Edward Curtis, best known as a photographer of the west and of indigenous North Americans, was also one of our earliest filmmakers. In 1914, he scripted and staged the silent film In the Land of the Head Hunters in an almost desperate attempt to preserve the traditions of the Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiuti) of British Columbia. Although the original cast members of Curtis' film have passed on to the happy hunting grounds, their descendants, the Gwa'wina dancers, continue to perform the sacred dances of their forefathers, and tour with the restored film.

There are only about 8,000 "First Nations" (a consortium of several indigenous tribes) people in the northwest, and the culture they present is vastly different from our own. The dances are slow and repetitive, as is the music to which they move, but there is a reverence about it. It's a dancing meditation — a precursor to trance dancing. There are no drugs (although it's no stretch to imagine ayahuasca as part of the ceremony) and no alcohol.

Watching them dance, I wonder at the way they invariably turn in a circle when entering or leaving the performance area. It seems like part of the choreography, but rather, the dancers are completing their transition from contemporary life to the spiritual world with a 360º turn; after they dance, as they prepare to leave the world of spirit, they complete another 360º turn before re-entering the contemporary world.

According to the tribe's elders, nothing in the Gwa'wina dances and songs has changed since their voices and footsteps first rang out hundreds of years ago in the forest.

We non-Native Americans inherited the waltz from our European ancestors, the hora from our Jewish ancestors, and funk/hiphop from our African ancestors. Any of these can transport me into an altered state if the music is good enough, but I'll have to brush up on my 360° turns. Not that turns ever were my forte. When I studied ballet, we had to do a series of turns diagonally across the room from one corner to another, one ballerina (and I lose that word very loosely in my case) at a time. I'd wobble across the floor on an unsteady course, my gaze hopelessly fixed on some point that was supposed to keep me from losing my balance.

Sounds kind of like a spiritual path, doesn't it?