Pow Wow Returns After Pandemic Pause

Donning feathers, beads and colorful traditional regalia, Native Americans representing tribes from across the country gathered on Saturday for the first University of Maryland Pow Wow since 2019.

It’s a “celebration of culture, community and resilience,” said Hana Zewdie, coordinator for multiracial and Native/Indigenous student involvement at the Office of Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy (MICA), which organized the event in collaboration with the Native American and Indigenous Student Union.

More than 500 people at the Stamp Student Union—including alums who first organized the event in the 1990s—reconnected, dance, sang and watched drum groups the Uptown Singerz and Zotigh Singers perform.

Vendors sold traditional crafts and wares, and the flag of the Piscataway tribe, on whose ancestral lands the university was built, was featured in one song.

“It’s a wonderful reminder of the community we have beyond our campus here on Piscataway lands,” Zewdie said.