To be alike is to think alike
We were invited to the San Felipe Pueblo, Katishtya, New Mexico, where we attended the Green Corn Dance. The Pueblo of San Felipe is a Native American tribe part of the Keresan speaking people. In the town square, a group of twenty or so men stood in the centre, singing, to the beat of a gigantic pounding drum. Hundreds of dancers circled the singers, using gourd rattles to accompany the beat. Many held sprigs of evergreen. The male dancers wore white buckskin moccasins, white kilts and red body paint. The upper torso, arms and legs of the men were nude. The female dancers had black shawls, red belts and were barefooted. Dust covered the thousands of spectators who stood quietly watching the dance, in front of their houses, from balconies, rooftops and the alleys leading to the square. Their insistence on not transforming it into a tourist extravaganza – by not marketing it, and by prohibiting the use of cameras, sketching or recording equipment – made the celebration unique. Being among the few non-natives in the pueblo, my girlfriend and I might perhaps have felt a bit out of place, but there was neither any extraordinary hospitality granted us, nor a trace of hostility from anyone we talked to.