Chief Lookingglass PowWow

Chief Looking Glass (Allalimya Takanin c.1832-1877) was a Nez Perce principal architect of many of the military strategies employed by the Nez Perce.

1996 KAMIAH, Idaho - Beware of the whip of Delores Lookingglass Wheeler. Wheeler was the whip woman at this year's 20th Chief Lookingglass Powwow in Kamiah, responsible for getting the grand entry in order. She doesn't strike anyone, but she will remind dancers by pointing to show the power of the dance. "Dance is kind of like medicine to me," 70-year-old Wheeler said. Wheeler and her two sisters, Edith Lookingglass Strombeck, 64, and Nancy Lookingglass Johns, 68, are descendants of Chief Lookingglass and the instigators of a powwow that began 20 years ago on the centennial anniversary of the Nez Perce War. "We were just going to have it one year," Wheeler said. Two decades later, the three women sat in lawn chairs alongside the action, smiling at their daughters, granddaughters and other relatives who have taken the lead in making the powwow happen every year. The three-day event was beaded with traditional dancing, food, memorials and name-giving ceremonies. Tents, teepees and trailers surrounded the powwow's grass dance floor that would become a swirl of dance at dusk. Vendors, dancers and travelers came from many tribes and many states to be in Kamiah among friends and families.