A Song for the Horse Nation Spotlight: Counting Coup

The museum's staff is busy this week putting the final touches on A Song for the Horse Nation, an exhibition opening this Saturday that traces the horse’s influence on American Indian tribes from the 1500s -- when horses were first introduced to the Western Hemisphere -- to the present day.

In the meantime, we thought we'd give you a sneak preview of the more than 122 objects, paintings and historic photographs in the exhibition. Today, we're highlighting an object known as a "coup stick."

 Piikuni (Blackfeet) coup stick, late 19th century (NMAI 14/9565)

In the buffalo days of the mid-1800s, one way a Plains warrior demonstrated his bravery was by "counting coup," that is, galloping up to an enemy and touching him, sometimes with a special stick made for that very purpose, instead of killing him. Coup sticks were also carried in ceremonial dances, during which warriors related stories of their courage and daring.

The rawhide horses attached to this coup stick represent the horses its owner rode in battle, and the hair locks are scalp replicas, made by attaching hair from a horse's tail to a piece of cloth or rawhide and painting it red. Similarly, the hair on many warrior shirts is frequently taken from cherished horses because to carry a lock of hair was to hold some of the power from its source.

OPENING WEEKEND

To celebrate the opening of this exhibition, we've invited the D.C. Mounted Police and Crow artist Kennard Real Bird to present the U.S. and Crow Nation flags on horseback this Saturday at 3 p.m. on the museum’s outdoor Welcome Plaza. Following the presentation of the flags, Cherokee singer K.J. Jacks will perform the U.S. national anthem.

We've also partnered with the Washington International Horse Show, which happened to be commemorating its 53rd year at the Verizon Center the very week of our exhibiton's opening. Together, we're hosting free family activities all day on Saturday, as well as a free shuttle between the museum and the Verizon Center. Museum activities include beading and ledger painting workshops as well as storytelling sessions with Sioux illustrator S.D. Nelson. Activities at the Verizon Center include pony rides and live pony-painting demonstrations.

For the full schedule of events, visit http://bit.ly/ruBTZb.

 

SOURCE: Song for the Horse Nation: Horses in Native American Cultures. ISBN-10: 1-55591-112-9 (softcover). The book is available for purchase online from the NMAI bookshop: http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage=shop&second=books&third=SongHorse

Indian Country in the News: Oct. 14 - Oct. 21, 2011

This week's news highlights include the death of a celebrated American Indian activist, the continued march of indigenous Bolivians, who reached the country's capital this week, a real-word saga for the Quileute tribe (who will open an exhibition at our museum in January!), trouble for Urban Outfitters' for their controversial faux Navajo line, and the approval of protected land for American Indian tribes in the U.S.:

• AP: Elouise Cobell, Blackfeet woman who led $3.4B settlement in Indian land trust case, dies at 65 - "Elouise Cobell, the Blackfeet woman who led a 15-year legal fight to force the U.S. government to account for more than a century of mismanaged Indian land royalties, died Sunday. She was 65. Cobell died at a Great Falls hospital of complications from cancer, spokesman Bill McAllister said. Cobell was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed in 1996 claiming the Interior Department had misspent, lost or stolen billions of dollars meant for Native American land trust account holders dating back to the 1880s. After years of legal wrangling, the two sides in 2009 agreed to settle for $3.4 billion, the largest government class-action settlement in U.S. history. The beneficiaries are estimated to be about 500,000 people."

• Bloomberg: Indian Revolt Targets Morales Road Project as Bolivians March - "Bolivian President Evo Morales has built his presidency on promises to defend people like Cecilia Moyovire from the excesses of global capitalism. Now, the Moxeno-Trinitario Indian and fellow protesters are threatening his plans to open up a region of the Amazon rain forest rich in energy, timber and other resources. Moyovire, 42, has been camped a few blocks from the government palace in La Paz since police attacked a group of 1,000 marchers from a national park in central Bolivia on Sept. 25 as they protested against plans for a Brazilian-built road through the region. That march will likely paralyze downtown La Paz when it reaches the capital this week. Morales, an Aymara Indian who has harnessed indigenous support to become Bolivia’s longest serving president since military rule ended in 1985, backs the $415 million highway being built by Sao Paulo-based Construtora OAS Ltd. with majority funding from Brazil’s state development bank. The road will connect with the Chilean port city of Arica, allowing Brazil to export food and minerals to China."

• NYTimes: Real World Quileutes Lobby for Their Land - "The Quileute Tribal Council — to those out there who haven’t kept up with the epic vampire-werewolf saga by Stephenie Meyer, the fictional Quileute are the werewolves — has been trying for decades to get more land for their reservation, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Tribal elders cite concerns about a possible tsunami from earthquakes in the Pacific basin as the reason they need to relocate many of the tribe’s buildings to higher ground. On Thursday, the Quileute finally got to make their pitch before a House subcommittee, thanks to an arrangement with the tribe, the National Park Service, and Representative Norm Dicks and Senator Maria Cantwell, both Democrats of Washington."

• ABC: Urban Outfitters under fire for 'Navajo' Collection - "An open letter by a Native American woman from Minnesota has turned up the heat on the retail chain Urban Outfitters because of a line of "Navajo" items she claims are culturally offensive. Sasha Houston Brown, 24, decided to take action after walking into an Urban Outfitters store in Minneapolis and seeing Navajo-labeled products that disturbed her. She sent her complaint to the company's CEO by email and conventional mail, saying she was offended by "plastic dreamcatchers wrapped in pleather hung next to an indistinguishable mass of artificial feather jewelry and hyper sexualized clothing featuring an abundance of suede, fringe and inauthentic tribal patterns."

• Most land put in trust for tribes' quality of life - "The Obama administration has approved 541 land trust applications for Native American tribes and of those, three were for gaming, an administration official said Thursday. Larry Echo Hawk, Department of Interior assistant secretary, said the majority of the land placed in federal trust was for tribes who used the land for quality-of-life purposes. Of the 541 applications, 89 were for housing, 191 for agricultural purposes, 47 for economic development, 211 for cemeteries, courts, recreation, health care, child care, education and law enforcement facilities and three for gaming, said Echo Hawk, who oversees Indian Affairs. Those applications were approved from October 1, 2009 through Sept. 11, 2011."

Travels Through the Horse Culture

The Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) are restoring their historic Appaloosa herds through a breeding program using as a foundation the Akhal-Teke horse from Turkmenistan, possibly the oldest extant domesticated breed. The off-spring combine Appaloosa markings with the silken sheen of the Akhal-Teke coat. (Photo by Emil Her Many Horses)

By Emil Her Many Horses

“The Horse Nation continues to inspire, and Native artists continue to celebrate the horse in our songs, our stories and our works of art.”

These words opened the exhibition A Song for the Horse Nation at the National Museum of the American Indian’s George Gustav Heye Center in New York City in November 2009. As I have worked on an expanded version of the exhibit for the Mall Museum in D.C. this October, I’ve had the opportunity to experience the direct inspiration of the Horse Nation throughout Indian Country.

Osage

I think of the horse-stealing songs sung at the annual I’n-Lon-Schka or ceremonial dance of the Osage. These songs tell of raiding enemy horses. Sometimes the songs are also called trot songs; the beat of  the drum and the style of dance to the songs emulate a trotting horse. It’s truly a beautiful sight  watching a dance floor filled with men, women and children dressed in their colorful regalia dancing to  the rhythm of the trot songs. I can only imagine how a warrior felt sitting on the back of a raided enemy horse as he paraded through camp. What a sense of pride and honor he must have felt. These songs transport you back to another time.

The Osage people have another tradition in which a horse plays a prominent role. The ceremony is called “Paying for the Drum.” It is held when a young man has been selected to fill the role of the drum keeper for one of the three Osage districts. It is the young man’s role to care for the drum which is essential to singing the necessary songs for the four days of the I’n-Lon-Schka dance. The newly selected drum keeper and his family will have a year to prepare to pay for the honor of his position. The drum keeper will also select a new committee to sponsor the dance, and they host the other two Osage district committees.

At the end of the year, the new drum keeper and his family must pay before the dance can begin. The drum keeper and his new committee are led to the dance harbor by the camp crier, followed by men carrying the drum. A horse is led in the procession, followed by women in wedding clothes and the rest of the committee and his family. A striped Pendleton blanket will be draped over the back of the horse, and both will be given as gifts to the former drum keeper. The wedding clothes represent the military  coats given to Osage leaders who in turn gave the coats to their daughters to be worn in Osage weddings. Today, the Wedding Coats are also given away in honor of the new drum keeper. It is a great honor to be selected to serve as a drum keeper for one of the three districts.

New Mexican Horse Project

Since the reintroduction of the horse to the Americas by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage, horses spread and eventually became an important asset to Native peoples. The horse that returned with Columbus in 1495 was a changed animal from the horse that became extinct in the Western Hemisphere around 10,000 years ago.

Carlos Lopopolo is now working to preserve the Spanish Mustang by finding horses of the old Spanish descent through the New Mexican Horse project. His vision is to identify Spanish traits through genetic testing of the wild horse herds in the U.S. Once these horses are identified, he brings them to his horse sanctuary in New Mexico. At the sanctuary he lets the horses live and breed as they would in the wild. It is his hope to introduce these horses in all National Parks as indigenous animals. The Wild Horse Preserve is dedicated to Carlos’ late wife, Cindy Rogers Lopopolo, and others who fell victim to cancer.

While visiting the Preserve I was able to take a group tour. We made every effort not to disturb the horse herds, but we were fortunate to see a new foal that had just been born in the wild.

Young Horsemen Project

One cannot talk about the horse culture of the Plateau and Plains without talking about the beautiful Appaloosa horses of the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce). In 1806, while travelling among the Nimiipuu, Meriwether Lewis described their horses as having large spots of white, irregularly scattered and intermixed with brown.

In 1994 the Nimiipuu began the Young Horsemen’s Program to teach its youth about tribal history as well as about breeding and caring for the horse. The Nimiipuu program uses as its foundation stock four types of mares, Arabian/Appaloosa, Thoroughbred/Appaloosa, Quarterhorse/Appaloosa and Appaloosa/Appaloosa. To breed with the mares the Niimiipuu chose the Akhal-Teke horse from Turkmenistan, which some think is the most ancient domesticated horse breed still extant. The crossbreeding has produced a horse with the traditional spots of the Appaloosa, but when the sunlight strikes the horse, it gives the coat a silky sheen. Some believe this project will destroy the Appaloosa horse, but the Nez Perce have a long history of breeding horses, and I believe the Appaloosa will long be part of their cultural identity.

At the Nez Perce National Historical Park Visitors Center in Spalding, Idaho, I had the great fortune to  learn the proper function of a painted parfleche horse ornament located in our collection. I had originally selected this object to be included in the exhibition but I was unsuccessful in determining how the  object should or could be worn on the horse. At the museum this ornament is displayed with saddle and crupper intact. The painted parfleche is worn beneath the saddle and is quite beautiful once you see its proper use.

Jackie Bread (b. 1960), a Pikuni (Blackfeet) artist, beaded these saddle bags especially for the Song for the Horse Nation exhibit. Pikuni flat cases, 2009, Montana. Seed beads, tanned hide, rawhide and wool.
(26/7250).

Horse Art and Horse Medicine

Beaded and painted horse regalia are some of the most beautiful items created by Native artists. I approached Jackie Bread, a Pikuni (Blackfeet) artist and asked if she would be willing to create a pair of painted parfleches in the Pikuni (Blackfeet) tradition. I had given her an image of what I had in mind.

Initially, Bread said she would but later reported that she was uncomfortable with theassignment. What I had requested resembled parfleches which were used for horse medicine. Individuals who had been given this medicine could treat horses as well as human beings. Bread felt she didn’t have the right to produce the parfleches.

I was aware of her beadwork skills and I knew whatever she created would be amazing. I told her to feel free to create what she was comfortable with. She went on to produce two beautiful beaded bags worn behind the saddle. She used fresh smoked hide for the long fringe, which I could detect before I even
opened the package.

  Bryan Akipa (b. 1957), Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota wood-carver and musician, revived the tradition of the horse stick after seeing the famous 19th century carving of No Two Horns (Hunkpapa Lakota) in a museum visit. Akipa’s horse staff honors his uncle Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble, awarded the Medal of Honor for valor in the Korean War. Dakota horse staff, 2008, South Dakota. Wood, horsehair, imitation feather, ribbon and paint. (26/7158).

Bryan Akipa and the Horse Stick

In the exhibition we have a very famous horse stick made by No Two Horns, a Hunkpapa Lakota from the Standing Rock reservation. It is believed that he created this stick to honor his favorite horse, which had been killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The horse stick shows six wound marks with blood gushing from each wound. No Two Horns reproduced this horse stick several times.

I knew there were contemporary examples of horse sticks. One was made by Bryan Akipa from the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, who was inspired by seeing the No-Two-Horns stick in a museum in 1985. At the time, he said, “There were no horse staffs anywhere (except in museums), and most people did not know what it was.”

I asked Akipa why he created his horse stick. He said that he made the stick to commemorate his uncle Master Sergeant Woodrow Wilson Keeble, U.S. Army. Keeble’s Dakota name is Mato Sapa or Black Bear, and he is one of three full-blooded Indians to receive the Medal of Honor. Akipa, a Northern Traditional Dancer, carried this horse stick with him as he danced at powwows. Elders from his community  approached him and asked why he was carrying the stick.

“I had a giveaway, put on a meal, and told the story to the people,” Akipa told me. “My uncle knocked out three machinegun bunkers single-handedly. Approaching the third machine gun bunker he was hit by many grenades.” His uncle thought he was about to die, but a spirit of a man on horseback came and
encouraged him. Although Keeble’s story has been displayed in many places (including the Hall of Heroes at the Pentagon), said Akipa, it is always written in the military format and never includes the part where he saw a horse and rider on the battlefield.

“The story I grew up hearing always included his vision of a horse and rider. The horse was painted. The designs were painted circles around the eyes, lightning bolt on the forehead, lightning bolts on the front and hind quarters, handprints under the lightning bolts and rings painted around the legs. The rider was a decorated old warrior with a double trailing warbonnet holding a great lance. The horse and rider appeared to him larger than life.

“My aunt with all her oral-history knowledge has said the warrior on the horse was most likely my uncle’s great-grandfather Anawang Mani, also a great warrior.”

After Akipa told this story, the elders decided he had the right to carry the horse stick.

During the annual Crow Fair in Montana, participants hold a daily parade through the campground, displaying the elaborately beaded regalia that decorate their horses from head to tail. (Photo by Emil Her Many Horses)

Crow Fair

I cannot talk about horses without talking about the Crow from Montana. At their annual Fair held the third week in August, the Crow people gather to compete along with other tribes in horse races, rodeo and dance competitions. The campground is lined with beautiful white canvas tipis, and so the Fair
is known as “the Tipi Capital of the World.” One of the most colorful events is the daily parade through the camp. Men, women and children participate, but it is the women who have the most elaborate regalia. The women dress in their finest outfits, and their horses are decorated with beadwork from head to tail. The long hours spend on beading their regalia pay off at this one event. The Crow
people have succeed in keeping their horse culture alive with their distinctive style of beadwork horse regalia.

~ Emil Her Many Horses, a member of the History and Culture Research Unit at the National Museum of the American Indian, is curator of the Song for the Horse Nation exhibit, which opens at the Mall Museum.

Reprinted with permission from the Fall 2011 issue of American Indian magazine, the museum's premiere quarterly.

Indian Country in the News: Oct. 7 - Oct. 14, 2011

This week's news highlights include the first new chief for the Cherokee Nation in 12 years; a victory for protesters in Bolivia after officials halted construction of a road into the Amazon, an outcry over Urban Outfitters' faux Navajo apparel; a story about rap on the reservation; and the mourning of Columbus Day in Chile:

• Reuters:Cherokee certify new chief for first time in 12 years - "The Cherokee nation, the second-largest tribe in the country, will have a new principal chief for the first time in 12 years as challenger Bill John Baker ousted the incumbent chief, the tribe's election commission certified on Wednesday. Baker, 59, received just under 54 percent of the vote, final returns showed. The incumbent, 60-year-old Chad "Corntassel" Smith, who had led the tribe for 12 years, has until October 24 to file an appeal with the Cherokee supreme court to challenge the results."

• AFP: Bolivia lawmakers halt contested highway plans - "Bolivian lawmakers agreed Tuesday to postpone plans to build a highway through an Amazon nature preserve after months-long mass protests from indigenous people. The Chamber of Deputies approved President Evo Morales's decision to halt the project in order to consult with the local population in the wake of police violence against the demonstrators for which he has apologized. The Brazil-financed road was due to run through the Isiboro Secure reserve, home to some 50,000 natives from three different indigenous groups. These isolated groups, from the humid lowlands, are not from the main indigenous groups that make up most of Bolivia's population, the highland Andean Aymara and Quechua peoples."

• ABC: Urban Outfitters under fire for 'Navajo' Collection - "An open letter by a Native American woman from Minnesota has turned up the heat on the retail chain Urban Outfitters because of a line of "Navajo" items she claims are culturally offensive. Sasha Houston Brown, 24, decided to take action after walking into an Urban Outfitters store in Minneapolis and seeing Navajo-labeled products that disturbed her. She sent her complaint to the company's CEO by email and conventional mail, saying she was offended by "plastic dreamcatchers wrapped in pleather hung next to an indistinguishable mass of artificial feather jewelry and hyper sexualized clothing featuring an abundance of suede, fringe and inauthentic tribal patterns."

• NPR: Supaman: Rapping On The Reservation - "In southeast Montana, thousands of miles from the birthplace of hip-hop, a man with the given name Christian Parrish Takes the Gun has been rapping to young people on the Crow Nation reservation. He calls himself Supaman, and he's been merging inner-city music with more local concerns for more than a dozen years. "Native Americans grasp that culture of hip-hop because of the struggle," he says. "Hip-hop was talking about the ghetto life, poverty, crime, drugs, alcohol, teen pregnancy; all that crazy stuff that happens in the ghetto is similar to the reservation life. We can relate to that."  Supaman says he saw that crazy stuff as a kid. He says his parents were alcoholics and he spent lots of time in foster care before moving in with his grandfather. And for as long as he can remember hip-hop was playing in the background, like a soundtrack. When he was 24, Supaman decided it was time to make his own music."

• BBC: Chile indigenous Mapuches mourn Columbus Day - "Around 10,000 people have marched in the Chilean capital Santiago in support of the indigenous Mapuche people. The protest marked the 519th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, the start of the Spanish conquest. The Mapuche are Chile's largest indigenous minority. In recent years they have been involved in land disputes with farmers and timber companies in their homeland in Araucania in southern Chile. The anniversary of Columbus's first landfall on 12 October 1492 is a public holiday in Chile and across the Americas."

 

Ponca Road Trip 2011: One Family's Journey to Washington, D.C. - Part 2

The Upton family -- Talia, Harley T, Zonte and Kokoa -- during a pitstop on their road trip to the museum. Harley Upton (not pictured) is chronicling his family's journey to D.C. for this weekend's Ponca Festival. (Photo by Harley Upton).

Harley Upton, a member of the Ponca tribe, is driving across the country with his wife and three sons to be a part of this weekend's Ponca Festival. The Upton family has graciously agreed to chronicle their road trip and what it means to them to be making this journey. After yesterday afternoon's post from Omaha, Harley writes to us from Illinois:

 

We pass through to the state of Illinois over the Mississippi river at 3:30 p.m. The boys saw the sign and mentioned that they had learned about the Mississippi river in history. So my boy Kakoa gave me a history lesson. LOL! He is such a intelligent kid. I love him! We can see the autumn taking its full affect alongside the road. It is a beautiful site to see. 

 
A view of the landscape during the Upton family's road trip: "Autumn taking its full affect alongside the road," Harley writes (Photo by Harley Upton).

Now we have stopped in in Morris, IL for a pitstop. My eyes are starting to get tired so I am grabbing some coffee and a bite to eat. My wife had prepared some fried chicken and ribs the night before, so we are going to feast in the car. I just wish I had some fry bread! We are about 60 miles from CHI-Town….  

The Upton boys enjoy a feast in the car -- homemade fried chicken and ribs prepared by their mother, Talia (Photo by Harley Upton).

About 6:30 p.m. we drove on I-80 through Chi-Town ... This is when I thought I was on a race track, the driving is so different here. I had to be a bit more aggressive with my driving, or would get bumped off the interstate.  By this time the family was busy watching a movie. The sun was slowly setting to the west. My eyes began to adjust to the night. 

  Inspired by their trip through "Rudy" territory (Indiana), the Upton boys throw the football around during a rest from the road (Photo by Harley Upton).

Around 8:30 p.m., we drove through South Bend, Indiana. I start to hear chanting from the back of the SUV, "RUDY!"……"RUDY!" I began to laugh, I was like what? Then it dawn on me: the movie "Rudy." I thought that was so cool that my boys remembered Notre Dame.

It was around 10:30 when we entered the state of Ohio. At this time the family begin to fall asleep, the little one Kakoa was still watching his movies, resting his head on a pillow against the window. I sipped on some coffee, then I saw a sign saying Cleveland 110 miles, we were getting to closer.

At 12:30 a.m. we entered Cleveland from the west, this was the furthest I've gone in my life. I wondered what my forefathers before me thought once they got deeper east, more and more away from home. I sang a prayer song to myself as the family was sleeping, I was hitting the side of the steering wheel, as if it was a hand drum. Many songs come to mind when I am driving --  old powwow songs, ceremony songs, flag songs and many more. Then I looked up at my GPS. It said that I was 400 miles away from D.C. I had driven 750 miles, I thank the Creator for keeping my travel safe.

   Two of the Upton sons pose for a picture after taking a much-needed break playing football. (Photo by Harley Upton).