A consultation. To Pow-wow. To talk much together on any subject. Derived from the N. A. Indians, and applied to Tammany; then generally. See 1861–5 for use of the word at Yale.
1659. See Notes and Queries, 10 S. xi. 487.
1705. The Indian went immediately a Pauwawing, as they call it, and in about half an hour, there came up a black Cloud into the Sky, that shower’d down Rain enough upon this Gentlemans Corn and Tobacco, but none at all upon any of the Neighbours, except a few drops of the Skirt of the Shower.—Beverley, ‘Virginia,’ iii. 36.
1768. A letter “from a late London newspaper,” signed No Powow.—Boston Evening Post, March 21.
1780. He may refer the matter to Congress, they to the Medical Committee, who will probably powwow over it awhile, and no more will be heard of it.—J. Cochran in ‘N.E. Hist. and Gen. Reg.’ xviii. 35. (N.E.D.)
1781. An ancient religious rite, called the Pawwaw, was annually celebrated by the Indians; and commonly lasted several hours every night for two or three weeks.—Samuel Peters, ‘History of Connecticut,’ pp. 214–5 (Lond.). (A description follows).
1784. St. Tammany’s song being sung, a gentleman in a complete pow wow dress appeared, and performed a Maneta dance.—Mass. Spy, May 27.
1809. [They] regard it no more than they would an Indian Pow-wow upon the banks of the Missouri.—Id., Aug. 9.
1810. Winthrop, in giving an account of the great storm in 1639, says, “The Indians near Aquiday being pawawing in this tempest, the Devil came and fetched away five of them.”—Id., Feb. 21.
1812. The Warriors of the Democratic Tribe will hold a powow at Agawam on Tuesday.—Salem Gazette, June 5. (N.E.D.)
1814. A Paw-waw held near Litchfield, wherein Mr. Visey, a learned man from New-York, distinguished himself by discomfiting a vast number of the Indian devils.—Analectic Mag., iv. 65 (July). (Italics in the original.)
1818. The Indian fashion (unknown in England) of powowing and huzzaing in approbation of toasts, is generally unwelcome to a majority of those who are engaged in it.—Mass. Spy, Sept. 9: from the Salem Gazette.
1821. The Powow, who was at once their Priest and Physician, always undertook, when he was applied to, the removal of a disease.—T. Dwight, ‘Travels,’ i. 120.
1825. “[She] cussed poor Bet, with sich a pow-wow!” “Ah, pow-wow! is that what you call the bad prayer, in these parts?”—“Why; sure enough!”—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ iii. 387.
1833. The Indians, who always abounded in marvellous relations, much incited by their conjurers and pow-vows.—Watson, ‘Historic Tales of Philadelphia,’ p. 141.
1855. I was in Philadelphia when the Know-Nothings were holding their grand national pow-wow there, and laying it on thick that “Americans shall rule America.”—Letter to the N.Y. Herald, June 22 (Bartlett).
1857. Senator Mason of Virginia was there, pow-wowing about the Union and carrying on the government “according to the Constitution,” by which he meant catching run-away slaves.—Longfellow, ‘Life,’ (1891), ii. 334. (N.E.D.)
1861. The Freshman Pow Wow, with all its absurd tinselry and grotesque extravagance, its motley blendings of buffoonery and wit, its glare of torches, and roar of horns, its pretentious aspirations to a dignified Sophomoreism, is yet a class institution, and as such enlists the sympathies of the whole body and isolates them, by essential lines of boundary, from the rest of College.—Yale Lit. Mag., xxvi. 258 (June). [This custom was established about 1849. Id., p. 330].
1863. Pow-Wow is a torch-light masquerade and procession to express the joy of a class at the termination of its Freshman year…. The din of horns is not an integral part, but has been adopted to drown out the interruptions of the Juniors.—Id., xxviii. 291–2 (July).
1865. Freshman Pow Wow, as a legitimate and authorized institution, went out with ’65.—Id., xxx. 293 (July).
