Amerindian Arts Native American News & Information: Historical description of Zuni fetishes and collector's information

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Historical description of Zuni fetishes and collector's information
Frank Hamilton Cushing, Zuni fetishes, Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology

Zuni fetishes traditionally served a ceremonial purpose for their creators and depict animals and icons integral to their culture. According to the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology as submitted by Frank Hamilton Cushing in 1881, and posthumously published as "Zuni Fetishes" in 1966, the Zuni world is made up of six regions or directions. At the center of each region is a great mountain peak that is a very sacred place. Yellow mountain to the north, blue mountain to the west, red mountain to the south, white mountain to the east, the multi-colored mountain above, and the black mountain below.

Each direction is represented by a "Prey God", or guardian animal, and are listed by Cushing as follows: north - the yellow mountain lion, west - the Black Bear (represented by the color blue), south - the red badger, east - the white wolf, the sky or upper region - the multi-colored eagle, and the underground or lower region- the black mole. Each prey god is the "guardian and master" of their region with the yellow mountain lion being the elder brother of all animals and the master and guardian of all regions. Each one of these regions contains an order of the guardian animals, but the "guardian and master" of a particular region is the elder brother to all animals of that region. For example, the black bear is the guardian of the west and the elder brother of the prey god order in that region. These guardians are considered as having protective and healing powers. They are held by the priests of the medicine orders as if "in captivity" and act as mediators between the priests and the animals they represent. The Prey Gods are the "Makers of the Paths of Life". Medicinal powers emanate from them and their powers as mediators is given through their relationship to Po-shai-an-kia, the father of the medicine societies, the "Finisher of the Paths of Our Lives", the "auditor of the prayers".

A second group of fetishes, the "Prey Gods of the Hunt", belonging to the Hunter Order, or Society, are given in the "prayer songs of the Sa-ni-a-kia-kwe" (The Hunting Order). These guardian animals are the same as the original regions with the exception of the coyote, which replaces the bear; and the wildcat, which replaces the red badger. Sa-ni-a-kia is the power of the hunter; the voice, breath, and heart, of the animal, and represents its power over other animals. The Zuni hunter, or "Prey brother", was required to have his fetishes (prey gods of the hunt) with a custodian, or "Keeper", and practice a ceremony of worship when procuring a favorite or proper fetish to aid in a successful hunt. In the ceremony of the hunt the Keeper presented a clay pot containing the fetishes to the hunter. Facing in the direction appropriate to the chosen fetish the pot was sprinkled with medicine meal and a prayer was recited. The fetish was placed in a buckskin bag and carried by the hunter over his heart. The fetish aids in the chase and represents "the roar of the animal" and feeds upon the blood of the slain prey.

In addition to the Prey Gods of the Six Regions with their guardian and medicinal powers, and the Prey Gods of the Hunt that aid in the chase, Cushing names three Prey Gods of the Priesthood of the Bow.........Read the entire article here

The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian virtual gallery

The Museum is posting its 800,000 piece collection on the web. The project is expected to take four years

For more information

Interview With A Navajo Weaver

“It’s done with chants and prayers,” Garnanez of Waterflow, 56, said while sitting at his loom on a recent Monday. “It’s about things that aren’t important to Western thought.”

See full interview

Gorman estate sues Albuquerque galleries

See full article here

Fifth Big Spring Powwow

“The Southern Drum host this year is Robert Tehauno of Lawton, Okla.,” said Lesser. “The Northern Drum host is Northern Vibe from Jemez Pueblo, N.M. The drum hosts are responsible for keeping the event flowing without interruptions, and the names indicate what type of music and songs the hosts perform.
See full article here

Four men arrested for killing eagles

The men are charged with alleged violations of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the Lacey Act. Arrested were Ricky Sam Wahchumwah, of Granger, Wash., Alfred L. Hawk Jr., of White Swan, Wash., William Wahsise, also of White Swan, Wash., and Reginald Dale Akeen, also known as J.J. Lonelodge, of Anadarko, Okla.
See full article here

Native American comics

The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC has staged an exhibition about comic art and Native American culture.
See full notice here

Native American Events, Eastern, OK, March-July, 2009

March 22
Art Exhibit: Harvey Pratt Paintings Opening and reception 2-5p.m.
Gallery Talk 3:30 p.m. at Southern Plains Indian Museum, 715 E. Central, Anadarko, Okla. 405.247.6221

March 26-27
Indian Territory Days, Cherokee Heritage Center, Tahlequah, OK.
www.cherokeeheritage.org

April 11
4th Annual Azalea Powwow
at the Muskogee, Oklahoma Civic Center, Muskogee, Okla. Contact Charlene Allen at 918/687-1882
See full March-July, 2009 schedule here

Lawton Gallery seeks Native American art for fall 2010 exhibition

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Lawton Gallery, located at 2420 Nicolet Dr., is seeking Native American art for an exhibition scheduled in the fall of 2010.

To obtain current information

MISSION, S.D. – Native Green, a certified Native American owned company

Launches new green products site and green job creation program

See full article

Arkansas Museum Opening Permanent Native American Exhibit

"We Walk in Two Worlds: The Caddo, Osage and Quapaw in Arkansas" opens March 27 in the museum's newly refurbished Cromwell Hall gallery.

See full article

Sherman Alexie, an award-winning Native American writer

Statler Auditorium lecture, “The Partially True Story of the True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.”

See full article

Johnny Whitehorse/ Totemic Flute Chants

“All over the world man has relied on the mystery and power of animals to guide him.”

Johnny Whitehorse is the creation of Robert Mirabel

Museum exhibit features Cheyenne/Arapaho artist

The artwork by Harvey Pratt will be on view through May 2, 2009. Gallery hours are 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. On April 18, 2009 at 1:00 p.m., Harvey Pratt will return to the Southern Plains Indian Museum for a fascinating discussion of the great mystery of Bigfoot.

See full article

Cherokee Chiefs

Cherokee Chiefs

Big-mush. A noted western Cherokee, known to the whites also as Hard-mush and among his people as Gatiûñ’wa’li (’bread made into balls or lumps’), killed by the Texans in 1839-Mooney in 19th Rep. B. A. E., 1900.

Black Fox (Inâlĭ). A principal chief of the Cherokee who, under the treaty of Jan. 7, 1806, by which the Cherokee ceded nearly 7,000 sq. m. of their lands in Tennessee and Alabama, was given a life annuity of $100. He was then an old man. In 1810, as a member of the national council of his tribe, he signed an enactment formally abolishing the custom of clan revenge hitherto universal among the tribes, thus taking an important step toward civilization.-Mooney in 19th Rep. B. A. E., 87, 1900.

Little Carpenter, Attakullaculla (Ătă’-gûl’kălû’, from ătă’ wood,’ gûl’kălû’ a verb implying that something long is leaning, without sufficient support, against some other object; hence ‘Leaningwood.’-Mooney). A noted Cherokee chief, born about 1700, known to the whites as Little Carpenter (Little Cornplanter, by mistake, in Haywood). The first notice of him is as one of the delegation taken to England by Sir Alexander Cumming in 1730. It is stated that he was made second in authority under Oconostota in 1738. He was present at the conference with Gov. Glenn, of South Carolina, in July, 1753, where he was the chief speaker in behalf of the Indians, but asserted that he had not supreme authority, the consent of Oconostota, the war chief, being necessary for final action. Through his influence a treaty of peace was arranged with Gov. Glenn in 1755, by which a large cession of territory was made to the King of England; and it was also through his instrumentality that Ft Dobbs was built, in the year following, about 20 miles, west of the present Salisbury, N. C. When Ft Loudon, on Little Tennessee River, Tenn., was captured by the Indians in 1760, and most of the garrison and refugees were massacred, Capt. Stuart, who had escaped the tomahawk, was escorted safely to Virginia by Attakullaculla, who purchased him from his Indian captor, giving to the latter, as ransom, his rifle, clothes, and everything he had with him. It was again through the influence of Attakullaculla that the treaty of Charleston was signed i n 1761, and that Stuart, after peace had been restored, was received by the Cherokee as the British agent for the southern tribes; yet notwithstanding his friendship for Stuart, who remained a steadfast loyalist in the Revolution, and the fact that a large majority of the Cherokee espoused the British cause, Attakullaculla raised a force of 500 native warriors which he offered to the Americans. He is described by William Bartram (Travels, 482, 1792), who visited him in 1776, as “a man of remarkably small stature, slender and of a delicate frame, the only instance I saw in the nation, but he is a man of superior abilities.” Although he had become sedate, dignified, and somewhat taciturn in mature years, Logan (Hist. Upper So. Car., 1, 490, 515, 1859) says that in his younger days he was fond of the bottle and often inebriate. The date of his death has not been recorded, but it was probably about 1780. See Mooney in 19th Rep. B. A. E., 1900.

John RossRoss, John. Chief of the Cherokee; Born in Rossville, Ga., Oct. 3, 1790; died in Washington, D. C., Aug. 1, 1866. He was the son of an immigrant from Scotland by a Cherokee wife who was herself three-quarters white. His boyhood name of Tsan-usdĭ, ‘Little John,’ was exchanged when he reached man’s estate for that of Guwisguwi, or Cooweescoowee, by which was known a large white bird of uncommon occurrence, perhaps the egret or the swan. He went to school in Kingston, Tenn. In 1809 he was sent on a mission to the Cherokee in Arkansas by the Indian agent, and thence forward till the close of his life he remained in the public service of his nation. At the battle of the Horseshoe, and in other operations of the Cherokee contingent against the Creeks in 1813-14, he was adjutant of the Cherokee regiment. He was chosen a member of the national committee of the Cherokee Council in 1817, and drafted the reply to the U. S. commissioners who were sent to negotiate the exchange of the Cherokee lands for others w. of the Mississippi. In the contest against the removal his talents found play and recognition. As president of the national committee from 1819 till 1826 he was instrumental in the introduction of school and mechanical training, and led in the development of the civilized autonomous government embodied in the republican constitution adopted in 1827. He was associate chief with William Hicks in that year, and president of the Cherokee constitutional convention. From 1828 till the removal to Indian Territory in 1839 he was principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, and headed the various national delegations that visited Washington to defend the right of the Cherokee to their national territory. After the arrival in Indian Territory, he was chosen chief of the united Cherokee Nation, and held that office until his death, although during the dissensions caused by the Civil War the Federal authorities temporarily deposed him. See Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee, 19th Rep. B. A. E., 122, 150, 224, 225, 1900.

Sequoya Inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, born in the Cherokee town of Taskigi, Tenn., about 1760; died near San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, in Aug. 1843. He was the son of a white man and a Cherokee woman of mixed blood, daughter of a chief in Echota. Besides his native name of Sikwayi, or Sequoya, he was known as George Gist, otherwise spelled Guest or Guess, the patronymic of his father, generally believed to have been a German trader. He has also been claimed as the son of Nathaniel Gist of Revolutionary note. Sequoya grew up in the tribe, quite unacquainted with English or civilized arts, becoming a hunter and trader in furs. He was also a craftsman in silverwork, an ingenious natural mechanic, and his inventive powers had scope for development in consequence of an accident that befell him in hunting and rendered him a cripple for life. The importance of the arts of writing and printing as instruments and weapons of civilization began to impress him in 1809, and he studied, undismayed by the discouragement and ridicule of his fellows, to elaborate a system of writing suitable to the Cherokee language. In 1821 he submitted his syllabary to the chief men of the nation, and on their approval the Cherokee of all ages set about to learn it with such zeal that after a few months thousands were able to read and write their language. Sequoya, in 1822, visited Arkansas to introduce writing in the Western division of the Cherokee, among whom he took up his permanent abode in 1823. Parts of the Bible were printed in Cherokee in 1824, and in 1828 The Cherokee Phoenix, a weekly newspaper in Cherokee and English , began to appear. Sequoya was sent to Washington in 1828 as an envoy of the Arkansas band, in whose affairs he bore a conspicuous part, and when the Eastern Cherokee joined the old settlers in the west his influence and counsel were potent in the organization of the reunited nation in Indian Territory. When, in his declining years, he withdrew from active political life, speculative ideals once again possessed his mind. He visited tribes of various stocks in a fruitless search for the elements of a common speech and grammar. He sought also to trace a lost band of the Cherokee that, according to tradition, had crossed the Mississippi before the Revolution and wandered to some mountains in the west, and while pursuing this quest in the Mexican sierras he met his death. See Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee, 19th Rep., B. A. E., 108 et seq., 147, 148, 1900, and the authorities therein cited.

Moytoy. A Cherokee chief of Tellico, Tenn., who became the so-called “emperor” of the seven chief Cherokee towns. Sir Alexander Cuming, desirous of enlisting the Cherokee in the British interest, decided to place in control a chief of his own selection. Moytoy was chosen, the Indians were induced to accept him, giving him the title of emperor; and, to carry out the program, all the Indians, including their new sovereign, pledged themselves on bended knees to be the faithful subjects of King George. On the next day, April 4, 1730, “the crown was brought front Great Tennessee, which, with five eagle-tails and four scalps of their enemies, Moytoy presented to Sir Alexander, empowering him to lay the same at His Majesty’s feet.” Nevertheless, Moytoy afterward became a bitter enemy of the whites, several of whom he killed without provocation at Sitico, Tenn. See Mooney in 19th Rep. B. A. E., pt. 1, 1900.

Tags: Cherokee, chiefs, North America, southeast

Keeper of Stories

DVD- American Experience: Last Stand at Little Big Horn (2005)

Narrated by Pulitzer Prize-winning Native American writer Scott Momaday, "Last Stand at Little Big Horn" is an examination of Custer's last stand from the viewpoints of the Lakota Sioux and the white settlers. The film is a collaboration of Native American novelist James Welch (Winter in the Blood, The Indian Lawyer) and white filmmaker Paul Stekler (Eyes on the Prize).

Order American Experience: Last Stand at Little Big Horn

Recent Books of Interest

''Canyon Gardens: The Ancient Pueblo Landscapes of the American Southwest (University of New Mexico Press: 2006). Editors V.B. Price and Baker H. Morrow have assembled 15 essays on the millennium-old Puebloan landscape.

"Being Lakota", Book by Larissa Petrillo

"American Indian Nations: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow", Book by George Horse Capture

Spokane artist George Flett, well kown for his depictions of ledger art, announcing forthcoming book "The Ledger Art of George Flett"

Po'pay, Leader of the First American Revolution, Clear Light Publishing, 2006, new book by Herman Agoyo (Ohkay Owingeh)

Zuni fetish updates from Amerindian Arts