A Walpi Legend
In the long ago, the Snake, Horn, and Eagle people lived here (in Tusayan) but their corn grew only a span high and when they sang for rain, the Cloud god sent only a thin mist. My people lived then in the distant Pa-lat Kwa-bi in the South.
There was a very bad old man there. When he met any one he would spit in their faces. He did all manner of evil. Baholihonga got angry at this and turned the world upside down. Water spouted up through the kivas and through the fire places in the houses.
The earth was rent in great chasms, and water covered everything except one narrow ridge of mud. Across this the Serpent-god told all the people to travel. As they journeyed across, the feet of the bad slipped and they fell into the dark water.
The good people, after many days, reached dry land. While the water was rising around the village, the old people got on top of the houses. They thought they could not struggle across with the younger people. But Baholihonga clothed them with the skins of turkeys.
They spread their wings out and floated in the air just above the surface of the water, and in this way they got across.
There were saved of us, the Water people, the Corn people, the Lizard, Horned-toad, and Sand peoples, two families of Rabbit, and the Tobacco people. The turkey tail dragged in the water.
That is why there is white on the turkey's tail now. This is also the reason why old people use turkey-feathers at the religious ceremonies.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Do you know...
Doug Hyde was born in Hermiston, Oregon, in 1946. The lore of his Nez Perce, Assiniboine, and Chippewa ancestry came to him from his grandfather and other elders who carefully instructed him through legends of animal characters the morals of his people as well as the ways of Mother Earth and the creation of man.
He attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, during which time he enjoyed the tutelage and friendship of the late renowned Apache sculptor, Allan Houser. In 1967 he attended the San Francisco Art Institute on scholarship for a time before enlisting in the U.S. Army. During his second tour of duty in Viet Nam, he was very seriously wounded by a grenade. During his recuperation he learned the use of power tools in the cutting and shaping of stone while working in a friend's tombstone business, all the while continuing his art education and sculpting at night.
Finally he entered some of his sculpture for a show sponsored by the Northern Plains Indian Museum in Browning, Montana. When his work sold out, he realized that he was now ready to make his mark and that Santa Fe was to be his base of operations. Returning to Santa Fe in 1972 to teach at the Institute of American Indian Arts, he brought with him experience and knowledge as well as a desire to learn all he could about other native cultures.
The following year he left the institute to devote himself full time to sculpting. His works sculptured in bronze or stone, often in monumental size, frequently represent the stories told to him during his youth or portray more historical events. What is of great importance to him is that they are accurate representations of their subject matter, and that process only occurs "when I can visualize the finished sculpture in my mind." Doug has remained a resident of Santa Fe since 1972.
His works may be viewed in the collections of the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Heard Museum, Museum of the Southwest, Southwest Museum, Gilcrease Museum, Eitelborg Museum, and the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center among others. In 1990 the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, provided him with a retrospective exhibit of his work.
Check out some his work here: http://www.artnet.com/artist/8739/doug-hyde.html
He attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, during which time he enjoyed the tutelage and friendship of the late renowned Apache sculptor, Allan Houser. In 1967 he attended the San Francisco Art Institute on scholarship for a time before enlisting in the U.S. Army. During his second tour of duty in Viet Nam, he was very seriously wounded by a grenade. During his recuperation he learned the use of power tools in the cutting and shaping of stone while working in a friend's tombstone business, all the while continuing his art education and sculpting at night.
Finally he entered some of his sculpture for a show sponsored by the Northern Plains Indian Museum in Browning, Montana. When his work sold out, he realized that he was now ready to make his mark and that Santa Fe was to be his base of operations. Returning to Santa Fe in 1972 to teach at the Institute of American Indian Arts, he brought with him experience and knowledge as well as a desire to learn all he could about other native cultures.
The following year he left the institute to devote himself full time to sculpting. His works sculptured in bronze or stone, often in monumental size, frequently represent the stories told to him during his youth or portray more historical events. What is of great importance to him is that they are accurate representations of their subject matter, and that process only occurs "when I can visualize the finished sculpture in my mind." Doug has remained a resident of Santa Fe since 1972.
His works may be viewed in the collections of the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Heard Museum, Museum of the Southwest, Southwest Museum, Gilcrease Museum, Eitelborg Museum, and the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center among others. In 1990 the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, provided him with a retrospective exhibit of his work.
Check out some his work here: http://www.artnet.com/artist/8739/doug-hyde.html
Holy Road
By: Steve Karnowski - Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Vernon Bellecourt, who fought against the use of Indian nicknames for sports teams as a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement, died at age 75.
Bellecourt passed away Oct. 13 at Abbott Northwestern Hospital of complications from pneumonia, said his brother, Clyde Bellecourt, a founding member of the American Indian rights group.
Just before he was put on a respirator, Vernon joked that the CIA had finally gotten him, his brother said.
''He was willing to put his butt on the line to draw attention to racism in sports,'' his brother said.
Vernon - whose Objibwe name, WaBun-Inini, means ''Man of Dawn'' - was a member of Minnesota's White Earth band and was an international spokesman for the AIM Grand Governing Council based in Minneapolis.
Clyde helped found AIM as a militant group in 1968 and Vernon soon became involved, taking part in the 1973 occupation of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. He was present only briefly during the 71-day standoff with federal agents, serving mostly as a spokesman and fund raiser, Clyde said.
Vernon was active in the campaign to free AIM activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a shootout in 1975 on the Pine Ridge reservation.
He was also involved as a negotiator in AIM's 1972 occupation of the BIA headquarters in Washington as part of the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Vernon Bellecourt, who fought against the use of Indian nicknames for sports teams as a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement, died at age 75.
Bellecourt passed away Oct. 13 at Abbott Northwestern Hospital of complications from pneumonia, said his brother, Clyde Bellecourt, a founding member of the American Indian rights group.
Just before he was put on a respirator, Vernon joked that the CIA had finally gotten him, his brother said.
''He was willing to put his butt on the line to draw attention to racism in sports,'' his brother said.
Vernon - whose Objibwe name, WaBun-Inini, means ''Man of Dawn'' - was a member of Minnesota's White Earth band and was an international spokesman for the AIM Grand Governing Council based in Minneapolis.
Clyde helped found AIM as a militant group in 1968 and Vernon soon became involved, taking part in the 1973 occupation of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. He was present only briefly during the 71-day standoff with federal agents, serving mostly as a spokesman and fund raiser, Clyde said.
Vernon was active in the campaign to free AIM activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a shootout in 1975 on the Pine Ridge reservation.
He was also involved as a negotiator in AIM's 1972 occupation of the BIA headquarters in Washington as part of the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan.
Onondaga land claim argued in federal court
By: Michael Hill - Associated Press
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - A lawyer advocating the Onondaga Nation's claim to a massive swath of land running down the middle of New York state assured a federal judge Oct. 11 that the tribe does not intend to evict anyone, but wants to wipe away a historic stain.
That contention was countered by Assistant Attorney General David Roberts, who argued the 4,000-square-mile land claim by the Onondaga Nation, if successful, could set the stage for evictions in the future. Roberts made the argument as he tried to convince U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Kahn to dismiss the tribe's 2005 lawsuit.
''It's inherently disruptive,'' Roberts said.
More than 100 Onondagas and their supporters overfilled the courtroom to hear the arguments. Dozens of Onondagas, many in traditional clothing, took the three-hour bus ride from their small reservation south of Syracuse to listen, and nodded when lawyer Robert ''Tim'' Coulter argued that a judgment in their favor would erase an injustice dating to when New York illegally took their land centuries ago.
''The nation itself has been thrown off its land and it doesn't want to do that to anyone else,'' said Coulter, who heads the Indian Law Resource Center.
Read more here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415950
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - A lawyer advocating the Onondaga Nation's claim to a massive swath of land running down the middle of New York state assured a federal judge Oct. 11 that the tribe does not intend to evict anyone, but wants to wipe away a historic stain.
That contention was countered by Assistant Attorney General David Roberts, who argued the 4,000-square-mile land claim by the Onondaga Nation, if successful, could set the stage for evictions in the future. Roberts made the argument as he tried to convince U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Kahn to dismiss the tribe's 2005 lawsuit.
''It's inherently disruptive,'' Roberts said.
More than 100 Onondagas and their supporters overfilled the courtroom to hear the arguments. Dozens of Onondagas, many in traditional clothing, took the three-hour bus ride from their small reservation south of Syracuse to listen, and nodded when lawyer Robert ''Tim'' Coulter argued that a judgment in their favor would erase an injustice dating to when New York illegally took their land centuries ago.
''The nation itself has been thrown off its land and it doesn't want to do that to anyone else,'' said Coulter, who heads the Indian Law Resource Center.
Read more here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415950
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