Respecting Non-Western Sacred Objects: An A:shiwi Ahayu:da (Zuni war god), the Museum of the American Indian–Heye Foundation, and the Museum of Modern Art

By Cécile R. Ganteaume, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian

For the last few weeks, American Indians, the international art world, U.S. State Department officials, indigenous rights activists, and intellectual and cultural property rights lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic have been discussing the proposed sale of Hopi Katsina “friends” (often mistakenly called masks) at a Paris auction house. The Hopi, who live in northern Arizona, and their supporters tried to delay, if not halt, the sale. Hopi Katsina friends are among the most sacred Hopi ritual objects. Katsinam (the plural of Katsina) are spiritual beings that live in the peaks of the San Francisco Mountains and bring blessings to the Hopi. When worn during Kastina ceremonies, the friend—the spirit of Katsina—is united with the spirit of man. On April 12, 2013, a French judge ruled that “the claim that Hopi cultural patrimony is exclusively their property has no legal basis according to French law” and that the auction house could proceed with the sale..

The Hopi effort is the latest prominently reported instance of an American Indian tribe trying to regain its sacred objects from the international art world and market. American Indians have been seeking the return of their sacred objects since well before the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), the federal law that helps enable the return to tribes of certain categories of objects including sacred objects, held by U.S. museums.

Almost thirty years ago, on September 27, 1984, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City opened a highly anticipated and soon to be celebrated exhibition. “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern was curated by William Rubin (1927–2006), then MoMA’s esteemed director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture, in collaboration with Kirk Varnadoe (1946–2003), a professor within the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. On display in the exhibition was to be an A:shiwi (Zuni) Ahayu:da (war god) borrowed from the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin, (now the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin). The MoMA exhibition, and its multi-authored, two-volume catalogue, explored the influence of tribal art and culture in modern art’s development “from Gauguin at the turn of the century to the Abstract Expressionists around 1950.” When the exhibition opened, the New York Times heralded it as “an immensely important show.” 

 

“People are talking about: The man from MoMA” by Barbara Rose in Vogue (August, 1984. Vol. 174(8), pages 357–361 & 416) with illustrations of the A:shiwi (Zuni) Ahayu:da (war god) in the collections of the Museum für Völkerkunde and the Paul Klee painting, Mask of Fear. Page 357 @ Condé Nast. Used with permission.

In one of their exhibition galleries, the curators planned to juxtapose the painted wood Ahayu:da “sculpture” with a Paul Klee oil painting, Mask of Fear (1932), to discuss what they found to be the striking affinity between the “primitive” and “modern” “works of art.” The Museum für Völkerkunde acquired the Ahayu:da in 1880, and Klee, the Swiss-born artist closely associated with the Bauhaus movement, was known to have visited the museum several times while the Ahayu:da was on display. Like many avant-garde artists of his time, Klee was keenly interested in the formal vocabulary of the visual arts of non-Western peoples; he wrote on the subject more than once. William Rubin was convinced that Klee was familiar with the Museum für Völkerkunde Ahayu:da and that it “consciously or unconsciously” influenced his Mask of Fear. In the catalogue essay, “Modernist Primitivism: An Introduction,” Rubin wrote of the works’ “striking similarities,” comparing the oval-shaped heads; the single arrow projecting from the top of each head; the long, narrow noses and absence of mouths; and the horizontal line crossing each forehead. He suggested that “the curious multiple legs” protruding from Klee’s head were a transformation of the feathers projecting from the Ahayu:da’s chin. Klee’s painting was “a modernist transformation,” Rubin wrote, of the A:shiwi Ahayu:da “sculpture.” And this was how the curators intended to display the A:shiwi Ahayu:da from the Museum für Völkerkunde in “Primitivism” in the 20th Century: as a “primitive sculpture” with “conceptual complexity and aesthetic subtlety” whose exhibition and publication in the West, along with the appearance of other “primitive” works of art, had a great impact on Modernist aesthetic sensibilities. (See William Rubin, “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern, vol. 1. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1984, pages 29–32.)

But as it happened, by 1984 the A:shiwi were already actively pursuing the return of their Ahayu:da—all wrongfully removed from shrines on their reservation. Cared for by A:shiwi religious leaders, Ahayu:da are powerful guardian beings who protect the A:shiwi and their land from harm. Their acquisition by European and European–America individuals and institutions broke all A:shiwi religious and cultural protocols. Their dispersion was the result of large-scale historical events that brought non-Western peoples, ideas, and practices to the Americas and led, in a myriad of ways and places, to the wrongful alienation of Native peoples’ religious patrimony.

The A:shiwi began their efforts to recover their Ahayu:da in 1978, twelve years before Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) to provide a process for museums and federal agencies to return to Native Americans and Native Hawaiian organizations certain cultural items—human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony. The A:shiwi were in the vanguard of Native peoples seeking the return of sacred objects from museums, galleries, auction houses, and private collections. Buttressed by the newly legislated American Indian Freedom of Religion Act (1978), intended to protect American Indian religious liberties that had long been infringed upon and even prohibited, the A:shiwi campaign helped make it possible for other tribes to recover their own sacred objects. As T. J. Ferguson, an anthropologist who aided the A:shiwi in their efforts, has written, A:shiwi religious leaders were not only resolute in their pursuit, but most importantly were “morally persuasive” in their conversations with museum curators, administrators, and others in the art world elucidating the importance of returning Ahayu:da to A:shiwi shrines. (See T. J. Ferguson, “Repatriation of Ahayu:da: 20 Years Later.” Museum Anthropology, vol. 33, 2012, pages 194–95.)

During the summer of 1984, I was a curatorial assistant at the Museum of the American Indian–Heye Foundation, the forerunner institution to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. As such, I was very much aware of the increasingly vocal opposition of Native peoples, including the A:shiwi, to having their sacred objects displayed as “art” in museum exhibitions—in fact, to having them housed in museum collections at all.

It is important to bear in mind that in Western art history, the term “sacred art” is used to refer to (what might be called in this specific context) ancillary objects used in religious ceremonies and buildings, such as Byzantine chalices and other Christian liturgical vessels; or medieval or renaissance paintings bearing religious iconography, such as Hieronymus Bosch’s extraordinary altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi; or, much more recently, certain abstract works with fields of luminous color, such as Henri Matisse’s stained glass windows in the Dominican Chapelle du Rosaire in France. In other words, in Western art history the term is used to refer to artistic creations depicting, expressing, or evoking religious subjects and a realm of reality beyond that ordinarily encountered in daily life. It is used to refer to artistic works intended to speak to the hearts, minds, and spirits of those contemplating the divine.

Importantly, it is not used to refer to, for example, a host consecrated by an ordained priest during the Eucharistic service of a Catholic Mass. A consecrated host has never been considered “art” by museums. Yet objects held by American Indians to be spiritually sentient were. And they were displayed in museums throughout the U.S. and Europe for reasons that had nothing to do with (read: without any understanding of) their deeply held spiritual reality, and without any awareness of, and consequently regard for, the religious practices and tenets of contemporary Native peoples.  

Museum of Modern Art members’ newsletter (no. 32, Jul–Aug, 1984) announcing the upcoming exhibition “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern.
 

I learned that the Museum of Modern Art planned to include an A:shiwi Ahayu:da in “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art through a preview in MoMA’s members’ newsletter. I shared this newsletter with the MAI–HF curators, and in particular with Brenda Shears (then Holland), who in turn shared it with our assistant director, George Eager. (Roland Force, director of the MAI–HF, was out of town.) After staff worked their networks to gather salient information, Eager wrote a letter to Richard Oldenburg, director of the Museum of Modern Art and a long-time colleague, advising him that A:shiwi Ahayu:da were “the most sensitive of Native American religious objects” and should not be put on display. He informed Oldenburg that museums throughout the country were in fact removing Ahayu:da from exhibition for this very reason. Eager went on to explain that any Ahayu:da out of A:shiwi  possession were considered stolen objects, illegally removed from shrines on the A:shiwi reservation. In no small measure because of this letter, MoMA removed the Ahayu:da borrowed from the Museum für Völkerkunde from “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art. (See James Clifford, “Histories of the Tribal and the Modern.” In Primitivism and Twentieth Century Art: A Documentary History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, pages 351–68.) 

I have never forgotten the pivotal role that the MAI–HF played in this incident, nor the experience of being a direct witness to a sea change in museum practice. MoMA’s decision represents one of the first times that an eminent institution at the center of one of the cultural capitals of the world removed a sacred American Indian object from display, let alone from such an important (and highly publicized) exhibition. It was, in fact, an historic act that helped focus worldwide attention on the inappropriate display of sacred American Indian objects and on the responsibility of museums to respect Native religious traditions. 

Cécile R. Ganteaume is the curator most recently of Circle of Dance, an exhibition on view at NMAI–New York. She is also the curator of the exhibition An Infinity of Nations: Art and History in the Collections of the National Museum of the American Indian also on view at NMAI–New York, and the editor of the accompanying book. She is a recipient of a 2011 Smithsonian Secretary’s Excellence in Research Award. She joined the staff of the museum when it was established as part of the Smithsonian. Photo by R.A.Whiteside, NMAI. 

Blazing New Frontiers: The National Congress of American Indians and the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy

Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010), box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38067

We gather here not only mindful of heavy burdens but also full of hope. We want to believe there is a New Frontier, a New Trail. Our faith is renewed that with our renewed effort and cooperation of the Tribes, their friends, and the U.S. government working together, we will be able to find better solutions to the problems we face. 

 —Angus Wilson, Nez Perce Tribal Chairman
Conventions and Mid-Year Conferences: Speeches, 1961. 
National Congress of American Indian records, box 12.

 

One of the highlights of my job at the NMAI Archive Center is helping people find those bits of information hidden in folders that, when put together, contribute to a picture of the past. Since the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) records is one of NMAI’s largest archival collections, I recently decided to learn more about the history of the NCAI in order to better assist researchers and answer reference questions. For this reason, I picked up Thomas Cowger’s book The National Congress of American Indians : The Founding Years and enthusiastically dove in. I was particularly curious about the role of Helen Peterson (Oglala Lakota), whose papers NMAI also has available for research.

During Peterson’s tenure as Executive Director of NCAI, from 1953 to 1961, one of her tasks was to work with the Indian Organization Committee for the 1961 Presidential Inaugural Parade. The election of John F. Kennedy was seen as a step in a new and hopeful direction for U.S. Indian policy. Accordingly, NCAI thought it only fitting to name its float in the parade “First New Frontier.” Helen Peterson and the NCAI also helped enter four additional parade floats from different Indian communities and arranged for the participation of more than 200 representatives from 22 different tribes.

On the morning of January 20th, 1961, despite a storm the previous night that covered the city in snow, all of the parade participants lined up along the icy streets of Washington to celebrate the inauguration. Hailing from 13 different states, the “Indian Unit” stood out impressively with its five floats, six jeeps, and 64-piece Arizona Navajo Intertribal Band, whose membership had grown to include Zuni, Hopi, Pima, Hualapai, Mojave, and Maricopa musicians. (Interesting side note: The Arizona Navajo Intertribal Band is now called the Navajo Nation Band, and they will be participating in the 2013 Inaugural Parade.  You can see a full list of this year’s parade participants here.)

Determined to keep everyone organized and on schedule, Peterson had laid out in full detail who would be on which float and the order in which they would process down Pennsylvania Avenue. Below are the final float descriptions submitted to the Inaugural Parade Committee. (All descriptions are from the Helen Peterson papers [NMAI.AC.016], box 11, NCAI Subject File, Inaugural, 1961.) 

Float 1: Rosebud Sioux, South Dakota Centennial 1961 

National Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010), box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38058

 “Rosebud Sioux Indians, South Dakota, performing traditional and authentic Chief’s Dance honoring President Kennedy. Rosebud Sioux Tribe is joined by Oglala and Standing Rock Sioux Tribes, also with reservations in South Dakota. All performers on the float are 'Plains' Indian tribal members. This is the state of South Dakota float in observance of the state’s centennial.”

 

Float 2: The First New Frontier—1620 

National Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010), box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38057

“This float (sponsored by the National Congress of American Indians) symbolizes the friendliness and generosity with which the Indians met the first new settlers and is intended to convey the richness of the continent that was the first new frontier. Squash, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, tobacco were among the food products developed by the Indians that were unknown to the Old World. Contrary to popular belief, the Indians first met the white settlers with friendly curiosity. (The snowstorm ruined the display of vegetables and the real turkey that, were to have been a part of the float . . .)”

 

Float 3: Sacajawea and Lewis and Clark Blaze Montana’s New Frontier 

National Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010), box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38064

“In the first few years of the 1800s, a Shoshone Indian woman who became the wife of Charbonneaux, a trader, led the Lewis and Clark expedition through the Northwest to open up that vast area. With a baby on her back, Sacajawea was a symbol of peace and cooperation. The small tepee is a symbol of the tepees used by the Plains Indians. The mural on the float was done by a Creek Indian artist in Washington who is employed by the U.S. Department of State. There are many dogs in Indian camps and the dog on this float was loaned by Metropolitan policemen. After the dog was selected from some thirty offers to the Montana committee, it turned out the dog’s name is NIXON.”

 

Float 4: White Mountain Apache Crown Dance 

National Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010), box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38060

“This float is composed entirely of White Mountain Apache Crown Dancers, singers and Apache women from Arizona. The dancers are students from the high school in White River, Arizona. One of the singers is Chairman of the Tribe, elected by his people. This float indicates some of the differences among the Indian Tribes of which there are more than a hundred major tribes in the U.S. today with significant populations or land holding, the title to which is held in trust by the U.S. Government.”

 

Float 5: Contributions of the First Americans  

National Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010) Box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38068

“Sponsored by the Navajo Tribe which spreads over almost sixteen million acres in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, this float calls attention to the many contributions the First Americans have made to the social, economic and political life of the United States. 'Miss Indian America' is a symbol of the rich resource of Indian youth. She is Vivian Arviso, member of the Navajo Tribe, 18 years old, and a student at Colorado College.”

 

Though many participants were undoubtedly cold and damp by the end of the parade, spirits must have been high: NCAI won runner-up for most creative float.

For more information on the NCAI records or the Helen Peterson papers, please feel free to contact the Archive Center at NMAIArchives@si.edu. The NMAI Archive Center also would like to welcome tribal community members to Washington, D.C., for the Native Nations Inaugural Ball and the “Out of Many Festival” which will be held January 18th through the 20th at the museum on the National Mall.

—Rachel Menyuk, archives technician, NMAI Archive Center

Digitizing the Museum's Photo Archives: 75,000 Images and Counting

By Will Greene

My primary function at the National Museum of the American Indian is the creation of digital versions of the museum’s extensive archive of tens of thousands of historical photographic negatives, prints, transparencies, and lantern slides. Digitization affords many benefits both to the collection itself and to users of the archive. Direct handling of archival materials is rendered largely unnecessary, and the possibility of damage or loss is correspondingly dramatically reduced. Because the image files contain detailed embedded information on the date and time of digitization (along with many other things), each is a snapshot condition report on the photograph showing scratches, discoloration, tears, cracked glass, etc. Once digitized, an image can be printed, burned to a disk, or transmitted over a network or the Internet. Digital copies can be created in a variety of file sizes and formats, and every copy will duplicate the detail and tonality of the original digital image much more closely than was possible with traditional silver image photo technology. Once entered into a searchable database, the photos can be accessed and analyzed rapidly and efficiently by anyone with computer access.

Over the course of my career at NMAI, I have been able to digitize more than 75,000 photos, making substantial inroads into the overall task. In the early years we suffered through some fits and starts in determining standards, but once those were established we began to accumulate significant digital resources. Initially materials were digitized in response to end-user requests, both from internal and external institutions and individuals. In the years leading up to the opening of the museum on the National Mall in Washington, creating new digitizations for exhibitions and books took most of my time. As the museum’s digital resources have grown and new tools for search and retrieval have come along, more and more image requests can be fulfilled from existing image files. This has afforded an opportunity to direct further digitization efforts in a more rational and focused way, concentrating on completion of significant collections or on materials that demand special handling or are particularly fragile. 

One such project is digitizing the Churchill collection. Frank C. Churchill (1859–1912) was an inspector of reservations for the U.S. government from 1899 to 1909. In this position, Churchill traveled the country from Florida to Alaska, often with his wife, Clara. As an avid photographer he assembled a significant personal archive. The museum collection contains some 469 negatives and 3,710 prints housed in 28 photo albums.

The photo albums present a number of challenges. Hundred-year-old leather covers and album pages wrinkled with age must be handled very carefully. The pages have been interleaved with acid free paper to prevent deterioration, and this material must be removed and replaced each time you turn a page. Any handling of these old albums, no matter how careful, will result in some debris and the scanning equipment must be cleaned constantly. It’s a time-consuming process, and the best, most efficient method is to go through each album completely and digitize every print that has relevance to the museum. 

Because most of the photos in the albums have not been widely seen, I’ve tried to use broad criteria in deciding which images to scan. I’m looking for named individuals (many of the photographs have information on the date, location, and tribe); folks wearing traditional apparel and/or engaged in traditional crafts or activities; significant and/or traditional structures (such as the Cherokee National Capitol in 1905 or an Apache wikiup in 1899); group photos which have dates and locations (there are lots of school groups); photos of the creators of the albums (but not every one—the Churchills loved to photograph each other); or gatherings like dances, ceremonies, etc., especially when a date and location are noted. I’ve also included some images of famous and much-photographed places, mostly in the Southwest—Mesa Verde, various pueblos, etc., where the date is given, as these might prove useful to anyone tracking the changes in these places.

I think perhaps the greatest value of the albums is the caption material linking the images to a particular time and place with a very high degree of reliability. This greatly enhances their research value. 

The photograph above—which was given the museum catalog number P23360_143—was taken at the Santa Fe Indian School circa 1904. It is captioned in the margin, “Just arrived—Navajo Indian girls.” Then, “Several of these girls had never seen a white man until they met the clerk of the agency who brought them to the school.”

Unfortunately, many photographs' captions, like this one, fail to record the subjects' names. Sometimes the museum has been able to recover that information, working with tribal museums and scholars. By sharing digitized images with more viewers, I hope the museum will reach community and family members who can help us link photographs to individual lives and histories. 

You don’t have to know the whole sad history of the government boarding schools, however, to look at the faces of these six girls and see the fear, anger, anxiety, and resentment written there. Sometimes a picture is truly worth a thousand words, and we’ve got lots and lots of pictures. 

Will Greene is a digital imaging specialist on the museum's Photo Services staff. This is the first in a series of blog posts about his work and the museum's photography collections.

If you have information about a photograph Will discusses, and you would rather not post it as a comment, you can reach him via email at NMAISocialMedia@si.edu. 

Sundance 2012: Four Days for Tunkashila

After the Sundance: Looking east at the Tree of Life. Photo by Marisol Villanueva, courtesy of the Grandmothers Wisdom project. 

Author's note: The images shown here, by photographer Marisol Villanueva, portray elders and dancers after the formal closing of a four-day Sundance ceremony hosted in the Black Hills. They document a public ceremony that honored an ally of the Lakota families who sponsor the American Horse–Afraid of Bear Sundance. The photographs were taken and released under the families' direction, with the intention of informing "the people-at-large" of the new name given to a respected friend. 

Once again before Grandfather Sun, Tunkashila, the ceremony has come together. As they have for sixteen years, on these wondrous plateaus of the southern Black Hills of the northern Great Plains, Uncle Joe American Horse, traditional chief and former tribal president; his brother David American Horse; Grandma Beatrice Long Visitor Weasel Bear; respected headwoman Loretta Afraid of Bear; respected Pipe Carrier Tom Cook; and the American Horse/Afraid of Bear tiospayes (families) receive brothers and sisters of the many directions.

The purpose is to pray—by dancing, by receiving each other in a good way. In a properly isolated place, where wild horse herds roam relatively free, a ceremonial arbor open to the Four Directions is flanked by a large shade on poles and a dozen large tipis. This is home for four and more days to dancers there to don the ceremonial skirt, red-tied bracelets of prairie sage on ankles and wrists, crown of sage tied in red cloth, dual eagle feathers (spikes are favored) placed on the head; set to carry the ceremony as dancers of the sun.  Below—“downstairs”—a second plateau a half-mile away is camp for some two hundred family supporters of specific and groups of dancers, where more tipis and tents, an occasional RV, and many trucks and cars circle around a communal kitchen, staffed completely by volunteers— cooks and helpers.

There are many Sundances each summer, perhaps fifty or more just at the Oglala–Lakota reservation of Pine Ridge, hundreds, maybe thousands, across the Northern and Southern Plains, many more during sun-appreciation ceremonies throughout the hemispheric Native Americas. While foundational precepts and structures are manifested wherever Native peoples salute or celebrate the sun, each Sundance has its history, its specificity of culture and practice over its own ceremonial trajectory.

The Sundance sponsored by the American Horse and Afraid of Bear tiospayes, with much support by Red Clouds and other Lakota families, is unique in this general manner: About twenty years ago, grandfathers and grandmothers of the previous generation, guided by Larue Afraid of Bear and Ernest Afraid of Bear, journeyed over four years throughout the Black Hills.  Through sweat lodges and long walks, they searched for a proper place to bring the Sundance of their tiospaye from nearby Pine Ridge Reservation, home of the Oglala Sioux Nation, to their ancient grounds in the Black Hills. They found it inside an 11,000-acre sanctuary for wild horses established years ago by a cowboy-writer named Dayton Hyde. The story of how the old Indians found a meaningful partnership with the old cowboy who had saved a herd of mustangs, how they shared “signals” from a cave of ancient pictographs, put up inipi (sweatlodge) ceremonies, and finally “were led to” the sacred grounds of the present Sundance is worth much longer telling. It is an origin story and legend vivid with magical elements and assertive values—mysterious, yet true and historical. That narrative informs this particular Sundance, weaving into a common thread, which, for the sixteen years since 1997, has united a widespread range of participants.

The word tiospaye describes the very large, extended family of Plains Indian culture. The American Horse family numbers into the hundreds and originates in the line of the great 19th-century chief American Horse—a contemporary of Crazy Horse, and, along with that renowed warrior, one of four “shirtwearer” chiefs of the Oglala people. Afraid of Bear was a chief as well, from a family of strong political tradition, and progenitor also of hundreds of descendants. Other Oglala families participate in this summer solstice ceremony, notably the Red Cloud people, intermarried and relatives through tiospaye alliances since before reservation days.

Chief Joe American Horse and Loretta Afraid of Bear honor ally Dayton Hyde with a naming ceremony. Wearing a blue dress in the background is Beatrice Long Visitor Afraid of Bear. Photo by Marisol Villanueva, courtesy of the Grandmothers Wisdom project.

These are strong Oglala families, leadership people in a tribe with a long and difficult history. Deeply rooted at Pine Ridge, the American Horse–Afraid of Bear Sundance gathers spiritualists and cultural practitioners, activist families and individuals of many tribes and peoples. Through the leadership of Tom Cook and Loretta Afraid of Bear, Chief Joe American Horse, and important allies such as Milo Yellow Hair, the tiospayes work a summer gardens project that receives volunteers and consultants from many parts. Friendships and alliances extend internationally from just this one piece of the Oglala universe. This reality led the elders, after much discussion, to allow the tiospayes to accept people of other races to participate. “There’s four colors of man—red, white, black, and yellow,” Ernest Afraid of Bear once put it. “Anyone who wishes to come pray with us can come pray.” This became a definitive decision at the founding of their Sundance by Oglala elders. The decision does not lack for controversy, but the head people have only deepened their conviction over the years that while their ceremony must remain rooted in the Oglala families and Native leadership, kolas (good friends) of all races should be welcomed to participate.

On “tree day,” the evening before the start of dancing, a line of fifty cars snakes from the grounds to a creek where a silk cottonwood tree with just the right qualities has been selected.  Struck first by four young girls, the tree is sacrificed—greeted, smoked over, painted and sung over, then cut down by the men dancers, who are charged not to let it hit the ground. Thus it is carried and motored to the Sundance circle, where it is prepared, decorated with many tobacco-tie offerings, and put up, straight and gorgeous, full of spiritual promise, the Tree of Life.

Seven flagpoles to honor Armed Forces veterans are erected in ceremony to the east, just outside the arbor—American and tribal flags snapping in the wind and portraits of fallen loved ones on chairs draped with starquilts.

Day after day, the sweatlodge stones hiss with steam, the eagle-bone whistles blow, feathers sway in the wind, and the feet of many people, in the dance ground and in the surrounding shaded arbor, keep pace with the drums and singers. Strong-pounded Sundance songs sustain the prayers of the people.

Men's sweat lodge, Sundance, 2012. Photo by Marisol Villanueva, courtesy of the Grandmothers Wisdom project.

In 2012 more than sixty dancers pledged to dance the four days, fasting from food and partly from water, about forty men and twenty women, more than half from Native communities, dressed in colorful skirts manifesting much red, an impressive sight. Always tough, the severity of sacrifice varies among the many Sundances and among the individuals who participate. Men’s chests and backs are cut and pierced, hooked to hang and pull from the Tree of Life, hooked to pull buffalo skulls until breaking free, bloody wounds of courage and pity, pleading and hope, to give of their own bodies, according to traditional teaching, the only thing that actually belongs to a human being. Women give flesh offerings from their shoulders, sometimes stitching eagle feathers to their arms. Sacrifice is prayer by gift of suffering, and at this Sundance, such activity is carried out with dignity and decorum, with much common support. Veteran dancers set the pace and mood. Macho is disdained, bragging easily identified. The prayer of an individual, his or her particular vision, elicits complete respect.

Every day, pipes are loaded with prayerful tobacco, taken into the dance, and over the day given over to selected people outside the dance who will smoke for the dancer, releasing their prayers to the universe.

Every day, water is remembered fondly, our relationship with water and memory of it deeply felt, our yearning for its gift, our appreciation of its identity in ourselves.

For four days, the people convene, the Sacred Tree sways in the wind, the singers drum and the dancers dance. It is an exciting monotony and much happens, in the wind and the sky and among the people. Oglala Lakota Tribal President John Yellowbird Steele shows up on tree day with the Oglala Sioux Tribe pipe, a beautiful red pipestone buffalo carving on a long stem. He asks for special prayers for the nation, as upcoming meetings will severely challenge its sovereignty; strength of resolve is sought. The Black Hills case is mentioned; all the Lakota tribal governments are holding firm so far: “The Black Hills are not for sale.” A family comes in with four horses to give away; a group of heyokas, or contraries, shows up, adding to the ceremony with their humorous pranks directed at the dancers, teased with buckets of water. High winds, clouds of dust, hot sands and sudden rain, meaningful clouds, exhaustion and renewal, tears of pain and hope.

Tunkashila–Wakantanka, Sun and Blue Skies, energy and movement, time. The sun is grandfather. Throughout the Native Americas, the sun is regulator, he is the day, illuminator, Creator himself or his central representation in Creation, Ahau among the Maya, Inti to the Quechua, steady, unchanging, Heart of the Sky.

Very special this year, the main prayer that unites all the dancers is dedicated to womankind—“the women.” Release from shame, from violence is sought. Native ways of North and South are recollected. The Maya Calendar days are pondered and indeed the days of the dance precisely correspond with particularly intense “women’s days” in the sacred calendar, significantly the 13 Ix. This is all noted. A mother and daughter from Navajo visit; during a break between dance rounds, they speak to the assemblage about a movement among women on reviving the practice of the ceremonial Moonlodge. Good teachings around the confusing subject of menstruation and ceremony emerge, dreams recounted. In the privacy of the men’s sweatlodges, words of respect, affection, and support of the women and the families are offered. On these and many subjects, elder teachings are shared and pondered—true purpose of a sacred gathering. Men grow as the women concentrate their power.

On day four, as the dance concludes and final blessings are sought from the dancers, other ceremonies take place. There is hunka, or the making of relatives; there is a naming and honoring gifted in eagle feathers, where the venerable cowboy, Dayton Hyde, on this sixteenth year of hosting the Sundance on his horseland, receives the Lakota name Wapiya Owanyanke—Protector of Ceremonies; there are veterans’ salutes; there are give-aways by families and individuals. There is a big feed. 

—Jose Barreiro

Jose Barreiro (Taíno) is head of the National Museum of the American Indian’s Office for Latin America. His Hemispheric Journal also appears on the Indian Country Today Media Network.

 

PART 2: Q&A with Native Hawaiian Surfer & Craftsman Tom "Pōhaku” Stone

Native Hawaiian surfer Tom "Pōhaku” Stone rides the waves near his home in Hawai`i. From May 20 through 25, Stone—an artist-in-residence at NMAI in Washington—will carve a traditional Hawaiian surfboard and sled in the museum's Potomac Atrium. Photo courtesy of the artist.

 

For this year's celebration of Native Hawaiian art, history, and culture, the museum welcomes Tom “Pōhaku” Stone, a Native Hawaiian carver from O`ahu, Hawai`i, as an artist-in-residence from Sunday, May 20, through Friday, May 25. Stone will spend the week in the museum's Potomac Atrium demonstrating his skills as he carves a traditional Hawaiian surfboard (papahe´enalu) and lashes together a traditional Hawaiian sled (papaholua).

In the second part of a two-part Q&A, Stone talks about what it was like growing up in Hawai`i, how he first became intersted in traditional Hawaiian sports and crafts, and what it takes to make a great longboard.

Tell me about Hawaiian sledding. I've read that you used to barrel down grassy hills as a child before you even knew about the cultural history of he´e holua. How did you first learn about it?

I originally was taught how to slide downhill on tī leaves, which is the first step to learning to ride the actual sled. You would take a stalk of tī leaves and sit on it to slide down a 50 to 70 percent slope on dirt or mud. It was just a cultural practice that we grew up with because it was taught to us at a young age. I believe the intention was to prepare us to commit to the downhill.

Stone holds a traditional hōlua sled. Photo courtesy of the artist. 

Can you tell me about how the ancient sport was used to honor Hawaiian gods? How did the tradition come to an end? When was it revived?

Hōlua sledding and the slide constructed (with a few exceptions) was built off of cliff faces or steep hardened lava slopes, which is the physical representation of Pele the volcano goddess. We usually performed this sport to honor her, showing all that we are willing to sacrifice ourselves; this was also a way for a great Ali'i Nui to show that he was a chief who would sacrifice his life for the people, which also applied to the warriors. When the conversion process from our traditional worshipping to Christianity occurred following the death of Kamehameha I in 1819, the slides and accompanying heiau (areas of worship) were some of the first structures to be dismantled under missionary supervision. Based on my research, this was due to various factors: 1) worshipping female gods went against the white male Christian beliefs; 2) [missionaries] needed to break the connection to the religious system; 3) as the Natives were in cultural collapse due to our great dying from foreign disease, we were looking for a god that would kleep us alive and at the time we believed what the missionaries were preaching.

The art of hōlua was resurrected in 1994 through my efforts to revive our knowledge and connection to this ancient sport that spanned the high islands of the Pacific and to reconnect us to our religion—the of honoring our 400,000 gods for giving us life over 30,000 years.

Stone lashes together a traditional Hōlua. Photo courtesy of the artist.

How is a basic sled built?

The papahōlua is constructed in three parts and reflects the image of a living person who is offering up a sacrifice, which is usually the riders themselves. The three parts are:

The runners (kama`a loa, or "long shoes"), which I draw freehand. The front section that I call the "hand of offerings" is meant to present the offering, and the body extends back as a person prostrating himself. A runner measures in average 12 feet in length by 2 to 4 inches in height by 1 inch in wide.

Then you have the crosspieces (`iako), similar to the outrigger canoe boom when lashing a double-hull canoe support together. The number of these pieces used to lash the runners together is dependent on their length; runners can reach up to 20 feet long.

The last is the handrails (pale), rounded and lashed together with bamboo ('ohe), which provides flexibility to the papahōlua.

The injuries I have are just what happens when you ride hōlua, but what keeps me doing it is my kūleana or responsibility to keep this cultural practice that strengthened our mind, body, and spirit alive. Practices such as this are what keeps us strong when facing the unknown, keeps us connected to who we are as ocean people, to see ourselves as living people with an intact culture rather than be assimilated.

How did you get into teaching? What is the hardest part? What’s your favorite part?

My dedication to passing on the knowledge of our kūpuna [grandparents]; bridging the gap between student and teacher, for students to understand the significance of past, present, and future; the living knowledge and history of my native world and knowing that it is alive with every breath I take.

What is your advice for young Hawaiians who want to reconnect with their culture? What are the new challenges for this younger generation in doing so?

Live for the future but embrace the old ways as your guide, and carry on the traditions that today impact the world. We are a people the world embraces and wishes to know who we are.

How long does it take to carve a surfboard? A sled? What is the oldest Hawaiian sled in existence?

It takes me when I am fully committed to one surfboard, five days from raw material to finish; for the sled it takes a total of 32 hours approximately. The oldest sled known to me is in the Bishop Museum. It belonged to Kanemuna (a great Ali'i Wahine, woman chief) from Ho`okena, Hawai`i Island. The name of this sled is Lonoikamakahiki.

Come meet Stone in person during his artist-in-residency through Friday, May 25, or join him and other Hawaiian artists at this year's annual Celebrate Hawai`i festival on Saturday and Sunday, May 26 & 27, 2012.

For the full schedule of events, visit the museum's website.

To read Part 1 of our Q&A, click here.