Ellis authors book on powwow culture

Clyde Ellis, associate professor of history, has written a new book about the history and evolution of Southern Plains powwow culture.

Titled “A Dancing People: Powwow Culture on the Southern Plains,” the book is based on Ellis’ two decades of personal involvement in the powwow community. The book is Ellis’ third since joining the Elon faculty in 1995.

Published by University Press of Kansas, the book has received extremely favorable reviews, including one from a senior scholar in the field who has called it “a landmark synthesis and defining moment in the modern era of Plains Indian studies.”

Ellis is working on two new books, dealing with a history of Indian school segregation in North Carolina, and an ethnography of non-Indian people who participate in powwows.