Sacramento Native American youth use dance for mental health. ‘Reclaiming your power’

Under a scorching August sun, Sage Noelle Tellez Ortiz danced for her ancestors. 

Clad in a handmade pink and black dress adorned with hundreds of metal cone-shaped bells, her feet sidestepped in a circle. The jingle bells on her dress gleamed in the beating sun and rang out as she danced with dozens of others.

Native people from across Sacramento and beyond, all dressed in Indigenous regalia, came to O’Neil Park on Broadway for the 30th annual Sacramento Powwow on Aug 10. Even in the sweltering 100-degree heat, they danced as drummers beat their wooden drumsticks and singers chanted. 

“I feel rejuvenated,” said Ortiz, 22. “Even though it’s hot, I feel good. It feels good to dance.” 

For Ortiz, who is Northern Sierra Miwok and an enrolled member of the Ione Band of Miwok Indians, jingle is more than just a dance. It’s a healing ceremony. 

Like many Native people, Ortiz uses traditional practices to reclaim her Indigenous identity — and to reduce stress, face fear, and calm her mind. 

Suicide and mental illness are prevalent among Native Americans in California and nationwide. In California, Native youth ages 10 to 25 had the highest suicide rate from 2016 to 2021, according to the state Department of Public Health, despite making up 1% of the population. Emotional distress often stems from historical traumas inflicted on Native people over centuries, including forced removal, genocide, and assimilation, according to tribal leaders, Native American advocacy groups, mental health experts, and Native youths themselves.

As a result, many Native people living in urban areas feel disconnected from their culture, traditions, and ancestry. About 71% of American Indian and Alaska Natives live in urban areas, according to the Urban Indian Health Institute. 

Increasingly, medical practitioners are bringing the traditions to them. For instance, the Sacred Oaks Healing Center in Davis, which is run by the federal Indian Health Service, uses cultural activities such as drumming and smudging to treat Native youth struggling with substance abuse disorder. 

But even cultural events that aren’t designated mental health treatments can act as a healing balm for youth. 

“When I started dancing more at powwow, it made such a positive change in my life,” Ortiz said. “I really wish I had danced earlier when I was younger.”

Culture as medicine has been personal for Ortiz, who was born in Elk Grove and felt disconnected from her culture because she struggled with her mental health. She struggled with diagnosed depression and anxiety during her adolescence, and was bullied in school. At her lowest point, when she was 18, Ortiz attempted to kill herself, she said.

“I was not doing good emotionally,” Ortiz said. “I actually did attempt, and it was really awful,”

Even when she felt hopeless, her desire to dance never wavered, she said. 

Reconnecting with culture

Jingle dress dancing originates from the Ojibwe tribe in the Great Lakes region in the early 20th century, and became popular around the same time the U.S. government banned “ritualistic dancing” on reservations. The dance is now a common powwow performance that is believed to heal the spirits of its performer and those around her, according to the National Congress of American Indians. 

“Dancing will always be there to lift you back up whenever you’re ready,” Ortiz said. “No matter what you’re going through, it’ll always be there to help you.” 

With fewer than 1% of therapists in the United States identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native, Indigenous people feel disconnected from Western methods. 

But reconnecting with traditional practices that were lost, and even outlawed by the state of California, can sometimes offer a better way to address mental health than Western methods, said Albert Titman, executive director of Native Dads Network, an Indigenous nonprofit.

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Sage Noelle Tellez Ortiz makes some of the items she uses during her dancing, like her moccasins. 

HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com

“We can’t remove our identity as tribal people when we start to walk this journey of healing,” said Titman, who is Nisenan, Miwok, Maidu, and a member of the Madesi Band of the Pit River Nation. “Wellness, culture, spirituality, ceremonial practices are used to address the core issues inside of us.” 

According to a study in the Journal of Adolescent Health, young people who participated in culturally-based practices, like powwow dancing, experienced better behavioral health outcomes than those who went without. 

Ideally, traditional practices must work in tandem with Western medicine, said Mechelle Negrete, manager of American Indian Mental Health Community Outreach for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. By using culture, she said, there’s an opportunity to not only reach Native youth, but to destigmatize mental illness for older generations who were discouraged from talking about their problems.

“We need to create a space where it’s okay to talk about mental health,” said Negrete, who is Mescalero Apache. “It needs to be established in a bigger way amongst communities, because it is kind of a taboo topic sometimes.” 

Growing up, Ortiz recalls being forced to do a project in elementary school where she had to build a replica of a California mission, where Native people had been massacred and enslaved, she said. 

“I just think that’s absolutely ridiculous,” Ortiz said. “If we were, like, any other race, I feel like it would be different. But people don’t really care about us, and I think that needs to change.”

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Sage Noelle Tellez Ortiz, a member of the Ione Band of Miwok Indians, participates in the 30th annual Sacramento Contest Powwow at O'Neil Park earlier this month. Tellez Ortiz said that dancing helps her cope with mental health and brings her closer to her community. 

HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com

It wasn’t until her days in the powwow circuit that she truly began to understand herself culturally, she said.

Tehya Perkins, 17, feels the same. A member of the Miwok Tribe of the El Dorado Rancheria, Perkins has been dancing since she was a child, both jingle and fancy shawl, a type of dance where Native women spin with a shawl behind their back to mimic a butterfly.

When she’s in the powwow arena, Perkins said she forgets all her problems. The only thing on her mind is dancing and her community.

“When I’m at home, it’s completely different versus when I’m at powwow or ceremony,” said Perkins, who traveled to Sacramento from Chico for the powwow. “I feel more safe, more happy. It really just makes me proud of who I am.”

The power of powwow transcends generations 

Six-year-old Leona Cooper is an enrolled member of the Nooksack Indian tribe and a descendant of the Washoe tribe and the Paiute tribe. After dancing at Grand Entry, the small girl dressed in a pink jingle dress watched as her mother sang with the powwow drummers. For her, dancing is an act of compassion.

“My favorite thing is thinking about everybody that I love,” Cooper said.

Joaquin Cruz has been dancing for 35 years. He began straight dancing, a powwow dance from Oklahoma’s Southern Plains tribes, when he was 20. 

Now 55, Cruz said the practice helped him reconnect with his roots in Richmond, where he struggled to find a sense of belonging. In Contra Costa County, the American Indian and Alaska Native population is 1%.

“It’s mostly kind of reconnecting with who I am,” said Cruz, who is Comanche and Yakima. “It’s part of a bigger picture of getting connected, not just with powwows, but with our ceremonial ways.” 

When she dances, Ortiz said she feels a fire inside her. She described it as a deep connection to her community and ancestors.

She reminded herself that jingle would always be there for her, and that nothing could steal her culture from her, regardless of how dark her life felt. 

“With dancing jingle, it feels like you’re reclaiming your power,” Ortiz said. “It’s letting others know that we’re still here, especially on the lands that mean so much to us.”