Sunday, May 4, 2008

Becoming Aware of a Growing Problem of Bogus Native American art

Andres Quandelacy, Bisbee Cobolt Azurite Buffalo

Native American arts daily news, presented by
amerindianarts.us

Headlines, exhibits, powwows listed below: (access past headline archives for 2004-2006 here)


Cibola County opposes Mount Taylor cultural listing- Uranium mining could return to the area

Virginia Dooley, 1943-2008: force behind Navajo artist R C Gorman, dies

Will Moreau Goins, Cherokee, received prestigious Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award

Judge likely to award money in mismanaged Indian trust case

Red Drum Women Society Singers

Bill Miller, a Mohican Native American, and a symphony titled “The Last Stand”

42nd Spring Powwow offers taste of American Indian culture

SKINNER HOSTS AUCTION OF AMERICAN INDIAN ART

Medicine Dream, an intertribal band that mixes rock with powwow music

Red Feather Woman, Rose Red Elk/Wieka Luta Win at the Pakistan-American Cultural Centre

Rochester Native American Film Festival

Buffalo Field Campaign works to return animals to historic range

Special exhibit centers around museum's American Indian collection

New Native American Center at UM to be the first of its kind

Native American fashion show a hit

Crow Tribe member joins Obama to woo American Indian voters

Becoming Aware of a Growing Problem of Bogus Native American art


Special exhibit centers around museum's American Indian collection

COSHOCTON, OH - The Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum will present the special exhibit Weaving Traditions beginning May 10 and continuing through Aug. 3.


Cultural Arts Council Fine Art Gallery "Native Visions," a collection of work by Native American artist William Sitting Bull, great-great grandson of Chief Sitting Bull; 304 E. Elkhorn Ave., Estes Park; CO. 970-577-9900


(SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.) - Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts will present An Evening with R. Carlos Nakai, William Eaton and William Clipman with special guest Cliff Sarde on May 10, 2008, at 8 p.m. The performance is presented with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Single tickets are available for $38 from the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts Web site at www.scottsdaleperformingarts.org or the box office at (480) 994-ARTS (2787).


The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center opens "Remix: New Modernities in a Post Indian World," a spirited multimedia survey of 15 emerging Native artists June 7. A joint presentation from the museum and the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the exhibition closes Sunday, Sept. 21.


Jamestown, North Dakota Culture Festival is slated for Aug. 1-3.

One special guest will be Hidatsa storyteller Mary Louise Defender Wilson. She is a winner of the NEA National Heritage Fellowship and the only fellow living in North Dakota. Marvin Bald Eagle Youngman will be teaching different Ojibwa games. Storyteller Keith Bear has also been invited to participate.

“The Native American component of the festival will include artists, music, dancing, storytelling, games and food,” said Taylor Barnes, Arts Center director. “This festival is primarily about how traditions are shared through games and food.”


Recent Books of Interest

American Indian Mafia

An FBI Agent's True Story about Wounded Knee, Leonard Peltier, and the American Indian Movement (AIM)

''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)


Legend Of Standing Rock – Lakota

A Dakota had married an Arikara woman, and by her had one child. By and by he took another wife. The first wife was jealous and pouted. When time came for the village to break camp she refused to move from her place on the tent floor. The tent was taken down but she sat on the ground with her babe on her back The rest of the camp with her husband went on.

At noon her husband halted the line. "Go back to your sister-in-law," he said to his two brothers. "Tell her to come on and we will await you here. But hasten, for I fear she may grow desperate and kill herself."

The two rode off and arrived at their former camping place in the evening. The woman still sat on the ground. The elder spoke:

"Sister-in-law, get up. We have come for you. The camp awaits you."

She did not answer, and he put out his hand and touched her head. She had turned to stone!

The two brothers lashed their ponies and came back to camp. They told their story, but were not believed. "The woman has killed herself and my brothers will not tell me," said the husband. However, the whole village broke camp and came back to the place where they had left the woman. Sure enough, she sat there still, a block of stone.

The Indians were greatly excited. They chose out a handsome pony, made a new travois and placed the stone in the carrying net. Pony and travois were both beautifully painted and decorated with streamers and colors. The stone was thought "wakan" (holy), and was given a place of honor in the center of the camp. Whenever the camp moved the stone and travois were taken along. Thus the stone woman was carried for years, and finally brought to Standing Rock Agency, and now rests upon a brick pedestal in front of the Agency office. From this stone Standing Rock Agency derives its name.

Myths and legends of the Sioux, , by Mrs. Marie L. McLaughlin, Bismarck N.D. : Bismarck Tribune Co., 1916, and is now in the public domain. [Lakota]

Blue Panther Keeper of Stories


Legend of Stone Coat – Nvyvnuwi – Cherokee

http://thewhitewolf.net/stonecoat.html

Once, long ago, when all the people were out in the mountains on a great hunt one man who had gone on ahead climbed to the top of a high ridge and found a large river on the other side. While he was looking across he saw an old man walking about on the opposite ridge, with a cane that seemed to be made of some bright, shining rock.The hunter watched and saw that every little while the old man would point his cane in a certain direction, then draw it back and smell the end of it. At last he pointed it in the direction of the hunting camp on the other side of the mountain, and this time when he drew back the staff he sniffed it several times as if it smelled very good and then started along the ridge straight for the camp. He moved very slowly, with the help of the cane, until he reached the end of the ridge, when he threw the cane out into the air and it became a bridge of shining rock stretching across the river.After he had crossed over upon the bridge it became a cane again, and the old man picked it up and started over the mountain toward the camp.

The hunter was frightened and felt sure that it meant mischief, so he hurried on down the mountain and took the shortest trail back to the camp to get there before the old man.When he got there and told his story the Dida:hnvwi:sgi said the old man was a wicked cannibal monster called Nvyvnuwi-Dressed In Stone, who lived in that part of the country and was always going about the mountains looking for some hunter to kill and eat. It was very hard to escape from him, because his stick guided him like a dog and it was nearly as hard to kill him, because his whole body was covered with a skin of solid rock. If he came he would kill and eat them all, there was only one way to save themselves. He could not bear to look upon a menstrual woman and if they could find seven menstrual women to stand in the path as he came along the sight would kill him. So they asked among all the women, and found seven who were in that way and with one it had just begun.By the order of the Dida:hnvwi:sgi they stripped themselves and stood along the path where the old man would come. Soon they heard Nvyvnuwi coming through the woods, feeling his way with the stone cane. He came along the trail to where the first woman was standing and as he saw her he started and cried out: "Yu! My grandchild; you are in a very bad state!" He hurried past her, but in a moment he met the next woman, and cried out again: "Yu! My child; you are in a terrible way," and hurried past her, but now he was vomiting blood. He hurried on and met the third and the fourth and the fifth woman, but with each one that he saw his step grew weaker until when he came to the last one, with whom it had just begun, the blood poured from his mouth and he fell down the trail.

The the Dida:hnvwi:sgi drove seven sourwood stakes through his body and pinned him to the ground and when night came they piled great logs over him and set fire to them, and all the people gathered around to see.

Nvyvnuwi was a great Adawe:hi and knew many secrets, and now as the fire came close to him he began to talk and told them the medicine for all kinds of sickness. At midnight he began to sing and sang the hunting songs for calling up deer, bear and all the animals of the woods and mountains. As the blaze grew hotter his voice sank lower and lower, until at last when daylight came, the logs were a heap of white ashes and the voice was still.

The Dida:hnvwi:sgi told them to rake off the ashes and where the body had lain they found only a large lump of wa'di paint and a magic Ulvnsuti stone. He kept the stone for himself and calling the people around him he painted them, on face and breast, with the red wa'di, and whatever each person prayed for while the painting was being done-whether for hunting success, for working skill or for long life-that gift was his.

Blue Panther Keeper of Stories


Zuni fetish updates from Amerindian Arts


Saturday, April 19, 2008

Gathering Of Nations, Red Drum Women Society Singers, Nominations for 2008 Eagle Awards Open, Kokopelli-The trickster

Andres Quandelacy, Bisbee Cobolt Azurite Buffalo

Native American arts daily news, presented by
amerindianarts.us

Headlines, exhibits, powwows listed below: (access past headline archives for 2004-2006 here)


Northeastern State University Symposium on the American Indian

Gathering Of Nations

Hippies, Indians: Picking through the rubble

UM to break ground on Native center

Indian spiritual walkers passing through Newton, Kansas

American Indian sorority recruits downtown for first time

Native American Flutist R. Carlos Nakai to Perform with Fellow Canyon Records Artists

Gerard Tsonakwa featured presenter at Biosphere 2 in Oracle

Kalyn Free speaks at democratic meeting

Red Drum Women Society Singers heal through the drum

Nominations for 2008 Eagle Awards Open

Pow wow: 'Honor the Youth'

Touring exhibition "People of the Plateau and the Plains: Native American Photography by Edward S. Curtis"

Legislature announces Folk Heritage and honors Native American artist

SPIRIT Parade celebrates culture, protests historical treatment

Native American Activists Walk 3,000 Miles

Powwow passes on Native culture

California Indian country

Native American, Indigenous Scholars Form New Interdisciplinary Association

Native Green Energy working with the Passamaquoddy tribe


Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque, April 24-26, 2008


(SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.) - Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts will present An Evening with R. Carlos Nakai, William Eaton and William Clipman with special guest Cliff Sarde on May 10, 2008, at 8 p.m. The performance is presented with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Single tickets are available for $38 from the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts Web site at www.scottsdaleperformingarts.org or the box office at (480) 994-ARTS (2787).


Works of art from the Eugene B. Adkins Collection -- a private collections featuring the Taos artists as well as Native American art -- will open to the public March 7 at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art on the University of Oklahoma campus.

More on the Adkins Collection


The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center opens "Remix: New Modernities in a Post Indian World," a spirited multimedia survey of 15 emerging Native artists June 7. A joint presentation from the museum and the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the exhibition closes Sunday, Sept. 21.


Jamestown, North Dakota Culture Festival is slated for Aug. 1-3.

One special guest will be Hidatsa storyteller Mary Louise Defender Wilson. She is a winner of the NEA National Heritage Fellowship and the only fellow living in North Dakota. Marvin Bald Eagle Youngman will be teaching different Ojibwa games. Storyteller Keith Bear has also been invited to participate.

“The Native American component of the festival will include artists, music, dancing, storytelling, games and food,” said Taylor Barnes, Arts Center director. “This festival is primarily about how traditions are shared through games and food.”


Recent Books of Interest

American Indian Mafia

An FBI Agent's True Story about Wounded Knee, Leonard Peltier, and the American Indian Movement (AIM)

''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


Kokopelli - Trickster - Hopi

Kokopelli is a fertility deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked flute player (often with a huge phallus and antenna-like protrusions on his head), who is worshipped by many Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States.

Like most fertility deities, Kokopelli presides over both childbirth and agriculture. He is also a trickster god.

Because of his influence over human sexuality, Kokopelli is often depicted with an inhumanly large phallus. Among the Ho-Chunk, this penis is detachable, and he sometimes leaves it in a river in order to have sex with girls who bathe there.

Among the Hopi, Kokopelli carries unborn children on his back and distributes them to women (for this reason, young girls are often deathly afraid of him). He often takes part in rituals relating to marriage, and Kokopelli himself is sometimes depicted with a consort, a woman called Kokopelli-mana by the Hohokam and Hopi.

Kokopelli also presides over the reproduction of game animals, and for this reason, he is often depicted with animal companions such as rams and deer. Other common creatures associated with him include sun-bathing animals such as snakes, or water-loving animals like lizards and insects. Because of this, some scholars believe that Kokopelli's flute is actually a blowgun (or started out as one), but this is a minority opinion.

In his domain over agriculture, Kokopelli's fluteplaying chases away the Winter and brings about Spring. Many tribes, such as the Zuni, also associate Kokopelli with the rains. He frequently appears with Paiyatamu, another flautist, in depictions of maize-grinding ceremonies. Some tribes say he carries seeds and babies on his back.

Origins and Development

Kokopelli has been worshipped since at least the time of the Ancient Pueblo Peoples. The first known images of him appear on Hohokam pottery dated to sometime between AD 750 and AD 850.

Kokopelli may have originally been a representation of ancient Aztec traders, known as pochtechas, who traveled to the Southwest from Mexico. Such traders brought their goods in sacks slung across their backs, and this sack may have evolved into Kokopelli's familiar hump (in fact, many tribes make Kokopelli a trader in this way). These men also used flutes to announce themselves as friendly as they approached a settlement. This origin is still in doubt, however, since the first known images of Kokopelli predate the major era of Aztek-Anasazi trade by several hundred years.

Another theory is that Kokopelli is actually an anthropomorphic insect. Many of the earliest depictions of Kokopelli make him very insect-like in appearance. The name "Kokopelli" may be a combination of "Koko", another Hopi and Zuni deity, and "pelli", the Hopi and Zuni word for the desert robber fly, an insect with a prominent proboscis and a rounded back, which is also noted for its zealous sexual proclivities. A more recent etymology is that Kokopelli means literally "kachina hump".

Because the Hopi were the tribe from whom the Spanish explorers first learned of the god, their name is the one most commonly used.

Kokopelli is one of the most easily recognized figures found in the petroglyphs and pictographs of the Southwest. The earliest known petroglyph of the figure dates to about A.D. 1000. Kokopelli was one of several kachina dolls sold to tourists. The Spanish missionaries in the area convinced the Hopi craftsmen to omit the phallus from their representations of the figure. As with most kachina dolls, the Hopi Kokopelli was often represented by a human dancer. These dancers apparently had great fun with missionaries and tourists by making obscene and sexual gestures that the foreigners did not understand.

In recent years, the emasculated version of Kokopelli has been adopted as a broader symbol of the Southwestern United States as a whole. His image adorns countless tourist items such as T-shirts, ball caps, and keychains. A bicycle trail between Grand Junction, Colorado and Moab, Utah is now known as the Kokopelli Trail.

Kokopelli bears a passing resemblance to Bradshaw Paintings of North-est Australia (examples), which could be mere coincidence or sign of a common origin; some have suggested that ancient astronaut theories in the model of Erich von D䮩ken have attributed both to a common celestial source.

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