Mashantucket — Bill Crawford looked over the indoor balcony in the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, peering out from under the bill of a baseball cap with the words "Native Veteran Marine" embroidered on the front.

Far below him, a group of men performed an Eastern war dance to a steady drumbeat beneath the museum's gigantic glass canopy.

Crawford said he had driven from Colchester to the museum for the annual powwow honoring Native and non-Native Americans who have served in the U.S. armed forces.

"I've been here a few times," he said. "We appreciate it."

The Mashantucket Pequot Tribe has been hosting the powwow shortly before Veteran's Day for five years.

Saturday's event drew hundreds of people, both dancers and observers, to the museum. During the daylong powwow, veterans in the audience introduced themselves and took part in a ceremony honoring them. Many walked around the museum with hats or vests identifying themselves as a veteran, a Native American or both.

Admission was free to all veterans and active-duty members of the military and their guests.

Dancers from a wide variety of tribes competed in dancing competitions and inter-tribal group dances while artisans sold their wares at stands spread around the museum's ground floor.

"We are people who have fought in every war this country has been in," said Metug, a 74-year-old Air Force veteran who was selling jewelry at a table near the entrance. "We don't do it for the government, we do it for the land. This is where we come from."

And, Metug said, every generation of his family of Shinnecock and Penobscot Indians served in the military — stopping with him.

He said he stopped his children, who both wanted to be pilots, from joining the military and fighting in conflicts he saw as unnecessary.

"I was proud of my service," he said. "But enough is enough."

m.shanahan@theday.com