powwow

Word History: According to the traditional beliefs of many Native American peoples, a healer, shaman, or priest can communicate with spiritual forces beyond the ken of the ordinary person through trances and visions, gaining power and knowledge that helps to cure the sick and otherwise benefit the community, as by bringing about good weather or a successful hunt. In Narragansett, the indigenous Algonquian language of Rhode Island, the traditional healer or priest was given the title powwaw, a term that developed from a Proto-Algonquian word meaning "one who has visions." In English, a form of the word powwaw occurs in a 1624 document by Edward Winslow, expressing the English colonists' typical mistrust of Native American religion: The office and dutie of the Powah is to be exercised principally in calling upon the Devil; and curing diseases of the sicke or wounded. The English spelling of the word was eventually settled as powwow, and the term also came to be used as the name for ceremonies and councils, probably because of the important role played by the healer or holy person in these events. Today, when speaking in English, some Native American communities themselves use the word powwow to refer to meetings or gatherings held according to the traditional ways of their people.