this is the pres in her shawl... as a woman you have to wear one of these to enter the circle. there were a lot of rules and even a religious ceremony 

NATIVE AMERICANS!

Lemme tell you... I am so proud of my anscestors, Native Americans are sooooo cool! So, I went a pow wow this weekend. My sister is the president of the Rice Native American Student Association (RNASA) and has put on the annual pow wow for the last 3 years but I've never been able to go before.

Basically a pow wow is these guys who have a big drum and they beat it and chant songs and there are specific dances that are done to all the songs. The men and the women and children there dress according to their tribe, age, and gender -- there were some AMAZING costumes.

There was some amazing indian tacos and fry bread and basically it was just really fun and intriguing to see so much tradtion come to life in the middle of downtown Houston.

So, then I went to the zoo today (had a lil elephant reunion, we go WAY back) and they had this special native american exhibit with buffalos and tepees, so I had to take this picture for my sister.

check out my mom .... native americans age well -- I mean, think about it -- how many natives do you see looking really old? -- since you can pick them out of a crowd and we probably would have aged even better if it weren't for that whole small pox thing...