The Tewa Indians of the San Ildefonso Pueblo perform the Navajo Dance which is a parody of their Navajo neighbors. This dance event involves ritual play, humor, and sex role reversals; it also dramatizes the Pueblo Indian's stereotype of the Navajo. In this paper, I will first describe the dance event as performed on April 28, 1974, and analyze some of the symbolic elements of the event. I will then argue that the Navajo Dance is one way that Pueblo Indians deal with their ambivalent and contradictory friend/enemy relationships with the Navajo.

This bibliography grew out of a seminar entitled “Dance in the Popular Theatre in the Nineteenth Century.” A prior unfulfilled interest in the North American Indian led me to focus my search in that direction. Although a considerable amount of class time was spent in discussing the notion of “popular” art as opposed to “high” or “elite” art, this potentially problematic question did not become an issue in this search. The North American Indian's contribution to the stage definitely had the widest possible audience appeal, which may be used as a criterion for part of the definition of “popular.”

Part of the seminar experience was to introduce us to unusual sources, to encourage us to probe materials which were not generally considered the dance historian's domain. As well, we were to attempt to discover as much as possible in the Toronto area libraries, and with the aid of the interlibrary loan services, to actually handle as many potentially relevant sources as possible. An unforeseen trip to New York in mid-year extended the search and admitted the inclusion of certain documents which otherwise might have been left out.