located at Kali Homma', near Allen, Oklahoma).