National Museum of the American Indian Announces Outdoor Sculpture Winner

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Devils Tower gets new boss

National Museum of the American Indian Announces Outdoor Sculpture Winner

American Indian grads protest eagle-feather ban

Tribal connections: Powwow puts community in touch with native past

Nebraska’s Native American artists encouraged to apply for art exhibit

Powwow Unites Nations

American Indian Powwows Offer Living History in North Dakota USA

Frank W. Joachimsthaler: Traditional American Indian dancer, former museum curator

Interior takes aim at fake Indian art

Zuni High School celebrates

Delaware Indian visitor praises Anderson PowWow

Leader defends Indian program

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August 25-27—PowWow Native American Festival: Intertribal gathering of Native American dancers, drummers, artists, and craftspeople, Friday noon-8 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.-9 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Patterson Park at Linwood and Eastern avenues, 410-675-3535, baic.org.

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NATIVE AMERICAN HONORING CEREMONY at Montezuma Hall, Aztec Center, SDSU, 619-281-5964. From 7-10 p.m. Friday, May 26, join a traditional Native American ceremony geared towards helping Mother Earth. Featured guests include actress Irene Bedard, singer/storyteller Yona Welch, the Toltecas En Aztlan dance group and more. $10.

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July 21-22, 2007

American Indian Intertribal Cultural Festival, July 21-22, 2007, Hampton, Va. -- Festival highlighting the contributions and cultures of Virginia Indians, with native foods, dances, traditional stories, arts and crafts and music

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OCT. 5-6

Virginia Indian Symposium -- Williamsburg Hosted by Virginia's Indian tribes, the "400 Years of Survival" symposium will feature nationally known Native American speakers on topics such as sovereignty, federal recognition, health care, repatriation and education.

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Museum of Indian Arts and Culture: "Elements of Earth and Fire: New Directions in Native American Ceramic Art: Color," second of three four-month installations, each focusing on one element of pottery-making. "Color" runs through June 18; series continues through Oct. 8. "Wondrous Works: Contemporary Art by Native American Women, through Jan. 14, 2007. 708 Camino Lejo, Santa Fe. Admission and hours: (505) 476-1250.

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Taos Art Museum: "The Stark Legacy," paintings by members of the Taos Society of Artists. Through July 23. 227 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, Taos. Admission and hours: (505) 758-2690. The art market is a celebration of the contemporary and traditional Native American arts and culture. Activities include Hopi and Navajo dancers and performances by singer James Bilagody and flute player Aldean Ketchum. Food, pottery, arts, crafts and jewelry are available for purchase. For more information, please call 435-678-2238.

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A Markova Tale – Yukaghir / Markova

The people of a village began to vanish, and nobody knew what happened to them. There was a shaman. He traveled through that country and came to the village. The people were quite sad and sorrowful. "What is the matter with you?"--"We do not know. Every night somebody vanished. We have tried to watch, but cannot discover anybody."--"Oh, is that so? Let me try to keep watch over you." Evening came, and it was time to go to sleep. The people were hiding in boxes and bags. "Oh, have no fear! I shall keep a vigilant watch over you." He took a sword and waited in the darkness. The people snored soundly, partly freed from their fear. All at once a black dog glided noiselessly in through the window and seized a workman, a fellow-traveler of the shaman. He struck the dog with his sword. The dog had torn off the man's one arm with the shoulder blade, and the shaman cut off the corresponding limb of the dog. In the hurry of the moment, the shaman took the limb of the dog and applied it to the body of the man, and it stuck to his body.

In the morning he saw that the new arm was not the leg of a dog, but a woman's arm, white of skin and with rings on the fingers. "Ah!" said the shaman, "let me try to find that dog." He went out and followed the bloody tracks. They led to the house of the chief of the village close to the church. It was the house of the parish priest. The shaman entered, and saluted the priest with civility. The priest looked sad, "Ah, my friend! please sit down! I am not able to treat you as is becoming. My wife is sick."--"Ah, is that so! And what is the cause of her suffering?"--"We do not know. She is alone in her room and does not want us to enter. All we know is that she is not well. Please do help her if you can!" The shaman went to the room of the patient. The entrance was locked; he said nothing and suddenly broke the door and entered.

The woman was lying on the bed well wrapped up in a thick blanket. He pulled that off, and she lay before them quite naked. Her right arm was gone, along with the shoulder blade. Close to her side lay the bloody arm of a man, which would not stick to her body. "Ah, here you are!" said the shaman. "Reverend father, it is your wife who destroyed half of the village. Had it not been for me, she would have taken you also."--"Ah, ah!" exclaimed the priest, "Mother what is the matter with you. Now, I understand it. She would give me of her enchanted drink, so that I slept throughout the night like one dead, and she would steal away in the darkness." So they took her and tore her in two.

Told by Mary Alin, a Russianized Chuvantzi woman. Recorded by Mrs. Sophie Bogoras, in the village of Markova, the Anadyr country, winter of 1900.

Tales of Yukaghir, Lamut, and Russianized Natives of Eastern Siberia by Waldemar Bogoras

[1918] and is now in the public domain

http://groups.msn.com/KeeperofStories/
Reprinted by permission

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A Man and His Three Dogs - Winnebago

"This story tells of a certain village where there lived a family of three: a man, his wife, and his mother-in-law. The man had three dogs: a hound, a white dog, and a rat dog. He was very fond of these dogs and used to cut up their meat before he prepared his own. The white dog used to accompany him on the hunt, while the two others stayed at home near the camp. The man was a good hunter, and lived at some distance from the village because he depended for his hunting on a blessing he had received. This year to his surprise he seemed able to kill nothing but a few small animals. He went out, nevertheless, every morning. His family was at the point of starvation. So he knew that something was wrong and he used to wonder and ponder over the cause. His dog, likewise, could not find anything, although in former years, he had always been able to find bear caves and to locate deer, elk, etc.

One night, after they had all gone to bad, the man lay awake, thinking of something. Suddenly he heard the dogs talking to one another. The old hound was asking the other one whether they could not help their master. "I used to be able to help him, when I was young. But now I am old, and our little brother is too young. All that he can do is to play about the camp. So you, who are the second one, are really the only one that can be of any help," So spoke the old hound to the white dog. He answered, "I could have helped our master all this time, but there is a reason why I have not helped him." "What is the reason?" asked the old hound. "Well," answered the white dog, "the old woman, his mother-in-law, once took [a poker?] and struck me across the back with it, hitting my medicine bag. This made my heart very sad and that is the reason that our master has no success in hunting. I see bears and deer every day, when I am out, but I do not show them to him. I like the master and his wife, but I do not like his mother-in-law. However, if he were to cut the deer lung that hangs in his lodge and give it to us, I would show him a place where there are many bear caves. There is one right near here and there are many not far from here." Thus the white dog spoke.

The man had never before been able to understand the dogs but now he was able to talk to them. So in the morning when he got up he took the deer lung and cut it in three parts. His wife noticed this and asked him what he was doing. He answered that he was going to feed his dogs, and she said nothing more. He went and fed his dogs, and they were delighted. Then he took his bow and arrow and went hunting. His dog went along, and as in the olden times, before he had lost sight of his camping place the dog scared up a bear and the man killed it. From that day on he killed a bear or a deer every day. In a short time they were all provided with provisions again.

One night he told his wife what the dogs had said and how they had provided for him, so from that day on they took even better care of them. Some time passed in this manner and one night, when he was again awake he heard the dogs talking. They were saying that he was in the midst of a large body of his enemies and that there was no possible manner by which he could escape. When he heard this he got up and called his dogs into the lodge and fed them. When they had finished eating, the old hound said, "Brother, you have always treated us nicely in the past and you even fed us before you fed yourself. We always tried to help you, but now we are in a great quandary as to what to do, for you are going to have a hard time. We were just talking about this. Our little brother is, of course, of no consequence because he is too young, while I am too old to do anything but lie around the house. So it is really up to our second brother, the white dog to try and help you. He is the only one that can help you, and he has consented to try and help both you and your wife in the coming warfare." He continued, "It is said that one of the (spirit) chiefs has given you away as a victim to the one who is leading the war party. That is why all this has been kept away from you. This war leader fasted more than you did and that is why he is coming after you and why you didn't know about it. We know of it, however, for my brother has seen them today. He is going to take your wife half way back to her folks, and then he will come back and help you fight the enemy. We two, who are good for nothing will stay near the camp and help you in whatever way that we can. My younger brother will now tell you that he knows about it." Then the white dog spoke to the man and said, "Brother, you have always treated me nicely, so I am going to save you and your wife. The enemy, are now circling the camp and when the sun comes up, they are going to attack you from all sides. I went out to get as much information as possible and I heard this war leader say this. Now you must understand what I am going to do. I shall escort your wife as far as I can and then she must hurry to her people and tell them to come to your assistance. The white dog continued, "If her relatives reach us early in the afternoon, they will still find us alive and fighting, but if they come later than that, it will be all over. Therefore, she must tell them to hurry up." He then got the woman and told her to take a hold of his tail, and to crawl when he crouched, and to raise herself when he did, but under no circumstance to let go of his tail. This she did, and in this way he got her to the place he had spoken of. Then he told her to run as fast as she could with her message.

In the meantime the man was getting ready for the attack. He fixed himself up for warfare, straightened his arrows, drew his bowstring tighter, and painted his face, as he always did when he prepared to go on the warpath. Then he said to the dog, "How do I look, brother?" and the dog said, "You look as if it were impossible to kill you." Then the man laughed and said, "It is good." He sat there thinking of the fight before him. He had confidence in the outcome because his brother, the dog, was going to fight with him, even though he knew that the number of the attacking party was very large. After a time the white dog came back and told the man that the only way to fight the enemy was to take turns in fighting them. As soon as they approached, the man was to fight them and when he was tired, the dog would relieve him, and so on. When things were very bad they were to retreat to the lodge and fight in the same manner. "We may be able to resist them until our friends come to our aid, and in any case they will not be able to kill us right away, because my brothers are going to concentrate their minds on us." Thus spoke the white dog, and continued," I, myself, am the chief of the wolves. I tried to become a human being like you, but I only succeeded in changing myself into an ordinary dog. I am in possession of a considerable amount of war blessings."

It was now dawn, and the enemy gave the war whoop and rushed for the man. The man, however, also gave the war whoop and rushed out with his dogs to meet them. He drove them back a ways, and then he ran back to the lodge. Then Wolf ran out to attack them. He made a great deal of noise and jumped at them, trying to tear their scrotums. Both the man and the dog, in this manner, killed many of the enemies. Thus they fought for a long time, and when the sun began to go towards the west, their friends came up and the fighting continued. Finally, both the man and the dog fell down exhausted, but some friends carried them away in blankets. While the fighting continued, the man regained consciousness, but the wolf lay unconscious for four days. His white coat was red with the blood of human beings. Finally he, too, regained consciousness, and said to the man, "Brother, I have done wrong. My coat is covered with the blood of human beings and it will never be white again. I know that he who is in control of wars will not like this at all. From now on the people will call me "the red wolf," and as the years roll on they will tell of my conduct. You yourself are a human and will remain here, but I shall go where Earth maker has placed me."

So this is the story of how a wolf tried to become a human being, and how he only succeeded in changing himself into an ordinary dog. He did something that was entirely wrong, and therefore left us humans. The man in this story had treated him nicely so he blessed him and saved him and his wife."

Paul Radin, A Man and His Three Dogs, in Notebooks, Winnebago IV, #6, Freeman Number 3853 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) pp. 143-147. RADIN, PAUL. Folklore texts, Winnebago [1908-1912]. and is now in the public domain.

http://groups.msn.com/KeeperofStories/
Reprinted by permission

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Books and Articles

Dorothy Dunn On Primitive Art
Excerpt
Anthropologists use the term "primitive" as a general category to describe cultures which had not achieved a certain standard (define modernity). For Dunn, a primitive was not a certain type of culture, but described individuals and objects indigenous to any, every, culture. The primitive subject was that gifted individual, or "seer" whom was able to discern the primitive objects relevant to their culture. These objects were also primitives, and represented the signs, icons, or symbols of a culture. Thus, for Dunn, primitive art was the one to one relationship between the seer and the perceived set of primitive objects of their culture. Primitive was not a certain type of culture, but a certain set of variables occurring in every culture, and primitive art was an event that portrayed the values, or what was of importance in that culture. Thus, Dunn encouraged her students to carry on the tradition into the Modernist era.

Essay on the Zuni World View
Excerpt(Complete article is available in PDF)
In Signs from the Ancestors, a study of Zuni cultural symbolism and perceptions in rock art, M. Jane Young cites the "dialectics of the beautiful and the dangerous" noted by Barbara Tedlock and states that "Tedlock posits an underlying aesthetic framework that informs cosmology, whereas I posit an underlying cosmological principle that informs aesthetics". From the perspective of this paper and its conclusions it would appear that Young is perhaps partially correct in her ascertainment although the confluence of the two principles makes it difficult to discern logical priority in either the beautiful (tso’ya) or the dangerous (attanni), for the multireferential finds manifestation of beauty in the "aesthetic of accumulation, an elaborate redundancy of symbolism in Zuni sacred and secular environments" and informs cosmological principles of the preconditions of the rational, while aesthetic license premises pragmatics where proper interpretation of context ensures that rational thought of the "perspective-taker" attains objectivity as a "personal accomplishment" in the success of "reciprocal public intentions". This is because the principle of the “base metaphor” cited by Young is inclusive of a body of conceptual presuppositions which include the notion of an interrelatedness of all things, which is seen here as a cosmological precept akin to notions of identity and individuation, and the notion of a predetermined harmony as indicative of the aesthetic. Young notes that the “very generality of the metaphor lends its ambiguity--an ambiguity quite characteristic of the Zuni view of the world. Zuni ritual symbols, whether expressed verbally or visually, are frequently multivalent or multireferential, standing for both themselves and something else at the same time; yet all of the meanings are bound together, so that the Zunis say, as do the Mescalero Apache: "They’re all the same thing".

Bibliography of the Zuni Language
Excerpt
The Zuni, or Shiwi language, is now generally considered a language isolate. The Encyclopedia Britannica categorizes it as a Penutian language, and Bertha Dutton once posed the hypothetical that according to the Swadesh list, "If the Zuni language is a member of the Penutian language family, then it is a distant relative of the Tanoan languages (Tewi)." The Penutian hypothesis was advanced by Alfred Kroeber and Roland B. Dixon, and later refined by Edward Sapir, and was an attempt to reduce the number of unrelated language families in a culturally diverse area that was centered in California's central coast. While this theory was plausible for some of the languages, the problem of verification of this theory was that to find any evidence of any cognates between the California languages and Zuni, one would possibly have to trace the languages' lineage by as much as 3000-5000 years or more.

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Indian Ledger Art-Resources and Information
Excerpt
Ledger art is traditionally a male American Indian pictographic art form, and historically has been characterized as such by researchers. Chronologically its stylistic development belongs to the Proto-Modern era of the Native American Fine Arts Movement and was a major influence, through trade routes and the patronage of white art collectors, on Modern Indian Art as its elements diffused to the schools of New Mexico, Oklahoma, and the Northwest Coast. Its more explicit expression, however, yielded to the styles that developed in these schools and culminated in the early 1960's during a period of the Movement referred to as the First Generation Modernists. Only recently have the researchers of Ledger art recognized Virginia Stroud as the Native American Woman artist who, as a Second Generation Modernist and a member of the so-called "New Indian Art Movement", revitalized a traditionally male form of art expression with her pictographic images in the late 1960's to the early 1980's. Influence on Stroud's stylistic achievements can be attributed to her Kiowa upbringing centered in Oklahoma, which is the major geographic center of the Southern Plains school, and her attendance at Bacone under the direction and influence of Dr. Richard West.

AEQ Book Review of Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas .
Frawley, William, Kenneth C. Hill, and Pamela Munro, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. 450 pp. ISBN 0520229967, $34.95.
© 2004 American Anthropological Association Book Review of Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas .
Reviewed for the Anthropology & Education Quarterly by Catherine S. Fowler
University of Nevada
csfowler@unr.nevada.edu
To Order this book

THE FOURTH WORLD
W. Tussinger has written his first novel which was released in December, 2004.
W. Tussinger is a member of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma and has lived on several reservations including the Yuroks of Northern California and the Yakamas of Washington State where he attended college.
To Order this book

An Overview of Pacific Northwest Native Indian Art
Free downloadable e-book

American Indian Women's Activism in the 1960s and 1970s
by Donna Hightower Langston
Complete article

THE WOMEN/Edward S. Curtis
"THE WOMEN/Edward S. Curtis," by Christopher Cardozo; foreword by Louise Erdrich (Bulfinch Press, $35) — Cardozo, who lives in Minneapolis, is the world's foremost expert on, and collector of, photos of American Indians taken by turn-of-the-century photographer Edward S. Curtis. Cardozo went through 1,000 photos to find the 100 sepia-toned images in this book, which show the daily lives of American Indian women at a time when most were already on reservations. Minneapolis novelist and poet Erdrich discusses women's work in her foreword: " … although Edward Curtis believed that he was documenting a vanishing culture, it is in these humble arts that the strength of Native culture lives on."

Linguists Find the Words, and Pocahontas Speaks Again
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, The Book
Early tribal artifacts put in spotlight at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

"Communing with Bears"
By Sara Wright
Communing with Bears is the story of a joyful encounter between one woman and a black bear.

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Web Sites:
Native American Links Page
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Wisdom of the Old People
By David Whitney

National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation
Inuit film to tell story of last great shaman
My Two Beads Worth: Indigenous News Online
Northern California Indian Development Council
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Smudge Ceremony

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Literacy in Indigenous Communities by L. David van Broekhuizen, Ph.D. (2000)
HTML Format (70K)
PDF Format(117K)
Literacy in first languages in indigenous communities is a complex topic that generates lively discussion. This research synthesis explores the notions of national, mother-tongue, multiple, and biliteracies. It presents important information pertaining to threatened languages, language shift, and language loss. Examples of culturally relevant uses of literacy in indigenous communities and issues related to first-language literacy instruction are also provided.