San Manuel Pow Wow 2026

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The drum starts and for a second you cannot tell whether it is the drum or your own heartbeat, and then a hundred dancers move at once and you understand this is not a performance. It is a prayer that happens to have an audience.

For three days the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians opens the circle on the Cal State San Bernardino campus to dancers, singers and artisans from dozens of nations across North America and Canada. Grand Entry is the moment, every dancer in full regalia entering the arena together, and if you have never seen it you are not ready for it. The intertribal dances are open to anyone, including you, and stepping into that circle beside people who have been dancing since before they could walk rearranges something. There is fry bread. There is jewelry made by the hands selling it.

The campus off University Parkway, three days in September, free and open to everyone.

Go once. Then understand what a century of attempted erasure failed to do.