{"id":30810,"date":"2023-11-06T03:01:23","date_gmt":"2023-11-06T10:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/aztec-school-district-hosts-first-powwow\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:26:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:26:28","slug":"aztec-school-district-hosts-first-powwow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/aztec-school-district-hosts-first-powwow\/","title":{"rendered":"Aztec school district hosts first powwow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dancers
Dancers take the floor at the Kinteel Bi O\u0142ta Powwow. (Alx Lee\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The smell of frybread, the sound of elders laughing, and the unmistakable sight of regalia taking the gymnasium floor on Saturday marked the kickoff of Native American Heritage Month at Aztec.<\/p>\n

With the exception of a gourd dance put on by the Kinteel residential campus, Aztec schools has never put on a powwow, Kimberly Zah, Aztec Indian education coordinator, said.<\/p>\n

The idea of a powwow had always been in the back of her mind, she said. When Warman Hall, Aztec director of federal programs, came into his position Zah finally had the necessary funding to do so.<\/p>\n

Navajo Transitional Energy Co. provides an annual grant titled the community benefit fund. The grant is regionally well known with other states applying for funding. Through that grant, the district applied under cultural sustainability, Hall said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tourism is huge for the all the ancient Native American stuff over at the national monument but we wanted to really look at highlighting this current aspect of Native American culture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Aztec
Aztec High School gymnasium hosts the first powwow in Aztec district. (Alx Lee\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>Alx Lee<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Vendors
Vendors sell items at the powwow. (Alx Lee\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>Alx Lee<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

About 21% of students enrolled in the Aztec district are Native American, Zah said. Made up of Native students, the League of Nations club at Aztec High was supportive throughout the process of planning the powwow.<\/p>\n

League of Nations and Kinteel residents sold concessions and provided the head staff food during the event.<\/p>\n

Kinteel residents have the option of returning home during the weekend but for those who stay in Aztec, the residential hall is like a second home, Zah said.<\/p>\n

Since being in her position, Zah said she\u2019s implementing more cultural activities for the students who stay over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Cooking traditional foods and Tsiiy\u00e9e\u0142 day are examples of the activities that students get to take part in, Melissa Yellow, member of the Indian Education Board said.<\/p>\n

For the powwow, the residents butchered a sheep and had fresh \u2018ach\u2019\u00ed\u00ed\u2019 to eat and used the mutton to feed the head staff, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to have that young energy,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n

The funds raised from concession will be going back towards the club, Yellow said.<\/p>\n

\"Dancers
Dancers take the floor at the Kinteel Bi O\u0142ta Powwow. (Alx Lee\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>Alx Lee<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Melissa
Melissa Yellow, member of Indian Education Board, made frybread for concession and head staff along with the help of students. (Alx Lee\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>Alx Lee<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Before developing the powwow, Zah attended the powwow at Fort Lewis College in Durango to get some insight. With very little idea on how to plan a powwow, Zah said it took making connections to start the process.<\/p>\n

Erny Zah, master of ceremonies for the powwow, had the most insight into setting the groundwork. It was through him, the drum groups and the head staff came together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout the help of him I don\u2019t think this would have really taken off,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The biggest conversations were held by the powwow committee consisting of Kimberly Zah, Warman Hall, Erny Zah, Navajo language teachers, parents from the parent advisory committee and Kinteel residents. They started by identifying what they wanted the powwow to be named.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to use wording that really represented this place, Aztec, using Navajo language,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n

Everyone involved knew the powwow would be a celebration, he said.<\/p>\n

\"Grand
Grand entry featured head dancers and royalty.<\/span>Alx Lee<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"There
There were many categories featured such as tiny tots and womens traditional. (Alx Lee\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Prior to the powwow, head dancers and the emcee visited the surrounding schools in Aztec to showcase the dancers.<\/p>\n

The event started with Grand Entry at 5:30 p.m and featured drum groups, Shiprock Agency and Southern Drum singing an honor, veteran and flag song.<\/p>\n

An honor song was sung to give respect to those lost during the COVID pandemic and the Aztec shooting in 2017.<\/p>\n

\"Shiprock
Shiprock Agency and Southern Drum were the drum groups that sung at the powwow. (Alx Lee\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A dancer performs at the powwow. (Alx Lee\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

There was pre-registration open to dancers however emcee Zah said in Indian ways, folks often decided upon which powwow to attend the day of. Dancers that pre-registered received money and those that did not received gifts from the committee.<\/p>\n

Hall said he grew up around the area and is very grateful to NTEC for the opportunity to bring a dream to reality.<\/p>\n

Despite having no clue where to begin and the stressful rearranging leading up to the event, Zah said there\u2019s nothing like this to come around the area and the process has been a learning process.<\/p>\n

\"Dancers
Dancers perform at the powwow. (Alx Lee\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"An
An onlooker views the powwow from the bleachers. (Alx Lee\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI think the end reward is seeing people come and learn about different culture and diversity and the dances behind it,\u201d Zah said.<\/p>\n

Zah said she\u2019s grateful for all those involved and the community members that showed up.<\/p>\n

As for next year, the inclusion of a powwow will be solely dependent on funding, she said.<\/p>\n

\"Dancers
Dancers and community members join together on the floor. (Alx Lee\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kinteel Bi O\u0142ta Powwow makes its debut at Aztec gymnasium. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1240,1222,155,799,28,1241],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-aztec","tag-bloomfield","tag-education","tag-farmington","tag-headlines","tag-kirtland"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81214,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30810\/revisions\/81214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30810"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}