We arrived to find many Native Americans and other observers sitting in a grassy amphitheater with a brick center where the dancers were performing.  We watched one teenaged girl and two boys perform amazingly well for their ages, with about a dozen hoops each.  Their agility and speed and skill were very impressive.  A panel of judges and an announcer, plus two groups of drummers sat beneath a large white canopy. 

Then the announcer dismissed the crowd while the judges, drummers, singers and competitors took a 30-minute lunch break.  So we wandered over to the museum display to get in out of the heat!  The displays were of all the main tribal groups in Arizona with a wonderful assortment of artifacts and items from each one.  We were about to join a group to catch the tour, but then decided a lunch break for ourselves was in order. 

Back at the amphitheater, we watched the next older age group dance and were even more impressed with the number of hoops and more complicated maneuvers demonstrated at this level.  The costumes were colorfully eye-catching.  One of the elements to be judged would be their apparel, with the women’s footwear to have bells or jingles on them.  (In Canada, we see the women’s jingle dresses with the jingles right on the dresses!)  But it was mid-afternoon, the desert sun was stronger than these two pale-skinned Canadians could handle, so we retreated to the museum to catch the next available tour. 

We got through most of the displays, only to discover two or three more areas of other historical significance to the settling and developing of this region of Arizona.  Another day…