♪[ MUSIC ]♪ "Making Regalia" is made
possible in part by Bernina of Oklahoma City, providers of quality
precision sewing machines, and by War Child Society
designers of Native apparel, T-shirts, D-cals and more, and by generous contributions
from viewers like you. Juaquin Lonelodge: We are back
ladies and gentlemen with another episode of
"Making Regalia " with me, Juaquin Lonelodge, based here in
Concho, Oklahoma. I've got an exclusive show for
you to do. I've got none other than a
Cheyenne and Arapaho show today, I've got none other than
a premiere fancy dancer, Mr. Dwight Whitebuffalo. Juaquin: How are you
doing today uncle? I'm doing pretty good and
glad to be here today to give you a demonstration on how to
make a rocker. Juaquin: Yeah, today we've got a
pretty good show for you today. We're going to do a Men's
Southern Style rocker. This is iconic for
our style of dance. I've had one pretty much all the
time I've grown up. And it's very iconic because
what it does is it keeps in time with the
drum. It moves back and forth.
And this comes back, you know, back from our older ways as far
as our using the eagle feathers. A long time ago we used to
acquire these from going into battle and
stuff. And we still like to use
these ones and adorn them on our actual
head roaches. This style you know is different
from the spinner which goes back and
forth and catches wind, you know, emulates two
warriors battling. This one for our style keeps
us in time with the drum and the one cool part about it
is you know if you start to
get tired and stuff, you can see a lot
of fancy dancers, you know it'll start
to slow down. Umm, but if you're really
good and in shape you will
continuously make this rocker go pretty fast. Ain't that right Uncle? Dwight: Basically, you have to
keep in time with the drum and this will keep you
looking like you're going fast all the way through. Juaquin: Right. Right. And the
crazy part is, you know, this is a very very simple like
mechanical engineered devce. But the hard part about
it is to get the balance of it
right, the top weight and the lower weight just right
just for it to rock perfectly. It's kind of a hard thing to
do and Dwight here, he's done it for so many years
he's got a perfect balance and the cool part is that I
actually received one of these Dwight Whitebuffalo original
rockers here. I appreciate that uncle. You know, I've used it
for so many years, this is my go-to. I love
it you know because it continuously rocks.
I have no problems with it and once again I want to
thank you for letting me get one of these gifts from you. Dwight: You're welcome. Juaquin: So, today what we're
going to do is we're going to show you how to
construct one of these rockers. He's going to show
his trade secrets. These are ones he doesn't really
divulge but for the show he is actually going to give it
out to the audience. So, for all of you fancy dancers
out there, please tune in. This is going to be a good one. So, now what we are
going to do is we are going to get right into
the construction of this Men's Fancy Dance
Southern rocker. Like what I said, you know, this is a pretty simple device
you know it goes back and forth. We have rubber bands
to actually hold it together like actually give it the
bounce. But if you see, it goes back and
forth. This gives it, you know, the timing of the drum,
movement, and the faster the drum goes,
the faster this is going to go. I don't even know how fast this
thing would go, probably clock it at maybe 120
maybe. Anyway, it depends on how much
nitrous we've got on there. And so, you know ... But Dwight here is going to go
right into the construction and show you how to actually
construct it, Umm, the first part is creating
the base and what we kind of do is kind of like a little
oval base, right? Dwight: Yeah. So, this is the
base of the rocker here. It's coming from a
hard back book. So, what you're
looking for ... Juaquin: So, what you're looking
for is pretty much some hard like cardboard, right? Dwight: Yeah. Something that'll
keep the bottom part stable and the last mode I'm going
to cut it out. Juaquin: And this base it's
not really that big. I would say maybe about 4 inches
and you know from the bottom it kind of like bends out
and it's kind of for the top of the head part as a roach. And what you are going
to do is you are going to stack it with another piece, right? Okay. So, what we
are going to do is we are going to make two
different pieces and we're going to put them
together but kind of stack them that way. It gives it more stability. So, what he is doing now is he
is just tracing out and just kind of getting like
his little base together. So, what book did you read,
or not read? [Laughing] Dwight: This is a
handbook on "How to use a Fancy Dance
outfit." Juaquin: Oh, right, right. That was the master's like
book right there. Dwight: I'm going to have to
burn it after this. Juaquin: [Laughing]. That was trade secrets right
there. The black book. Or is that the
black book of addresses? Because I heard you just
recently got married. Ain't that right uncle? Dwight: I'll be getting
married. Juaquin: Oh, oh okay. So, that was just actually a
black address book. [Laughing]. Dwight: In January ... Juaquin: So, what he is doing
now he is going to actually put these two bases together
and how are we going to do that? Are we just going to electric
tape it together or ... Dwight: Yeah. That's ... Juaquin: That's right. Dwight: Duct tape, I mean electric tape them
together. Juaquin: Yeah. And this will keep the
base together. You know, it's like
giving it like stability and when the motion of the
rocker goes back and forth it gives it ... you know,
like it holds it together. Now, I know that you made my
rocker. Who was the first person
that made your rocker, like when you were
younger? Dwight: Norman New Rider. Juaquin: Oh, okay. Now, you
know, growing up through my life I used to just watch
the older Men's Southern Fancy, the great Billy McClellan. He
had a really wicked rocker. Ahh, you know, like some other
ones out there, Henry McClellan, and those guys
always had good rockers. Umm, George Alexander,
R.G. You know, that was kind
of the thing. Growing up here in Oklahoma, no one really had too many
spinners out there. Everyone just had
rockers, you know. That's all I could ever see. You
know, like, of course, there was you. And I remember
going to Red Earth and watching these things
you know like when people dance. These things were going 100
miles an hour keeping in time with the drum making everything just look
flawless too. Dwight: Well, this rocker
is based on Billy McClellan's style. That's
pretty much where I got it from. Juaquin: Okay. Oh
and Joe Bointy too, he had a really wicked
rocker too back in the day. He still does actually. So, now like since we've got the
base plate done, umm, you're kind of like
measuring like, what? Midway? For like to put those marks and
stuff? Dwight: Yeah. It's pretty much,
you know, to use your base to
mark everything. Everything is going to be based
on this thing right here. Alright, here is where
this part right here is going to be measured, because it's going to
have to be centered based on the width of this. Juaquin: So, now what we've got
done so far ... We've got the base of the
rocker. We've got another base. It's kind of like a counter
weight, almost like a trebuchet. This part right here is kind of
significant because if you were to drill it
just off a little bit, the counter weight of it is
not going to actually rock. So, the thing is Dwight being
the master that he is he knows exactly where to
like drill without even marking it. He just feels it and he
can actually sense it by using the force. But somehow
when he does it, it rocks. I've done it before
and I kind of off-drilled it and mine didn't work as well. That's why I'm glad that he
actually made me one. But, you know, from him making
so many rockers he knows exactly where to drill. I believe it's kind of
like right at the base of the bottom,
right? Dwight: Yes. Right here ... Juaquin: Ah ha ... Dwight: ... on the bottom of the
base, you pretty much have to put an
"X" on it because that is the
center of your weight. Juaquin: Yeah. Your counter
weight. Dwight: Yeah. Everything has to
be centered. That way it'll have ... everything will have the
equal amount of weight on the top and the bottom. Juaquin: If you get it
wrong just a slight little
miscalculation, it just won't seem to rock right
for some reason. You know, you can put a lot of
weight on the feathers but if you do that the very tips sometimes you can
damage the feathers. You can snap them back and
forth. But, you know, like I said, Dwight has done
this so many times that, you know, he knows
exactly where to drill. So, go ahead and try it
out and see. Here goes nothing ...
Ladies and gentlemen, he is using the actual force. [Sound of drill] All right! So, there we go. With the power
of that we got the hole drilled, perfectly balanced in the
center. We're ready to rock now. Now, what he is going to do is he is going to drill
some more holes. These are for the wires to hold
the actual feathers together. And what we are going
to do is he is going to show you actually
how to crimp them and show how to put it together. [Sound of drill] And this part right here
at the very top that's where we're going to
connect the feathers and actually intertwine it and
what not. And there is another one
at the very bottom. This is one where it is going
to place two wires that come out and the rubber bands are
actually going to feed off of it. [Sound of drill] Dwight: This is where the
feathers on top are going to be at. And
pretty much you've got to ... sometimes you don't get it
perfectly right the first time but most of the time you do. Juaquin: Okay. So,
now what he is doing is he's bending the
wires back and forth and he is going to criss cross
it and what he is going to do is he is going to twist it. This
gives it like stability and will actually hold the
rocker feathers like straight up and down. This is kind of like you have to
do this, because you know if not the feathers will
actually flop back and forth. So, what you really want to do
is you really want to get a tight
seed on this. So, if you see ladies and
gentlemen, he is actually going to twist
this as hard as he can. This will give it tightness at
the base and at the top. So, now, ladies and
gentlemen, what we've done is Dwight has already drilled a
hole through here. He has actually gone through
with the wire, come up through the top on both
sides, made a little twist come through
here and made a "U." This "U" right here
is significant because this is where the actual
feather is going to go on. Usually what we use is what ... electric tape to attach these
feathers? Dwight: Yeah. Juaquin: Yeah, sometimes. Because it's a whole
lot easier to actually do an
electrical tape. And then at the bottom he
has done the exact same thing. He has actually gone through
here, made a little twist at the
bottom come out here. Now, these two wires right
here that are coming out. These are what are going to go
and ricochet off like ahh, your rubber bands. This is giving it the speed
back and forth and giving it like velocity
going back and forth. And then we have one more that
is going through here. This is going to be the base
at the very bottom. Remember this is
the very important part because if you drill at the
bottom, this is where you get your
counter weight. And of course you know that's
where we get like the top heavy part for the rocker to go
back and forth, right? So, what he is going to do is he is going to take his base
that he has already pre-made and he's kind of measuring out
and what he is going to do is he is going bend it down and
then he is going to attach it to the base. He is going to
drill a couple of holes into the base and then
push the wire into it and then loop it around
and secure it. What are you looking
for? An awl? [Laughing]. [Sound of drill] ♪[ MUSIC/DRUMMING/SINGING]♪
[Men's War Dance] Juaquin: What you are seeing
here ladies and gentlemen is a powwow competition dance. You'll see the difference
between the Northern and the Southern
War Dancers. The Northern War Dancers
will usually have spinners for their top eagle feathers.
These eagle feathers come from like the tail
feathers of the eagles. These are actually golden
eagles because you can see the
difference between the black and the white. The Northern War Dancer usually
will have these spinners and what happens is when
they dance the wind catches them. They kind of flicker back and
forth and looks almost like images
of two warriors going to battle against each
other. The Southern War Dancer has what is known as a
rocker. These rockers go back
and forth keeping in time with the drum. A lot of the
times, the warriors, these dancers will actually
decorate the top of the eagle feathers
sometimes matching the regalia. A lot of the times you know
reflective tape is used. This way when it
rocks back and forth or it spins you'll see like a
shine kind of gleam going back and forth. This
is kind of like just kind of what's grown up and has evolved
to what it is today. A lot of these times these rockers, it's
a good determination when you're judging, because when they do go
back and forth they keep in time with the drum. The faster the
song the faster the rocker is going to go. A lot of times you
can actually judge these dancers just by the dance styles and the
speed of the rockers. You can see like who's been
working out and who hasn't just because the rockers
will start to slow down the faster the song. [ MUSIC/DRUMMING/SINGING]
[Men's War Dance] Juaquin: Dwight has actually
pierced the base of our actual rocker. He's gone with the tool
like wires and going through the base at the bottom,
come around the bottom, come around, then he has wrapped
around the top and he has cinched it. This
gives it the stability that actually holds the
rocker together. You know, now it's almost
finally done. We've got like two more things
that he needs to do. But right now the base of
it is done. So, like your little trebuchet,
your counter weight, will be able to rock back and
forth. All we have to do now is create
two more bases for rubber bands. That way, like the two
ends of these wires that we have coming out the base will actually ricochet off
of it. You know, that way, it will give it stability and
have it be able to rock back and forth. Juaquin: Once again we are here
at Oklahoma Indian Nations based here at Concho, Oklahoma. I've got none other than Marty
Thurmond, one of my brothers I grew up
with all the way through the Oklahoma powwow circuit. Marty, how's it going? Marty Thurmond: It
is going pretty good. How are you doing? Juaquin: Oh, pretty good man.
It is good seeing you again. You know, like ahh, I want to
tell the people out here, you know, like ahh, a little bit
of your style of grass dance. You know, like, I've always seen
you growing up you always had like the older
style you know of grass dance. Kind of tell me a little
bit about your ribbon and how you do that
stuff. Marty: Well, the ribbon that
I have on here the stories that have been shared with me of
how it originated ... You know, there are two
different stories that I've heard and
one of those stories is you know a long time ago they
would dance and they would put tufts of
grass within their belt to pass the time as they
prepared the dance grounds. And that's kind of
what it resembles. A lot of times you will hear
stories of the swaying grass, you know. That's what
we mimic as we dance. But also, too, you
know, a long time ago I've heard that they would put
scalps on their belts in different parts and they would dance with those
scalps, that hair. So, that's just a little bit
of about how, you know, what these represent
for me. Juaquin: Or your girlfriend's
hair. Marty: Ahh man ... or yeah your girlfriend's hair
too. [Laughing]. Juaquin: Ex-girlfriend at that. Marty: Ex-girlfriend's hair! Juaquin: Even better. Marty: Yeah. [Laughing]. Mother-in-law's too,
you never know. Juaquin: [Laughing]. Yeah, you know, but this
style right here is kind of like more old style. This is
what? Cotton material, right? Marty: Yeah. This is all cotton
material. You can pick it up at Walmart,
Jo'Ann's, Hancock's, Hobby Lobby. You can pick it up at just
about all kinds of places. Juaquin: That's only the best
material, you know. The best you can find at
Walmart is in the dollar bins right there. Marty: Dollar bins. Juaquin: You know that's where I
usually find most of my stuff but how do you tack this down
as far as like on here? Marty: This is all sewn down,
just regular straight stitch. You know, it's pretty simple
when it comes on the bolt. You know, it comes with
the fold already. So, you know, we've cut it a
certain way to where the fold is exactly
where we sew. Juaquin: Right on. Right on. Now, do you cut the
strips afterwards or do you cut them before? Marty: I usually cut them either
before or after. It depends if we're on the
road, if we're traveling, if we have time. Everything that we usually do
is always last minute. Juaquin: Exactly. Like 4:00 in
the morning and stuff like that. Marty: Yeah. Juaquin: It looks good though
brother. I like it. You know, once again,
Marty Thurmond. What are your tribes? Marty: I'm enrolled Sac and Fox.
I'm also Comanche, Shawnee and Delaware also. Juaquin: And you reside in
Shawnee, Oklahoma. Right? Marty: Yeah. Shawnee, Oklahoma. Juaquin: That's right.
You know, once again, thank you again
brother. Thanks for coming on the show. Marty: Thank you. Juaquin: Appreciate it. It's
always good seeing you man. Marty: Likewise. Juaquin: Thanks again
to all the viewers out there. Marty: Ah-ho. [ MUSIC ] Juaquin: Well ladies and
gentlemen, I want to thank you and I want
to thank Marty, out there, Marty Thurmond, my brother
from the Sac and Fox Nation for jumping in there and
giving me an interview out at Oklahoma Indian
Nations this year. Umm, while we were doing
that, Dwight was here really
hammering this thing out, you know, getting
this rocker almost built. It's gotten down to like
the final two pieces that he needs to do,
and that's creating the two little bases for your
rubber bands. Isn't that right? Dwight: Yeah. Juaquin: Yeah. Dwight: These are basically
ahh ... Juaquin: Just another piece of
just two more wires, right? Dwight: Yeah. Juaquin: You know, I've seen
this before like Dwight and I, I've always had a rubber band
base. I've even seen people
actually have springs before. Have you seen that? Dwight: Yeah. That was
the older way. Juaquin: Right. Right. I've even seen the base
actually be the spring itself and then it's kind of a little
weird teeter totter, so. There are a lot of different
styles, I guess, you know, different mechanisms
you could use. But, I don't know, tell tale,
this is the one that always seems
to work, right? Dwight: Yeah. Basically
you can't go wrong. Juaquin: [Laughing].
Idiot proof. [Laughing]. So, what he is doing is he is
intertwining the wire at the base and he is going to
come around the bottom and come around the tops,
and it'll wrap around and then he's going
to make two little poles. That way he can put like his
rubber bands in there. And that way the other two poles from your little counter weights
can ricochet off of it. About how fast do you
think this one will go? Dwight: Ahh ... Juaquin: You'd just have to see. Dwight: I would just have to
wait and see. Juaquin: [Laughing]. Dwight: It might be a winner. Juaquin: We might
have a winner here. Who are the people that you have
made these for? Dwight: The ones that have
been beating me. Juaquin: Oh right? [Laughing]. I think we need to start
putting like a higher price on these things, you know. But it's all good you know like
what I feel is I had my day in dancing and
stuff. And you know like I'm just ready
to give back. It's kind of what this show is
about is, you know, giving people the opportunity
out there to pick up this style of dance or a
style of dance and take off and hopefully they can do and travel places that
dance took me. That's really the purpose of
this show. And he has almost got this bend. This is kind of a hard bend for
you people out there. You've kind of got to be really
careful. You know, be careful with your hands
and your tools. Just like Red Sky, you know, like you can actually jack up
your hands and pierce yourself. So, you've just got to watch out
when you're bending these wires because these things
are sharp sometimes. Dwight: Yeah. The
base should be thick. That way it won't break during
competition. Juaquin: So, while Dwight is
working on this rocker over here, we're
going to check in with Jason Lightfoot over
at Indian Nations. Juaquin: So, we are back here at
Oklahoma Indian Nations based here in Concho,
Oklahoma. I've got none other
than Jason Lightfoot, one of my good friends here from
the powwows. Jason, of course, you know,
you're a Straight Dancer and I've seen you dance for many
years. You know, what does Straight Dance
actually mean to you? Jason Lightfoot: Well, ahh,
Junior I've been dancing for a long time you know since I was
a little kid growing up. Then, our folks raised
us up this way. And we really don't
know any other way. It's just what we've been doing
all of our lives, you know, and just like how you see all
these little kids out here dancing, you know, that's
how long we've been dancing too. Juaquin: Yeah. Jason: And it's not really a
hobby, it's just something we do during
the weekend. It's our way of
life. It's how we live. Juaquin: This comes back
from your families, like your lineage and
stuff. You know, this style of straight
dance has probably been from your families
and stuff growing up, right? Jason: Yeah. Yeah. As a matter
of fact my great-grandfather was a straight dancer.
My grandfather was. My uncle was, you
know, and myself. Then it goes down
to my sonny boy too. Juaquin: Right. Jason: So, it's about five
close to six generations of Straight Dancers. Juaquin: That's awesome. And of
course you're going to have like your offspring start dancing
Straight Dance, right? Jason: You bet. You bet. You know, he's already going for
it right now. He's contesting right now, so. Juaquin: That's keen man. It's
keen. So like, ahh, tell me a little
bit about you know the outfit or this bandolier and
stuff. How is that made? Jason: Usually we use sinew,
thread that goes through there and then we use these mescal
beads here. You can usually find them down
south around Texas, you know, and then just the regular bones, beads here just strung up. Juaquin: Right. Right. You know, I've kind of got
a funny story, like one time one of my uncles
came over and he thought these mescal
beads, you know, they kind of look almost like
that candy that you get during
Christmas time, and he was asking my mom, you
know, he was like, "Hey can I get some of these
because I'm making a sash?" And my mom was like, "That's
just candy." [Laughing]. So, yeah, you've got to really
watch them, like if they taste funny, you
know, they're mescal. Jason: Yeah. Yeah. You'd
probably need to boil them up first before you try to eat
them. [Laughing]. Juaquin: Oh, but yeah, Jason,
thanks again for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Jason: No problem man. Juaquin: You know, once
again, I want to thank all of the
viewers out there. Now you're going to be world
famous from this, you know. Appreciate it. Ha-hou.
Thank you again. Jason: Yeah. Juaquin: Okay. Ladies
and gentlemen, we're back and we're finished. Ahh, what Dwight has done is
like he actually drilled two holes at
the base right here and then he made almost
like a prong shape out of wire piercing it through at the
bottom and coming out around both sides and coming
around the sides bending it into an "S"
right here and coming out the sides on
both sides. This will give us the base
for like our rubber bands. So, now all we've got to do is
attach rubber bands here and then from there it'll give
it ricochet on our little like counter weight at the bottom
going back and forth. He's also done this at the very
back too doing the same kind of little like a prong shape going
around the back around the tops and
coming up to the top. And what we are going to do is
attach the rubber bands there and then that'll give it the
ricochet on the back end. So pretty much this thing is
almost pretty much done, right? Dwight: Yeah. All I have to do
now is put the rubber bands on. Juaquin: Right. Right. And you
always want to change these out, like I would check them every
other powwow, you know. They tend to wear out
pretty good from ... Dwight: ... the sun. Juaquin: Yeah, the sun, sweat,
and it's just you know the friction back and forth
when we knock them out. So, there we have it. We have
our base. We have our rubber bands and
this thing is ready to rock. And that's kind of what we do,
you know, when we first build these things
you kind of want to fine tune it like play with it here and
there, kind of like put a couple rubber bands on there,
take a couple rubber bands off. But just kind of
get the feel of it now where we can kind of fine
tune on how it rocks and stuff. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we're
going to kind of like look at Dwight's and my rocker. Of course, Dwight, you know, he took a ilttle more extra time
and adorned it with some beadwork. Did you bead this yourself? Dwight: Yeah. I beaded this. The base of this is actually
old. It's probably like 30 years old. Juaquin: Yeah. But it still wins so that's
why you keep on using it, right? But, you know, he actually
beaded this. It takes a little bit more time. And what size beads did you use
on here? Dwight: 13's. Juaquin: Oh man, those are some
small ones. Me, on the other hand,
I don't have the time. I always go back to what is
true and what is good for me. I use tape. These are
all my signature tapes that I get from like my sign
stores and stuff. So, that's where I get
all my fluorescents and stuff. But take it in, do whatever you
want with your rocker. You know, color coordinate
with your outfit. You can pretty much match it just to whatever you want
to do with it. But if you see, I just taped it, kind of put like a little lodge
design there for my last name "Lonelodge." And you know this is to kind of
give you an idea of how you want to decorate these. A lot of people actually
will decorate the top feathers and stuff like that to give it a
little bit of, you know, a little extra gleam and stuff
whenever it goes back and forth. But, you know, this is just kind
of an idea that like me and Dwight have. He beads his and I kind of
tape mine. But just to kind of do a little
decorating and stuff. But, you know, the
other one we've got you know it's ready to rock
and ready for sale, you know, ready for
someone to pick it up and decorate it and ready to
hit some powwow trails. So, now, we've come to the
conclusion of our Southern Men's Fancy
Dance rocker we've got here. I want to thank again my uncle,
Dwight White Buffalo. Thank you again
for coming on the show. Dwight: Yeah. I'm glad to show
you a demonstration on how to make a Southern
Fancy rocker. Juaquin: Yeah. So, all
you fancy dancers out there you've got some good information
on actually how to make one of these from the
legend himself. I want to thank everyone out
there for tuning in. Of course, powwows.com
for rebroadcasting it. For everyone out there
in powwow land, you know, we'll see you soon. I'll see you again.
