Native American Art News: December 2006

Many Native American artists are multi-talented and there is a common distinction between two dimensional art (flat, or wall art), and three dimensional art objects. While two dimensional, representational depictions are distinguished by traditional and non-traditional aesthetic styles, the genre as a whole is non-traditional in that paper and commercial paints were not readily available to Native American artists until the later part of the nineteenth century. The idea of art as a commercial enterprise was foreign to the culture prior to first generation modernists; in fact, Native American languages have no term for the word "art".

Evolution of Tradition

Prior to the modern era, paints and dyes were extracted from organic materials (and sometimes still are), and painting was a medium for recording an event or telling a story, providing a sign to travelers, or an intent to draw the attention of a higher being. Objects were painted and decorated, but the element of design was functional or utilitarian, often with religious motive. The artists of the tribes of the Great Plains, for example, left their paper trail for centuries on rocks, cave walls, and buffalo robes or other animal skins. This was the recording of history. After contact with the white man the Native American artists, often by necessity, began to use paper from the ledger books that traders used for record keeping, thus the term "ledger" art. This aesthetic style of recording events, stories, and ceremonies has evolved with the implementation of different mediums in graphics and paintings.

Representation and the Concept of Primitive Art

The drawings were characteristic of the style that had persisted for centuries and culminated with the end of the proto-modern era of the Native American art movement. It was at the end of this era and the beginning of the Modernistic era of the Native American art movement that Dorothy Dunn was teaching at the Santa Fe school. During her tenure she encouraged her students to continue the traditions of their predecessors in the "flat", and what was commonly referred to as "primitive" art style. Here one can cite Dunn's unique concept of primitive, and even more so her concept of primitive art. Setting aside use of the term "primitive" in reference to art, this brings to attention the ambiguity in use of the term "representational", which as a qualifier for the term "art" means that a painting adequately reflects the reality it is meant to depict. As a function of objectivity in aesthetics, representation connotes a likeness or resemblance so that what is depicted is easily recognized by most viewers as a reflection of something from the real world. This may seem to imply that what is representational could exclude certain groups of viewers, or at least prescribe that the term "representational" cannot maintain a function relative to cultural groups. However, as Dorothy Dunn implied when citing Linton's statement - "insistence upon accurate naturalistic representation seems childish to the primitive artist who, although he admires technical skill, feels that it is being expended for trivial ends in an amplification of the obvious", the term "representational" in regard to art may be relative to a cultural group. The art of a culture that may appear as "childlike", or even abstract, may indeed be representational within that culture.

Thus, the terms "representational", or even "realism", may persist as a category and function of objectivity in aesthetics, but in regard to a viewer or group of viewers its relational aspect may be indistinguishable from the absolute sense of "primitive" as Dunn described it. For Dunn, "primitive" was not a description of a certain type of culture, but described individuals and objects indigenous to every culture. The primitive subject was that gifted individual, or "seer", who was able to discern the primitive objects relevant to their culture. 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.

MONTCLAIR, NJ.- The Montclair Art Museum presents Jaune Quick-to See-Smith: Made in America, on view through January 15, 2007 at its Judy and Josh Weston Exhibition Gallery. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith uses humor and satire to examine myths, stereotypes, and the paradox of American Indian life in contrast to the consumerism of American society

Museum of New Mexico/Museum of Indian Arts & Culture
Current and Online Exhibitions

Coyote Creates Human Beings - Nez Perce

http://www.realduesouth.net/WolfsRetreat/N/NezPerce-037.htm

One day, long before there were any people on the earth, a monster came down from the north. He was a huge monster and he ate everything in sight. He ate all the little animals, the chipmunks and the raccoons and the mice, and all the big animals. He ate the deer and the elk and even the mountain lion. Coyote couldn't find any of his friends any more and this made him very mad. He decided the time had come to stop the monster.

Coyote went across the Snake river and tied himself to the highest peak in the Wallowa Mountains. Then he called out to the monster on the other side of the rifer. He challenged the monster to try and eat him. The monster charged across the river and up into the mountains. He tried as hard as he could to suck Coyote off the mountain with his breath but it was no use. Coyote's rope was too strong. This frightened the monster. He decided to make friends with Coyote and he invited coyote to come and stay with him for awhile. One day Coyote told the monster he would like to see all of the animals in the monster's belly. The monster agreed and let Coyote go in.

When he went inside, Coyote saw that all the animals were safe. He told them to get ready to escape and set about his work. With his fire starter he built a huge fire in the monster's stomach. Then he took his knife and cut the monster's heart down. The monster died a great death and all the animals escaped. Coyote was the last one out. Coyote said that in honor of the event he was gong to create a new animal, a human being. Coyote cut the monster up in pieces and flung the pieces to the four winds. Where each piece landed, some in the north, some to the south, others to the east and west, in valleys and canyons and along the rivers, a tribe was born. It was in this way that all the tribes came to be. When he was finished, Coyote's friend, Fox said that no tribe had been created on the spot where they stood. Coyote was sorry he had no more parts, but then he had an ides. He washed the blood from his hands with water and sprinkled the drops on the ground.

Coyote said, "Here on this ground I make the Nez Perce. They will be few in number, but they will be strong and pure." And this is how the human beings came to be.

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

Coyote Challenges Never-Grows-Larger - Witchita

http://www.indigenouspeople.net/nevergro.htm

One time Ketox, or Coyote, bounded across the prairie and saw Never- Grows-Larger, the smallest snake, sunning on a large, flat rock. "You are tiny," Coyote said. "I would never want to be as little as you. Look at me. You should be as big as me."

Never-Grows-Larger looked Coyote up and down, then flicked a long, forked tongue out and in.

"Let me see your teeth," Coyote said. Never-Grows-Larger opened wide to reveal tiny teeth.

"Look at my teeth." Coyote snarled to reveal big, sharp teeth. "With no effort at all I could bite you in two."

Never-Grows-Larger flicked a long tongue out and in again.

"Let us bite each other and see who is more powerful," Coyote said.

"Are you sure?" Never-Grows-Larger asked.

"Yes."

"I accept the challenge."

Coyote bit hard enough to almost sever Never-Grows-Larger's head.

Never-Grows-Larger bit Coyote.

"Now I will go just out of sight, then we will call to each other to see how the other fares." Coyote bounded through the tall grass and lay down out of sight. "Hey!"

"Hey," Never-Grows-Larger called faintly.

"Hey!"

"Hey," Never-Grows-Larger said even more weakly.

Pleased with success, Coyote repeatedly called and listened to Never- Grows-Larger's voice grow soft. "I never doubted I would kill that snake," Coyote whispered.

After a time, Coyote noticed that the snakebite swelled, and the wound started to hurt. "Hey." But the sound was not as loud. Soon Coyote's entire body hurt and swelled up.

"Hey!" Never-Grows-Larger called loud and clear.

"Hey," Coyote said softly.

"Hey!" Never-Grows-Larger called again.

Coyote did not respond.

Never-Grows-Larger crawled through the grass to Coyote's side. The animal lay dead.

Never-Grows-Larger left Coyote there, then went back to sunning on the rock.

from Texas Indian Myths and Legends by Jane Archer

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

Articles by Amerindian Arts

Note on Zuni substance

Concept of the Sublime

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

Navajo Spaceships

Classic Hopi And Zuni Kachina Figures

MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK: THE FIRST 100 YEARS

Fine Indian Jewelry: The Millicent Rogers Museum Collection

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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Representation, Realism, and Traditional Depictions

Native American Art

Many Native American artists are multi-talented and there is a common distinction between two dimensional art (flat, or wall art), and three dimensional art objects. While two dimensional, representational depictions are distinguished by traditional and non-traditional aesthetic styles, the genre as a whole is non-traditional in that paper and commercial paints were not readily available to Native American artists until the later part of the nineteenth century. The idea of art as a commercial enterprise was foreign to the culture prior to first generation modernists; in fact, Native American languages have no term for the word "art".

Evolution of Tradition

Prior to the modern era, paints and dyes were extracted from organic materials (and sometimes still are), and painting was a medium for recording an event or telling a story, providing a sign to travelers, or an intent to draw the attention of a higher being. Objects were painted and decorated, but the element of design was functional or utilitarian, often with religious motive. The artists of the tribes of the Great Plains, for example, left their paper trail for centuries on rocks, cave walls, and buffalo robes or other animal skins. This was the recording of history. After contact with the white man the Native American artists, often by necessity, began to use paper from the ledger books that traders used for record keeping, thus the term "ledger" art. This aesthetic style of recording events, stories, and ceremonies has evolved with the implementation of different mediums in graphics and paintings.

Representation and the Concept of Primitive Art

The drawings were characteristic of the style that had persisted for centuries and culminated with the end of the proto-modern era of the Native American art movement. It was at the end of this era and the beginning of the Modernistic era of the Native American art movement that Dorothy Dunn was teaching at the Santa Fe school. During her tenure she encouraged her students to continue the traditions of their predecessors in the "flat", and what was commonly referred to as "primitive" art style. Here one can cite Dunn's unique concept of primitive, and even more so her concept of primitive art. Setting aside use of the term "primitive" in reference to art, this brings to attention the ambiguity in use of the term "representational", which as a qualifier for the term "art" means that a painting adequately reflects the reality it is meant to depict. As a function of objectivity in aesthetics, representation connotes a likeness or resemblance so that what is depicted is easily recognized by most viewers as a reflection of something from the real world. This may seem to imply that what is representational could exclude certain groups of viewers, or at least prescribe that the term "representational" cannot maintain a function relative to cultural groups. However, as Dorothy Dunn implied when citing Linton's statement - "insistence upon accurate naturalistic representation seems childish to the primitive artist who, although he admires technical skill, feels that it is being expended for trivial ends in an amplification of the obvious", the term "representational" in regard to art may be relative to a cultural group. The art of a culture that may appear as "childlike", or even abstract, may indeed be representational within that culture.

Thus, the terms "representational", or even "realism", may persist as a category and function of objectivity in aesthetics, but in regard to a viewer or group of viewers its relational aspect may be indistinguishable from the absolute sense of "primitive" as Dunn described it. For Dunn, "primitive" was not a description of a certain type of culture, but described individuals and objects indigenous to every culture. The primitive subject was that gifted individual, or "seer", who was able to discern the primitive objects relevant to their culture. 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.

MONTCLAIR, NJ.- The Montclair Art Museum presents Jaune Quick-to See-Smith: Made in America, on view through January 15, 2007 at its Judy and Josh Weston Exhibition Gallery. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith uses humor and satire to examine myths, stereotypes, and the paradox of American Indian life in contrast to the consumerism of American society

Museum of New Mexico/Museum of Indian Arts & Culture
Current and Online Exhibitions

Coyote Creates Human Beings - Nez Perce

http://www.realduesouth.net/WolfsRetreat/N/NezPerce-037.htm

One day, long before there were any people on the earth, a monster came down from the north. He was a huge monster and he ate everything in sight. He ate all the little animals, the chipmunks and the raccoons and the mice, and all the big animals. He ate the deer and the elk and even the mountain lion. Coyote couldn't find any of his friends any more and this made him very mad. He decided the time had come to stop the monster.

Coyote went across the Snake river and tied himself to the highest peak in the Wallowa Mountains. Then he called out to the monster on the other side of the rifer. He challenged the monster to try and eat him. The monster charged across the river and up into the mountains. He tried as hard as he could to suck Coyote off the mountain with his breath but it was no use. Coyote's rope was too strong. This frightened the monster. He decided to make friends with Coyote and he invited coyote to come and stay with him for awhile. One day Coyote told the monster he would like to see all of the animals in the monster's belly. The monster agreed and let Coyote go in.

When he went inside, Coyote saw that all the animals were safe. He told them to get ready to escape and set about his work. With his fire starter he built a huge fire in the monster's stomach. Then he took his knife and cut the monster's heart down. The monster died a great death and all the animals escaped. Coyote was the last one out. Coyote said that in honor of the event he was gong to create a new animal, a human being. Coyote cut the monster up in pieces and flung the pieces to the four winds. Where each piece landed, some in the north, some to the south, others to the east and west, in valleys and canyons and along the rivers, a tribe was born. It was in this way that all the tribes came to be. When he was finished, Coyote's friend, Fox said that no tribe had been created on the spot where they stood. Coyote was sorry he had no more parts, but then he had an ides. He washed the blood from his hands with water and sprinkled the drops on the ground.

Coyote said, "Here on this ground I make the Nez Perce. They will be few in number, but they will be strong and pure." And this is how the human beings came to be.

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

Coyote Challenges Never-Grows-Larger - Witchita

http://www.indigenouspeople.net/nevergro.htm

One time Ketox, or Coyote, bounded across the prairie and saw Never- Grows-Larger, the smallest snake, sunning on a large, flat rock. "You are tiny," Coyote said. "I would never want to be as little as you. Look at me. You should be as big as me."

Never-Grows-Larger looked Coyote up and down, then flicked a long, forked tongue out and in.

"Let me see your teeth," Coyote said. Never-Grows-Larger opened wide to reveal tiny teeth.

"Look at my teeth." Coyote snarled to reveal big, sharp teeth. "With no effort at all I could bite you in two."

Never-Grows-Larger flicked a long tongue out and in again.

"Let us bite each other and see who is more powerful," Coyote said.

"Are you sure?" Never-Grows-Larger asked.

"Yes."

"I accept the challenge."

Coyote bit hard enough to almost sever Never-Grows-Larger's head.

Never-Grows-Larger bit Coyote.

"Now I will go just out of sight, then we will call to each other to see how the other fares." Coyote bounded through the tall grass and lay down out of sight. "Hey!"

"Hey," Never-Grows-Larger called faintly.

"Hey!"

"Hey," Never-Grows-Larger said even more weakly.

Pleased with success, Coyote repeatedly called and listened to Never- Grows-Larger's voice grow soft. "I never doubted I would kill that snake," Coyote whispered.

After a time, Coyote noticed that the snakebite swelled, and the wound started to hurt. "Hey." But the sound was not as loud. Soon Coyote's entire body hurt and swelled up.

"Hey!" Never-Grows-Larger called loud and clear.

"Hey," Coyote said softly.

"Hey!" Never-Grows-Larger called again.

Coyote did not respond.

Never-Grows-Larger crawled through the grass to Coyote's side. The animal lay dead.

Never-Grows-Larger left Coyote there, then went back to sunning on the rock.

from Texas Indian Myths and Legends by Jane Archer

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