Woody Taptto wouldn’t have been in Palo Duro Canyon last month, shaking a metal rattle to the pulsing beat of a drum, if history had played out just a hair differently. The 83-year-old was among the eldest of two dozen dancers gathered at a pavilion on the canyon floor for the gourd dance, a Southern Plains tradition with roots going back to at least the nineteenth century. Taptto wore a blue broadcloth vest and a beaver-skin hat bearing the U.S. Marine Corps insignia as the setting sun rimmed the canyon with a pink line of fuzzy, fading light. Just two years ago, the resident of Albuquerque, New Mexico, traded regalia and rattle for a hospital gown; a bad fall caused an aggressive infection in his…
The post Their Ancestors Survived the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon. 150 Years Later, Native Americans Danced to Pay Tribute. appeared first on Texas Monthly.
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