Native American Art News: Artists honored: SWAIA recognizes this year's top American Indian artists

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Marmon receives lifetime award

Artists honored: SWAIA recognizes this year's top American Indian artists

NASA and AIHEC Announce Program to Inspire Young American Indians Towards Science and Engineering

American Indian performer Jack Anquoe dies; wrote over 100 songs

Luis Jimenez, Sculptor, Dies in an Accident at 65

Elders honored at Laguna mini-feast

Oneida parties have an educational twist

Traditional Dancing, Unique Cuisine and Interesting Crafts Highlight the Southeastern Cherokee Celebration

73rd Annual Hopi Festival of Arts and Culture July 1 and 2

Bones unearthed in S.J. appear to be from ancient burial site

Fargo considering Native American Commission

73rd Annual Hopi Festival of Arts and Culture July 1 and 2

American Indian Treasures - Tucson doesn’t just boast about our Native American Heritage, we offer you the chance to take some home! There are many renowned galleries specializing in American Indian arts and crafts throughout the city. Bahti Indian Arts is owned and run by Mark Bahti, son of the man who literally wrote the book on American Indian art, Tom Bahti. Since 1952, his store has sold high-quality jewelry, pottery, rugs, art, and more. Mark Sublette’s Medicine Man Gallery specializes in the life work of famed western painter, Maynard Dixon as well as antique American Indian art, early Western paintings and contemporary works. For over 55 years, Kaibab and Desert House in central Tucson have been favorites for quality, American Indian and Southwestern items such as Navajo weavings, Hopi katsina dolls, beautiful Pueblo pottery, basketry, fetishes, and distinctive clothing

Jackie Tice, Native American folk singer, tickets at the box office, by phone or online, June 30, Thrasher Opera House, 506 Mill St., Green Lake, Wisconsin, $12, (888) 441-0140, www.thrasheroperahouse.com.

"Native American Pottery from the Pueblos" will run through Aug. 27 at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, Indiana, 102 S. 10th St. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Call 742-1128.

From the Albuquerque Tribune -- The new Povika Award - named in honor of Maria Povika Martinez, a San Idelfonso potter who was the SWAIA's first female Lifetime Achievement recipient in 1995 - will recognize the contributions lifelong supporters have made to the Santa Fe Indian Market.

The following awards will be presented at the reception, which takes place at 6 p.m. Thursday June 15 at Santa Fe's Inn and Spa at Loretto, 211 Old Santa Fe Trail:

Lifetime Achievement: painter and print-maker R.C. Gorman (posthumous, Navajo); photographer Lee Marmon (Laguna Pueblo); potter Grace Medicine Flower (Santa Clara Pueblo), and bead and quill worker Joyce Growing Thunder Fogarty (Assiniboine Sioux).

Fellowship Awards: Angela Babby (Oglala Lakota) for mosaic glass work; Fritz Casuse (Dine) for jewelry; Larson Goldtooth (Hopi) for potter; Darrel Jumbo (Navajo) for jewelry; Mona Laughing (Navajo) for weaving, and Lisa Telford (Haida) for basketry.

Youth Fellowship Awards: Paris Larson Bread (Blackfeet/Navajo/Apache) for painting/drawing; Thomas Lovato (Santo Domingo Pueblo) for painting/drawing, and Krystal Schultz (Navajo) for weaving.

Povika Awards: Al Packard (posthumous), formerly of Albuquerque; Sam and the late Ethel Ballen of Santa Fe, and Rex Arrowsmith of Oro Valley, Ariz.

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.

Rochester, New York-The Native American Dance and Music Festival (July 29 and 30). Traditional dancers, artists and storytellers demonstrate culture and explain history.

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

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.

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.

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.

A Tale Of Elder Brother - Pima

You people desired to capture Elder Brother so that you might destroy him, so you went to Vulture. He made a miniature earth, shaping the mountains, routing the watercourses, and placing the trees, and in four days he completed his task. Mounting the zigzag ladders of his house he flew forth and circled about until he saw Elder Brother. Vulture saw the blue flames issuing from Brother's heart and knew that he was invulnerable. In his turn Elder Brother knew what had made the earth, and wished to kill him.

Elder Brother, as he regained consciousness, rose on hands and feet and swayed unsteadily from side to side. He looked at the land about him, and at first it seemed a barren waste, but as he recovered from his bewilderment he saw the wonderful world Vulture had built. Looking about him he saw a river toward the west along which grew arrow bushes. From these he cut four magic sticks; placing his hand in these he blew smoke over them, whereupon magic power shone forth from between his fingers. He was much pleased with this and laughed softly to himself.

He rubbed his magic bag of buckskin four times with each of the four sticks and then put them in and tied it. Then, with his strength fully recovered, Elder Brother began to move. He arose and crushed all mortal magicians; the orator, the warrior, the industrious, and the provident woman, and even ground his own house into the earth. Then he sank beneath the surface of the earth.

He reappeared in the east and made a transparent trail back to the place where he had gone down. About the base of his mountains the water began to seep forth; entering, he came out with spirit refreshed. Taking all waters, even those covered with water plants, he dipped his hands in and made downward passes. Touching the large trees he made downward sweeps with his hands.

Going to the place where he had killed Eagle he sat down looking like a ghost. A voice from the darkness asked, "Why are you here?" He answered sadly that despite all that he had done for them the people hated him. He went on to the east, renewing his power four times at the place where the sun rises. He blew his hot breath upon the people, which like a weight held them where they were. He went along with the sun on his journey, traveling along the south border of the trail where there was a fringe of beads, feathers, strings of down, and flowers. He jerked the string holding these so that they fell and made the magicians jump. Later he did the same thing in the north.

On his journey along the sun's orbit Elder Brother came to Talking Tree. "Why do you come like a ghost?" asked Tree. He replied, "Despite all I have done for the people they hate me." Tree broke one of its middle branches and cut a notch around it to form a war club and gave it to him. Then Tree took a branch on the south side and made a bundle of ceremonial sticks from it for him. He saw a trail toward the south and another toward the north bordered with shells, feathers, down, and flowers, and he turned them all over.

Arriving at the drinking place of the sun, he knelt down and saw a dark-blue stone. He left there the sticks cut from the arrow bush which he knew contained all his enemies' power, but he kept in his grasp the sticks cut from Talking Tree. Toward the south were strewn necklaces, earrings, feathers, strings of down, and flowers, all of which he jerked and threw face down. Toward the north he threw down the same objects, and as they struck the earth the magicians jumped again. Reaching the place where the sun sets he slid down four times before he reached the place where Earth Doctor lived.

"Why do you come looking like a ghost?" asked the god. "Despite all that I have done for them the people hate me," he answered. By Earth Doctor's order the wind from the west caught him up and carried him far to the east, then brought him back and violently tossed him back down to earth. The south wind carried him to the north; the east wind carried him to the west; the wind from the zenith carried him to the sky; all carelessly dropped him back down again. From his cigarette containing two kinds of roots Earth Doctor blew smoke upon the breast of Elder Brother, whereupon green leaves sprang forth and he gained consciousness. Earth Doctor cleared the ground for a council and then picked up Elder Brother as he would have taken up a child and put him in his house.

Earth Doctor sent Gray Gopher up through the earth to emerge in the east by the white water where lay the eagle tail. He came out by the black water where lay the raven feathers. He came out by the blue water where lay the bluebird's feathers. He came out by the yellow water where lay the hawk feathers. He found so many people that he feared they could not be conquered. But he gnawed the magic power of their leader until he weakened it. Then he returned to the council in the nether world, where his power as a magician was recognized, and he was placed on a mat with Elder Brother.

The people were now ready to do whatever Elder Brother desired of them and, like fierce predatory animals or birds of prey, they poured out of the underworld and fell upon the people of the upper world, whom they conquered without difficulty. The victors swept the property and everything relating to the conquered from the face of the earth. Consider the magic power which abode with me and which is at your service.

Based on Frank Russell's 1908 report on the Pimas, and is now in the public domain.

This fantastic tale of creation and violence features several related episodes in the life of the great Pima culture hero, Elder Brother, whose task it is to assert order in the primordial chaos. Elder Brother fixes the features of the landscape, he brings elements of Pima culture, and he struggles with representatives of perdition and evil, vanquishing them or, in turn, being killed himself and rising to live on another day. The Pima tell such stories not as self-contained tales but in a narrative chain, one incident suggesting the next, achieving an episodic progression with neither beginnings nor ends.

http://groups.msn.com/KeeperofStories/
Reprinted from this site by permission

Articles by Chet Staley, Amerindian Arts

Dorothy Dunn On Primitive Art
(Excerpt)Quoting Alice Corbin Henderson, Dunn states that in an Indian society, art is "possessed in common" and "totally lacking in individualistic concept." Thus, objectivity is enjoined with intentionality as personal accomplishment without a reference to the individual. This would satisfy a pedagogic sense of rationality in that in an Indian society "the surest way to make a prayer effective is to symbolize the matter prayed for" (Bandelier). If the prayer (the art of rhetoric) was effective, then it was handed down from generation to generation and its success justified its rationality.

Essay on the Zuni World View

Bibliography of the Zuni Language

Indian Ledger Art-Resources and Information

Books of Interest

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

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."
To Order this book

Literature on Native America

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

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.

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.

Web Sites:

Native American Links Page
Indigenous Peoples Literature
Native Voice
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
Native Village
Smudge Ceremony

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