Butterflies and Moths in Contemporary Zuni Art, Norval Morrisseau, Aleeah Livengood
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Headlines, exhibits, powwows listed below: (access past headline archives for 2004-2006 here)
Butterflies and Moths in Contemporary Zuni Art
American Indian culture will promote collectiveness or communal interests over individual interests
Edward Curtis's 'The North American Indian,' is Swann's first million-dollar lot
Tiger Mountain-This is Indian territory. Always was
American Indian crafts at sale come wrapped in lore
Pow Wow spreads American Indian culture
Oklahoma Indian mounds site will host winter solstice walks
New Mexico pueblo welcomes visitors for Christmas on the mesa
Indian center seeks toys for Christmas
Snoqualmie Tribe opens store selling native crafts
Norval Morrisseau, Native Canadian Artist, Is Dead
American Indian sculptor Parker Boyiddle dies at 60
Indian voices and a new comprehensive Indian policy
SIXTH SEASON OF NATIVE TRAILS SHOWCASES NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE
Maria Tallchief - A new documentary
Browning captures essence of Native Americans
Norval Morrisseau, Famed native painter
Native American Photojournalist wins Fellowship and Award
Saturday, Dec. 15: On the third (FREE) day of (Indy) Christmas, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art gives to you … the dynamic art, culture and history of American Indians and the American West. The Eiteljorg showcases one of the best Native American and Western art collections in the world, including traditional and contemporary works by artists such as T.C. Cannon, Georgia O’Keeffe and Kay Walkingstick. While you’re there, don’t miss the Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Art exhibition featuring the work from a distinguished artist and five contemporary fine artists selected for the honor. Free parking. www.eiteljorg.org
Closer to Home: Native American Art
The Detroit Institute of Arts new thematic organization of art is particularly striking in the museum's Native American galleries, which arguably boasts the best collections of Great Lakes and Plains Indians art and artifacts of any large, encyclopedic art museum in the United States. Visitors' instruction in Native American culture includes a section on clothing as art and identity, which is particularly interesting in that it explores how Indian American garb grew bolder as tribes grew more fragmented and oppressed in the Manifest Destiny delirium of mid-18th century. While the trend may seem counterintuitive, Native American curator David Penney explains that the adoption of dramatic clothing constituted "a strategy for cultural assertiveness" for American Indians, who had control over little more than their clothing and rituals as they were pushed westward in the wake of the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
Visitors can also check out a gallery on "transforming traditions," which shows how Native Americans have passed on skills from generation to generation. Penney says the DIA was careful to put an emphasis on the work of present day Native Americans, who repeatedly asserted their relevance as the DIA conducted research on reorganization.
"We spoke with many Native Americans who said to us, 'Don't put us in the past. We're part of the fabric of America right now,'" Penney says. Viewers will see a number of objects demonstrating the preservation of craft construction in Indian cultures. Hung side by side in one room, for example, are a 20th century Navajo carpet and a Navajo blanket from 1850, both demonstrating the same weaving techniques. (By the way, fans of Antiques Roadshow will recognize the blanket from the 2002 season, when at $500,000 it became the highest appraised item in the show's history.)
by Lucy Ament-Model D media
Work by local artist Dejean Jawrunner and Linda Lomahaftewa will be on exhibit at the Harwood Museum of Art/Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, NM, Sept 28 to Dec. 30.
A Kiowa's Odyssey: A sketchbook from Fort Marion, images by Etahdleuh Doanmoe, an American Indian who more than 125 years ago was taken from his home in Oklahoma and imprisoned in an Army fort in Florida along with 71 other Indians. The Trout Gallery, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA. Runs until early 2008.
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
Iktomi and the Young Man - Lakota
There was a young man who had many horses and plenty of adornments. He had four sisters who made many ornaments of quillwork, painted robes for him, and made plenty of clothing so that he was always well- dressed and finely painted and had plenty of everything.
A great chief had a young and beautiful daughter. She was industrious and could make beautiful quillwork and paint robes, and she could tan skins and make good clothing. This chief sent word to this young man that he would give him his daughter for a wife. The young man dressed in his finest clothing, putting on quilled moccasins and quilled leggings and beaded breech cloth. He took with him a fine pipe and a beaded tobacco sack. He wrapped about him a fine buffalo robe of a young cow taken when the hair was the best which his sisters had tanned, soft and white, and upon which his adopted mother had painted her dream. He took with him a love medicine that was made by the oldest Shaman among all the people and a flute upon which he had learned to play love songs.
When he started for the chief's house, his oldest sister said to him, "Watch for Iktomi. Do not let him fool you." The young man replied, "I am too wise, Iktomi can't fool me. He went on his way, thinking about the beautiful young girl he was to have for his wife. When he came to a spring of water he sat down in the shade and played a love song on his flute. While he was playing, another young man appeared before him, but he was very poor and had only the poorest kind of clothing. All he had was a breech cloth and an old ragged robe, but he was good looking and strong. He said to the young man, "You play a love song very well. If you should play that way to a young woman she would take you for her man."
This pleased the young man, for lie thought that he would play that way for the chief's daughter. He lighted his pipe and gave the other young man a smoke. Then the other young man said, "I would like to hear you play again." So he played another song and the second young man said, "Oh that is more pleasing than the other; no young woman could hear you play that and resist you." This pleased the young man so that he said, "I will teach you to play that way so that you may also get a woman."
He taught the other young man to play like he did. Then the other young man said, "I think you are very strong. Let us wrestle to see who is the stronger." They wrestled and the young man threw the second young man. Then the poor young man said, "I think you are a great hunter, let us shoot the arrow and see who can make the best shot." They shot arrows at a target and the young man made the best shot.
Then the other young man said, "Let us run a race and see who can run the faster." They ran a hundred paces and the young man won the race. Then the other young man said, "Let us run around this spring and know who can run the greatest distance. But the young man said, "No, let us run to that high hill, a long way off and back." The other young man agreed to this. The young man stripped himself of all his clothing except his breech cloth. He piled all his fine clothing, his pipe, his robe, and the flute near the spring. The other young man said, "Let us hide our clothing, someone may come and take everything while we are running." They hid their clothing, the young man putting his clothing in a pile and other young man putting his robe at another place. The way they had to run was very hilly and the other young man said, "I run very slowdown a hill but I run very fast up a hill." The young man said, "I run very fast down a hill, but I cannot run so fast up a hill." Then the other young man said, "You had better run as fast as you can down the hills, because I will run by you up the hills, if you don't."
They started from the spring up a hill. The other young man ran as fast as he could up the hill and reached the top first; but when they ran down hill, the other young man ran very slowly and the young man ran as fast as he could and passed him very quickly so that he was at the top of the next hill before the other young man was at the bottom of the first hill.
Then the young man looked back at the other young man and laughed and cried out to him, "I will beat you badly for I will be at the top of the next hill before you will come in sight on top of this hill."
Then the other young man said, "Yes that is so. Do not wait for me."
So the young man ran on easily for he knew he could beat the other young man. Before the other young man got to the bottom of the first hill, he turned round and ran quickly back to the spring and took all the young man's clothing, his robe, the pipe and the elk teeth and the flute and ran on the trail to the chief's tipi.
When the young man got to the high hill he sat down to rest, for he thought he could beat the other young man easily now. He waited, but the other young man did not come. Then he thought be was lost so he went slowly back over the way he had run to look for him. When he got to the spring he looked about but did not find him, so he said, "I will put on my clothing and take my things and then I will hunt for him."
But when he went for his things he found them all gone. Then he knew that the other young man was Iktomi. He started to run as fast as he could on the trail to the chief's tipi. But he had run so much that he was tired, and could not run very fast. It was very late at night when he got to the chief's tipi. He found that Iktomi had gotten there very early in the day and had given the chief a smoke of cansasa, so that the chief was pleased. Iktomi had given the chief's daughter all the elk teeth so that she was pleased. He had played to her on the flute the love songs he had taught him so that she could not resist him and she had taken Iktomi for her man.
When the young man came dressed in his breech cloth and the old ragged robe that Iktomi had left, they would not believe him when he said he was the young man to whom the chief had promised his daughter. They let him eat at the feast and then told him to go away. He went home and told his sisters. His oldest sister said, "I told you to watch for Iktomi."
Blue Panther Keeper of Stories
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
- Gibbs Othole, 12-10-2007
- Complete update at Prophet's Rock, numerous carvers
- Todd Westika, 10-20-2007, bears and buffaloes
- Andres Quandelacy, 10-20-2007, Zuni fetish necklaces
posted by Amerindian Arts at
12:31 PM
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