Thousands gather in New Mexico for the largest powwow in North America

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Thousands of people are gathering in New Mexico for a celebration showcasing Native American and Indigenous dancers, musicians and artisans from around the world.

Billed by organizers as the largest powwow in North America, the annual Gathering of Nations festival kicked off Friday with a colorful procession of dancers spiraling into the center of an arena at the New Mexico state fairgrounds.

Participants wear elaborate regalia — some with jingling bells and others with feathers. They dance to the tempo of rhythmic drumming, each coming to the gathering for their own reasons.

“It's not just for show,” said Deshava Apachee, who is Mescalero Apache and Navajo. “It’s for healing, it’s for strength, it’s for reconnecting.”

The event also features the crowning of Miss Indian World, as well as horse parades in which riders are judged on the craftsmanship of their intricately beaded adornments or feathered headdresses and how well they work with their horses.

Powwows are a relatively modern phenomenon that emerged in the 1800s as the U.S. government seized land from tribes throughout the Northern and Southern Plains. Forced migrations and upheaval during this period resulted in intertribal solidarity among Plains people and those from the southern prairies of Canada.

Alliances were formed, giving way to the exchange of songs and dances during gatherings between different tribes. In the decades that followed, powwows were advertised to pioneers heading westward as “authentic” Native American dance shows. For some, it was an exploitation of their cultures.

The word powwow was derived from pau wau, an Algonquian Narrtick word for “medicine man,” according to the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Scholars say English settlers misused the word to refer to the meetings of medicine men and later to any kind of Native American gathering.

Today, some of the large powwows like the Gathering of Nations have become more commercialized events that use dancing and drumming competitions, with prize money at stake, to provide a glimpse into Indigenous cultures.

At ceremonial dances, participants wear traditional regalia specific to their tribe, whereas powwow attire often is more contemporary and flashy with sequins and sparkles. It is about dressing to impress the judges, said Warren Queton, a Kiowa Tribe legislator and adjunct instructor at the University of Oklahoma who has participated in community dancing and cultural events since he was a boy.

Queton, who served as the head gourd dancer at the university's recent spring powwow, said ceremonial dances are deeply rooted in community, identity and cultural values.

It is a struggle to keep traditional cultural practices and commercial powwows from being lumped into the same category, he said. Powwow ways and ceremonial traditions have different meanings in Native American and Indigenous cultures.

There has been a focus on promoting smaller powwows held in tribal communities. Queton said these gatherings serve as a way for people who live elsewhere to return home and reconnect with their families and the land, and to share traditions with younger generations.

“Knowing where you come from, your land, your oral traditions, your language, but also values and traits — that can only be learned from a community,” he said. “That’s why those smaller dances are so important because people learn those community values. They’re all a part of our identity.”

There still are elements of tradition woven in to modern powwows. Competitors wear feathered bustles, buckskin dresses, fringed shawls and beaded head and hair pieces. Some of the elaborate outfits are hand-stitched designs that can take months to complete.

The sounds, movements and emotions that radiate from the dancing are challenging to capture on canvas. But Cochiti Pueblo painter Mateo Romero did just that when he partnered with the U.S. Postal Service to create a series of powwow stamps unveiled Friday during Gathering of Nations.

Powerfully hypnotic, atavistic and somatic is how the artist describes the dancing. One of his pieces depicts what is known as a fancy shawl dance with its dips, pivots, hops and twirls. Each tassel on the shawl flows and flips, accentuating the dancer's movements.

Romero said he used color, thick and thin paint and soft and hard edges along with photographic elements to create something that feels alive, embedded with feeling and bright pops of color.

Romero called it a huge honor to transform powwow culture into a postage stamp filled with “good energy.”

“I look at it as a sort of vehicle to express this sentiment, the energy, the celebration, the vibration, the beauty of it,” he said. “It’s the power of it.”

This article corrects the spelling of the last name of Deshava Apachee

Miss Southern Ute Maleina Carel waves to the crowd as she participates in the horse parade at the annual Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Friday, May 25, 2025 (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

A participant in the Gathering of Nations horse parade waves to the crowd at the state fairgrounds in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Friday, May 25, 2025 (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

Christian Rangel, who is Navajo and Cherokee and from Tulsa, Oklahoma, talks about the work that went into making his bustle following the grand entry procession during the annual Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Friday, May 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

A dancer takes part in the grand entry during the annual Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Friday, May 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

2025 Miss Indian World contestants join the grand entry procession during the annual Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Friday, May 25, 2025 .(AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

Native American and Indigenous dancers pack an arena during a grand entry procession at the annual Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Friday, May 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

Native American and Indigenous dancers take part in a grand entry procession at the annual Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Friday, May 25, 2025 (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

FILE - Shane Redhawk who is Sicangu Lakota leads a horse parade at the 40th anniversary of the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow in Albuquerque, N.M., Friday, April 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Roberto E. Rosales, File)

LONDON (AP) — The U.K.'s home secretary on Wednesday urged the head of one of the country's leading police forces to resign following a report on how fans from Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv were banned from a match against Premier League side Aston Villa in Birmingham last year.

Shabana Mahmood told lawmakers that the independent report found “a failure of leadership” on the part of West Midlands Police Chief Constable Craig Guildford, adding that he "no longer has my confidence.”

The ban came at a time of heightened concerns about antisemitism in Britain following a deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue and calls from Palestinians and their supporters for a sports boycott of Israel over the war with Hamas in Gaza.

The decision to ban Maccabi fans from the match with Aston Villa on Nov. 6 was widely criticized, including by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

West Midlands Police said at the time it had deemed the match to be high risk “based on current intelligence and previous incidents,” including violence and hate crimes that took place when Maccabi played Ajax in Amsterdam last season.

Guildford did not immediately comment on the report Wednesday.

Mahmood said the report by the chief inspector of constabulary, Andy Cooke, found that West Midlands Police had overstated the threat posed by Maccabi fans while understating the potential risks to them, and “conducted little engagement with the Jewish community" before a decision was taken.

She said the report noted that "the force sought only the evidence to support their desired position to ban the fans.” The report did not find the police force was antisemitic.

Mahmood also noted a police reference at the time to a nonexistent match between Maccabi and Premier League side West Ham in 2023, which was deemed to be an “AI hallucination.” Guildford previously denied that AI was to blame for that error but apologized for it Wednesday ahead of the report’s publication.

Mahmood said she didn't have the power to fire Guildford herself as a result of a policy change by the previous Conservative government in 2011, but she was looking to reinstate that power to home secretaries. Currently, locally elected police and crime commissioners have that power.

FILE - Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, is reflected as Britain's Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood speaks to members of the Jewish community at the Community Security Trust (CST) in north west London, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (Carlos Jasso, Pool Photo via AP, file)

FILE - Maccabi Tel Aviv's fan is escorted by police ahead of the Europa League soccer match between Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Birmingham, England, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Darren Staples, file)