Showing posts with label native american. Show all posts
Showing posts with label native american. Show all posts
Monday, October 13, 2025
Monday, October 14, 2024
Monday, October 9, 2023
Monday, October 10, 2022
Friday, August 5, 2022
Three-Sisters Sagamité
I found this BBC Travel article fascinating because it spoke to preserving First Nation cultures and food!
By Diane Selkirk
In Quebec, the tale of the "three sisters" isn't just a myth about cooperation; it's a message from Wendat ancestors that teaches modern people about ancient, life-sustaining food.
According to Huron-Wendat legend, when the daughter of the original mother passed away, her body gave the world three sisters. In the story, each sister is unique: one stands tall, her long yellow hair blows in the wind. Another wears a bright yellow dress and is known to run off on her own. The third is so young she can only crawl along the ground. Only by working together are they able to flourish and grow – so the trio became inseparable.
But the sisters aren't people. They're crops: corn, squash and beans. And the story isn't just an old myth about cooperation, now shared with tourists who visit the Ekionkiestha' National Longhouse at the Huron-Wendat Museum, just outside Quebec City. It's a message from the ancestors of the First Nation that teaches modern Wendat people about the ancient, life-sustaining foods – and a companion planting technique called intercropping that's so important it survived all the turmoil and cultural losses that came with colonisation.
"Before our dispossession, Lake Huron was our home for centuries," said Johanne Paquet Sioui, a Wendat seed keeper and farmer. With arable land that stretched from Georgian Bay on Lake Huron to the shores of Lake Simcoe, the region known historically as Wendake or Huronia supported 30,000 to 35,000 Wendat people.
They lived in settlements surrounded by defensive palisades, with each village containing as many as 100 longhouses. Shared by four or five families, the large rectangular homes were built from log frames and covered with rounded roofs and walls made of cedar, fir or spruce bark. Windowless – the longhouses had two entrances, one at each end. Inside, the walls would have been lined with shelf-like beds that had food storage above them and wood piles beneath. Running in a row down the centre would have been cooking fires where a one-pot meal made from corn, beans and squash, called sagamité, may have simmered.
Back then, the three sisters made up some 60-80% of the Wendat diet, and the Wendat culture, like many others across North America, was centred on the plants' cultivation. Sioui said the men cleared the land and then the women and children would build up dirt piles and plant the beans. As the small seedlings began to grow, the farmers returned and placed corn kernels in the centre of the mounds (theories vary on whether it was corn or beans that were planted first). Next, winter squash was sown. As the plants matured, the cornstalks served as bean poles while the large squash leaves shaded the soil, creating a microclimate that preserved moisture and inhibited weeds.
Today we know that planting corn, beans and squash together results in better disease resistance, less reliance on fertilisers and improved crop yields. But for the Wendat people, it was a sacred act that respected ancient teachings. "We don't pray, instead we're taught to make thanksgiving," said Sioui. "For everything we are grateful for, we learn we have a responsibility to keep it that way."
At the end of the growing season, the vegetables were harvested and stored for winter. Corn and beans were dried and kept in the longhouse in bark or wooden containers. As far as possible, everything was used. Corn husks were braided for rope and twine, or used as filling for pillows and mattresses. The best seeds were selected and saved for the next season's planting by the seed keepers, whose job it is to collect and protect seeds.
But by 1650, the farms and village sites of Huronia or Wendake were empty. Thousands of Huron-Wendat people had succumbed to diseases including smallpox, influenza and measles, while others perished in the French and Iroquois Wars – a series of territorial and trade battles between the French, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), English and other First Nations.
Only some 500 Huron-Wendat are said to have survived and escaped, and for 200 years, they didn't have a homeland. "The old and the young died. They lost almost everything… their homes, their culture, their skills," said Sioui. What they didn't lose were their seeds, and every year, as they moved across the landscape, the men prepared the land, and the women planted the three sisters. And every year, after the harvest, the seed keepers saved seeds for the next spring.
Then, in 1853, the Huron-Wendat People were allotted reserve land; according to the Indian Act, it measured three by five miles and was located at the edge of Quebec City in what was then Lower Canada. They had a home, but as on most reserves in Canada, there was no arable space provided for agriculture or other food production.
"The last garden we harvested was in 1853," said Sioui.
The three sisters don't just nurture the soil and each other. According to Sioui, the three vegetables combined are exceptionally nutritious. Studies say that a diet based on maize, beans and squash can meet peoples' basic energy and protein requirements and can also help guard against diabetes. They're also high in antioxidants and provide trace minerals and folate, which guards against birth defects. But with the loss of farmland and the introduction of European staples including sugar, flour and butter, this ancient diet was almost completely replaced. The results were catastrophic.
Elders say that the loss of traditional foods is almost as damaging as the loss of language. Losing food systems severs a people's relationship with the natural world, the land, the plants and the seasons. It also takes away the intergenerational skills and celebrations that revolve around food sovereignty: spreading seeds or saving them, gathering together for harvests or for feasts.
Kyle Bobiwash, assistant professor in the Department of Entomology and the Indigenous scholar for the faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the University of Manitoba, said this is why it's so important for Indigenous people to be supported by governments and scientists as they relearn their traditions. "First Nations people have forgotten they were farmers. For a long time, we've just been survivors."
As one of the collaborators on the Three Sisters research project in Quebec, which focuses on Indigenous-led agriculture alongside Huron-Wendat and Haudenosaunee people and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Bobiwash said the project is guided by the ongoing goals of the Indigenous participants. After moving through the first phase in 2015, which included a search for ancestral seeds –that turned up Algonquin white and red Mohawk maize, Amish nuttle (also called corn hill) and macuzalito beans, and Algonquin Canada crookneck squash – the project turned to studying the comparative nutritional components of the ancestral plants. After that, they experimented with bean and corn flours to make a modern version of traditional Mohawk cornbread.
"We (scientists) are not here to validate this type of food or of intercropping – we can already look back at thousands of years and see the productivity," Bobiwash said.
Instead, the project is designed to offer support and agency while Indigenous communities decide what they want to know or learn about their traditional crops. At the same time, the scholars and scientists are trying to discover what else the three sisters can teach us about biodiversity and sustainability. "We know we need to do agriculture differently… to think about food systems differently," said Bobiwash, and bringing Indigenous knowledge and values into agriculture might be one solution. "The ancestors knew these systems worked; they may not have known why, but maybe that information was lost along the way."
As the Huron-Wendat begin to reclaim their traditional food systems through the Three Sister's project, small community gardens and demonstration plantings at Huron-Wendat Museum, they've been able to strengthen their culture. At the same time, other aspects of Wendat heritage are also being revitalised. The Wendat language, which nearly went extinct, is now taught in primary schools and to interested adults. And tourism is offering a way for young people to be proud of their culture while sharing their knowledge and history.
The Huron-Wendat Museum and the Huron Traditional Site Onhoüa Chetek8e show how rich the past was – with full-size replica longhouses and opportunities for visitors to learn about the culture through hands-on experiences like canoeing or making a traditional talking stick, which was used in longhouses to determine who had the right to speak. The new Onhwa' Lumina night walk helps bring the language and culture to life with a high-tech collaboration that tells ancient Wendat stories through lights and sound in a forested setting.
Three-Sisters Sagamité (serves 4)
By Marc de Passorio (La Traite)
Makes a light soup, suitable for a starter
Ingredients:
40g dried black beans
20g dried white beans
0.4kg butternut squash
20g corn
¼ onion, diced
2l vegetable broth
5g fresh sage, chopped
fleur de sel to taste
pepper to taste
Instructions:
1. Soak the beans in water overnight.
2. The next day, drain the beans, and then fill a pot with water and add the beans to it.
3. Cook over low heat for two hours or until tender. Drain the beans.
4. Cut the butternut squash into pieces and add it to the corn and onion, and then sauté in oil for 30 minutes.
5. Season with salt and pepper and add sage and beans.
6. Separately, heat the broth and then pour over even portions of the three sisters' preparation.
7. Serve.
Here is a link to the original article:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220801-the-sacred-sisters-of-ancient-america
And if you are or will be in Quebec, visit La Traite! It looks phenomenal. Check out the amazing menus (featuring the AWAKENING THE BEAVER Lunch menu, the FROM OUR MOTHER EARTH Midday menu, and the THE HUNGER OF THE WOLF Evening menu) at their site:
https://restaurantlatraite.ca/
The sacred 'sisters' of ancient America
By Diane Selkirk
2nd August 2022
According to Huron-Wendat legend, when the daughter of the original mother passed away, her body gave the world three sisters. In the story, each sister is unique: one stands tall, her long yellow hair blows in the wind. Another wears a bright yellow dress and is known to run off on her own. The third is so young she can only crawl along the ground. Only by working together are they able to flourish and grow – so the trio became inseparable.
But the sisters aren't people. They're crops: corn, squash and beans. And the story isn't just an old myth about cooperation, now shared with tourists who visit the Ekionkiestha' National Longhouse at the Huron-Wendat Museum, just outside Quebec City. It's a message from the ancestors of the First Nation that teaches modern Wendat people about the ancient, life-sustaining foods – and a companion planting technique called intercropping that's so important it survived all the turmoil and cultural losses that came with colonisation.
"Before our dispossession, Lake Huron was our home for centuries," said Johanne Paquet Sioui, a Wendat seed keeper and farmer. With arable land that stretched from Georgian Bay on Lake Huron to the shores of Lake Simcoe, the region known historically as Wendake or Huronia supported 30,000 to 35,000 Wendat people.
They lived in settlements surrounded by defensive palisades, with each village containing as many as 100 longhouses. Shared by four or five families, the large rectangular homes were built from log frames and covered with rounded roofs and walls made of cedar, fir or spruce bark. Windowless – the longhouses had two entrances, one at each end. Inside, the walls would have been lined with shelf-like beds that had food storage above them and wood piles beneath. Running in a row down the centre would have been cooking fires where a one-pot meal made from corn, beans and squash, called sagamité, may have simmered.
Back then, the three sisters made up some 60-80% of the Wendat diet, and the Wendat culture, like many others across North America, was centred on the plants' cultivation. Sioui said the men cleared the land and then the women and children would build up dirt piles and plant the beans. As the small seedlings began to grow, the farmers returned and placed corn kernels in the centre of the mounds (theories vary on whether it was corn or beans that were planted first). Next, winter squash was sown. As the plants matured, the cornstalks served as bean poles while the large squash leaves shaded the soil, creating a microclimate that preserved moisture and inhibited weeds.
Today we know that planting corn, beans and squash together results in better disease resistance, less reliance on fertilisers and improved crop yields. But for the Wendat people, it was a sacred act that respected ancient teachings. "We don't pray, instead we're taught to make thanksgiving," said Sioui. "For everything we are grateful for, we learn we have a responsibility to keep it that way."
At the end of the growing season, the vegetables were harvested and stored for winter. Corn and beans were dried and kept in the longhouse in bark or wooden containers. As far as possible, everything was used. Corn husks were braided for rope and twine, or used as filling for pillows and mattresses. The best seeds were selected and saved for the next season's planting by the seed keepers, whose job it is to collect and protect seeds.
But by 1650, the farms and village sites of Huronia or Wendake were empty. Thousands of Huron-Wendat people had succumbed to diseases including smallpox, influenza and measles, while others perished in the French and Iroquois Wars – a series of territorial and trade battles between the French, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), English and other First Nations.
Only some 500 Huron-Wendat are said to have survived and escaped, and for 200 years, they didn't have a homeland. "The old and the young died. They lost almost everything… their homes, their culture, their skills," said Sioui. What they didn't lose were their seeds, and every year, as they moved across the landscape, the men prepared the land, and the women planted the three sisters. And every year, after the harvest, the seed keepers saved seeds for the next spring.
Then, in 1853, the Huron-Wendat People were allotted reserve land; according to the Indian Act, it measured three by five miles and was located at the edge of Quebec City in what was then Lower Canada. They had a home, but as on most reserves in Canada, there was no arable space provided for agriculture or other food production.
"The last garden we harvested was in 1853," said Sioui.
The three sisters don't just nurture the soil and each other. According to Sioui, the three vegetables combined are exceptionally nutritious. Studies say that a diet based on maize, beans and squash can meet peoples' basic energy and protein requirements and can also help guard against diabetes. They're also high in antioxidants and provide trace minerals and folate, which guards against birth defects. But with the loss of farmland and the introduction of European staples including sugar, flour and butter, this ancient diet was almost completely replaced. The results were catastrophic.
Elders say that the loss of traditional foods is almost as damaging as the loss of language. Losing food systems severs a people's relationship with the natural world, the land, the plants and the seasons. It also takes away the intergenerational skills and celebrations that revolve around food sovereignty: spreading seeds or saving them, gathering together for harvests or for feasts.
Kyle Bobiwash, assistant professor in the Department of Entomology and the Indigenous scholar for the faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the University of Manitoba, said this is why it's so important for Indigenous people to be supported by governments and scientists as they relearn their traditions. "First Nations people have forgotten they were farmers. For a long time, we've just been survivors."
As one of the collaborators on the Three Sisters research project in Quebec, which focuses on Indigenous-led agriculture alongside Huron-Wendat and Haudenosaunee people and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Bobiwash said the project is guided by the ongoing goals of the Indigenous participants. After moving through the first phase in 2015, which included a search for ancestral seeds –that turned up Algonquin white and red Mohawk maize, Amish nuttle (also called corn hill) and macuzalito beans, and Algonquin Canada crookneck squash – the project turned to studying the comparative nutritional components of the ancestral plants. After that, they experimented with bean and corn flours to make a modern version of traditional Mohawk cornbread.
"We (scientists) are not here to validate this type of food or of intercropping – we can already look back at thousands of years and see the productivity," Bobiwash said.
Instead, the project is designed to offer support and agency while Indigenous communities decide what they want to know or learn about their traditional crops. At the same time, the scholars and scientists are trying to discover what else the three sisters can teach us about biodiversity and sustainability. "We know we need to do agriculture differently… to think about food systems differently," said Bobiwash, and bringing Indigenous knowledge and values into agriculture might be one solution. "The ancestors knew these systems worked; they may not have known why, but maybe that information was lost along the way."
As the Huron-Wendat begin to reclaim their traditional food systems through the Three Sister's project, small community gardens and demonstration plantings at Huron-Wendat Museum, they've been able to strengthen their culture. At the same time, other aspects of Wendat heritage are also being revitalised. The Wendat language, which nearly went extinct, is now taught in primary schools and to interested adults. And tourism is offering a way for young people to be proud of their culture while sharing their knowledge and history.
The Huron-Wendat Museum and the Huron Traditional Site Onhoüa Chetek8e show how rich the past was – with full-size replica longhouses and opportunities for visitors to learn about the culture through hands-on experiences like canoeing or making a traditional talking stick, which was used in longhouses to determine who had the right to speak. The new Onhwa' Lumina night walk helps bring the language and culture to life with a high-tech collaboration that tells ancient Wendat stories through lights and sound in a forested setting.
 |
| Chef Marc de Passorio prepares sagamité (Credit: Hôtel-Musée Premières Nations) |
And at La Traite, a gourmet restaurant in Wendake, patrons are able to taste dishes influenced by Indigenous foods – including a modern take on sagamité. The kitchen is newly helmed by Marc de Passorio, a Michelin-starred chef who came to Le Traite for the opportunity to learn from Indigenous cooks and Elders. "Today I am a complete apprentice: I try to see, understand and experience as much as possible from the First Nations," he said.
With 11 Indigenous Nations spread across Quebec in 55 communities, de Passorio is making a point of getting out on the land and to learn how Indigenous elders hunt, fish, harvest and prepare their traditional foods. Then he and his all-Indigenous kitchen team adapt the ingredients and cooking techniques for contemporary palates. "The First Nations people didn't use salt, so we add that. But we don't play too much with tradition. We want to be respectful."
The goal is to have a seasonal menu that incorporates the different berries, spices, woods, meats and vegetables he learns about as he travels to communities around the province. "People in different places harvest different foods at different times and use them in different ways, so I am gathering recipes and ideas," he said. "I ask everyone what they eat."
While the seasonal menu will reflect what he learns; the simple soup of beans, corn and squash will always remain the star. "I learned the story of the three sisters when I came. Before then, I had cooked beans, corn and squash, but never together. But together they are… fantastic," he said. "Our menu will change, but the sagamité will never come off – it's too important."
Sioui, who is culturally tasked with saving the seeds after each harvest and for the future, agrees. When she thinks of what it took for the seeds to survive, it becomes hard for her to speak, "They are good for our health, good for our heritage. They are holy."
With 11 Indigenous Nations spread across Quebec in 55 communities, de Passorio is making a point of getting out on the land and to learn how Indigenous elders hunt, fish, harvest and prepare their traditional foods. Then he and his all-Indigenous kitchen team adapt the ingredients and cooking techniques for contemporary palates. "The First Nations people didn't use salt, so we add that. But we don't play too much with tradition. We want to be respectful."
The goal is to have a seasonal menu that incorporates the different berries, spices, woods, meats and vegetables he learns about as he travels to communities around the province. "People in different places harvest different foods at different times and use them in different ways, so I am gathering recipes and ideas," he said. "I ask everyone what they eat."
While the seasonal menu will reflect what he learns; the simple soup of beans, corn and squash will always remain the star. "I learned the story of the three sisters when I came. Before then, I had cooked beans, corn and squash, but never together. But together they are… fantastic," he said. "Our menu will change, but the sagamité will never come off – it's too important."
Sioui, who is culturally tasked with saving the seeds after each harvest and for the future, agrees. When she thinks of what it took for the seeds to survive, it becomes hard for her to speak, "They are good for our health, good for our heritage. They are holy."
 |
| Chef Marc de Passorio’s version of "three sisters" sagamité (Credit: Hôtel-Musée Premières Nations) |
Three-Sisters Sagamité (serves 4)
By Marc de Passorio (La Traite)
Makes a light soup, suitable for a starter
Ingredients:
40g dried black beans
20g dried white beans
0.4kg butternut squash
20g corn
¼ onion, diced
2l vegetable broth
5g fresh sage, chopped
fleur de sel to taste
pepper to taste
Instructions:
1. Soak the beans in water overnight.
2. The next day, drain the beans, and then fill a pot with water and add the beans to it.
3. Cook over low heat for two hours or until tender. Drain the beans.
4. Cut the butternut squash into pieces and add it to the corn and onion, and then sauté in oil for 30 minutes.
5. Season with salt and pepper and add sage and beans.
6. Separately, heat the broth and then pour over even portions of the three sisters' preparation.
7. Serve.
Here is a link to the original article:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220801-the-sacred-sisters-of-ancient-america
And if you are or will be in Quebec, visit La Traite! It looks phenomenal. Check out the amazing menus (featuring the AWAKENING THE BEAVER Lunch menu, the FROM OUR MOTHER EARTH Midday menu, and the THE HUNGER OF THE WOLF Evening menu) at their site:
https://restaurantlatraite.ca/
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Happy Cherokee New Year 2021!
Happy Cherokee New Year!
The Cherokee people ended their year and started the new year in autumn. It’s interesting—and makes sense—that they chose the harvest to mark the end of the year. The earth had gone through a cycle: the food had grown from spring, through summer, and then was harvested in the fall. The cycle was finished; time to start anew. The New Year was celebrated with a festival that featured purifications, dancing, prayers and offerings, and food such as corn, beans, squash, and meat.Since the Cherokee calendar was and still is extremely tied to the phases of the moon, the timing of the New Year observation is somewhat up for debate. Some sources say that it was observed on the first full moon after the start of autumn, which is today, October 20th, 2021. Other sources report that the New Year was observed ten days after the first full moon, the ten days probably being a period of fasting and preparation for the festival. Still other sources cite the first full moon in the Cherokee month of Nvdadequa or Nvwatitequa—which happens during our month of November—as the true Cherokee New Year.
Whenever it was celebrated, it was surely around this time... when the earth turns, the days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, and the weather turns cold. We prepare for the introspection that comes with winter, when the ground sleeps under the snow. That is the beginning of the year, the beginning of time: from darkness and cold springs life, new growth.
I wish you all "alihelisdi itse udetiyvsadisvi" or Happy New Year!
http://www.cherokee.org/
Monday, April 16, 2018
"Remember" by Joy Harjo
In honor of National Poetry Month, here is a lovely, animistic poem by Native American poet Joy Harjo titled "Remember."
Everyone and everything has a story.
Remember
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
http://joyharjo.com/
Everyone and everything has a story.
Remember
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
http://joyharjo.com/
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Happy Cherokee New Year 2017!
Happy Cherokee New Year!
The Cherokee people ended their year and started the new year in autumn. It’s interesting—and makes sense—that they chose the harvest to mark the end of the year. The earth had gone through a cycle: the food had grown from spring, through summer, and then was harvested in the fall. The cycle was finished; time to start anew. The New Year was celebrated with a festival that featured purifications, dancing, prayers and offerings, and food such as corn, beans, squash, and meat.Since the Cherokee calendar was and still is extremely tied to the phases of the moon, the timing of the New Year observation is somewhat up for debate. Some sources say that it was observed on the first full moon after the start of autumn, which is today, October 5th, 2017. Other sources report that the New Year was observed ten days after the first full moon, the ten days probably being a period of fasting and preparation for the festival. Still other sources cite the first full moon in the Cherokee month of Nvdadequa or Nvwatitequa—which happens during our month of November—as the true Cherokee New Year.
Whenever it was celebrated, it was surely around this time... when the earth turns, the days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, and the weather turns cold. We prepare for the introspection that comes with winter, when the ground sleeps under the snow. That is the beginning of the year, the beginning of time: from darkness and cold springs life, new growth.
I wish you all "alihelisdi itse udetiyvsadisvi" or Happy New Year!
http://www.cherokee.org/
Monday, November 28, 2016
Just watched...
...or I should say: finally watched Terrence Malick's "The New World" from 2005.
Watching a Terrence Malick film is like dreaming: images distilled down to the essence of something, whether a place or an emotional state or a person. When we dream, what we see are signifiers... because this is how we live life. The elements around us signify something if nothing other than the fact that we exist, and are alive. The fact of us. I think that is what all Malick movies can be distilled to: the messy, irrefutable, confounding fact of us.
I know much has been made of the fact that Malick is a philosophy graduate from Harvard (summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. But he left that field after a disagreement with his tutor, the philosopher Gilbert Ryle (who coined the phrase "ghost in the machine") to become a filmmaker. His films are post-philosophy in a way. What he expresses, or maybe it is more accurate to say how he expresses what he does, in itself is a new kind of philosophy, at once cerebral and visceral. A unifying common theme in Malick's films, film critic Roger Ebert said, is how "Human lives diminish beneath the overarching majesty of the world." So what I have found is that no matter what story Malick is telling, it bears his unmistakable perspective on the world which dovetails very neatly with my own, and I suspect a great number of others (in a recent conversation with a very close friend who is quite sympatico with my own psyche, I confessed that I live my daily life on the verge of tears--just look around you, at the overarching majesty of the world, at it all, and I ask you how can you not?).
So for Malick's fourth film (he is a director who is not in a rush, considering that he has been making films since 1973 and has only released eight films), we are taken into the past, to 1607 and the founding of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia. Captain John Smith (played by Colin Ferrell) is one of the men on board three ships that drop anchor in the James River. The English come ashore and set about building a fort, mistrustful of the Native Americans who were there first. But this film is far from a superficial costume spectacle or period drama. In fact, Malick and his crew worked closely with archaeologists, Jamestown historians, and Native American tribal leaders to strike the correct tone. The Native actors trained for weeks to become convincing members of the Powhatan tribe, the people who lived in that part of Virginia at that time, studying movement and voice, and choosing body paint and animal totems to express in dance. The white actors spent time training in weaponry (shooting a musket is fraught with complicated details), and fighting with swords. The fort was actually built by a crew of carpenters using logs and wood from the area in exactly the way such a structure would have been built. The Native village structures and longhouses were built using the exact techniques that were employed by Native Americans 400 years ago. The veracity went so far as using the correct strains of corn (our modern corn has been hybridized and cross-bred but Native corn was thicker, tougher, heartier, larger) and tobacco. The reality of all this helped Malick to film the way he likes: to let his actors loose to live this truth organically, to have his actors develop a relationship to a real place instead of an artificial set, to have this action happen spontaneously and unencumbered by storyboards, and for his cameraman to record it all without tracks, lights, dollies, grips, or extra crew in the way. Emmanuel Lubezki, the cinematographer working with Malick on this project, used a special lens from Panavision that allowed them to work in a widescreen format while using only natural light (a no-no in traditional filmmaking) and achieving a depth of field where everything (or almost everything) is in focus.
By the time the English attempt to make a colony, problems with disease, supply shortages, and a simple lack of information on ways to live in this land force Smith to take a trip upriver to a Native village to trade for vital food and supplies. But he is separated from his party and taken prisoner by a local tribe. Slated to be killed (possibly), the chief's daughter intervenes and manages to have his life spared. Not once in the entire film do we hear the name of this young woman, who Smith falls in love with, and who is ultimately cast out. We of course know it is Pocahontas (played with stunning innocence and skill by Q'orianka Kilcher), but as I said before, this is not a glorified period spectacle. In true Malick form, dialogue is sparse in "The New World" and often we only hear the murmurs of inner monologues of characters as we follow them, privy to the private, whispered half-thoughts in their heads and hearts. Who she is is not important. What she is doing and what is happening to and around her is.
And of course the film is ravishingly beautiful, with shots of unspoiled nature and humans simply living in the middle of it, walking and touching lightly. The fact of us. The fact of here. The fact of now. It is always now. And you are here, wherever you are. Jamestown is one story. There are more...
Recommend? Absolutely yes yes yes.
Watching a Terrence Malick film is like dreaming: images distilled down to the essence of something, whether a place or an emotional state or a person. When we dream, what we see are signifiers... because this is how we live life. The elements around us signify something if nothing other than the fact that we exist, and are alive. The fact of us. I think that is what all Malick movies can be distilled to: the messy, irrefutable, confounding fact of us.
I know much has been made of the fact that Malick is a philosophy graduate from Harvard (summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. But he left that field after a disagreement with his tutor, the philosopher Gilbert Ryle (who coined the phrase "ghost in the machine") to become a filmmaker. His films are post-philosophy in a way. What he expresses, or maybe it is more accurate to say how he expresses what he does, in itself is a new kind of philosophy, at once cerebral and visceral. A unifying common theme in Malick's films, film critic Roger Ebert said, is how "Human lives diminish beneath the overarching majesty of the world." So what I have found is that no matter what story Malick is telling, it bears his unmistakable perspective on the world which dovetails very neatly with my own, and I suspect a great number of others (in a recent conversation with a very close friend who is quite sympatico with my own psyche, I confessed that I live my daily life on the verge of tears--just look around you, at the overarching majesty of the world, at it all, and I ask you how can you not?).
So for Malick's fourth film (he is a director who is not in a rush, considering that he has been making films since 1973 and has only released eight films), we are taken into the past, to 1607 and the founding of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia. Captain John Smith (played by Colin Ferrell) is one of the men on board three ships that drop anchor in the James River. The English come ashore and set about building a fort, mistrustful of the Native Americans who were there first. But this film is far from a superficial costume spectacle or period drama. In fact, Malick and his crew worked closely with archaeologists, Jamestown historians, and Native American tribal leaders to strike the correct tone. The Native actors trained for weeks to become convincing members of the Powhatan tribe, the people who lived in that part of Virginia at that time, studying movement and voice, and choosing body paint and animal totems to express in dance. The white actors spent time training in weaponry (shooting a musket is fraught with complicated details), and fighting with swords. The fort was actually built by a crew of carpenters using logs and wood from the area in exactly the way such a structure would have been built. The Native village structures and longhouses were built using the exact techniques that were employed by Native Americans 400 years ago. The veracity went so far as using the correct strains of corn (our modern corn has been hybridized and cross-bred but Native corn was thicker, tougher, heartier, larger) and tobacco. The reality of all this helped Malick to film the way he likes: to let his actors loose to live this truth organically, to have his actors develop a relationship to a real place instead of an artificial set, to have this action happen spontaneously and unencumbered by storyboards, and for his cameraman to record it all without tracks, lights, dollies, grips, or extra crew in the way. Emmanuel Lubezki, the cinematographer working with Malick on this project, used a special lens from Panavision that allowed them to work in a widescreen format while using only natural light (a no-no in traditional filmmaking) and achieving a depth of field where everything (or almost everything) is in focus.
By the time the English attempt to make a colony, problems with disease, supply shortages, and a simple lack of information on ways to live in this land force Smith to take a trip upriver to a Native village to trade for vital food and supplies. But he is separated from his party and taken prisoner by a local tribe. Slated to be killed (possibly), the chief's daughter intervenes and manages to have his life spared. Not once in the entire film do we hear the name of this young woman, who Smith falls in love with, and who is ultimately cast out. We of course know it is Pocahontas (played with stunning innocence and skill by Q'orianka Kilcher), but as I said before, this is not a glorified period spectacle. In true Malick form, dialogue is sparse in "The New World" and often we only hear the murmurs of inner monologues of characters as we follow them, privy to the private, whispered half-thoughts in their heads and hearts. Who she is is not important. What she is doing and what is happening to and around her is.
And of course the film is ravishingly beautiful, with shots of unspoiled nature and humans simply living in the middle of it, walking and touching lightly. The fact of us. The fact of here. The fact of now. It is always now. And you are here, wherever you are. Jamestown is one story. There are more...
Recommend? Absolutely yes yes yes.
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Happy Cherokee New Year 2016!
Happy Cherokee New Year!
The Cherokee people ended their year and started the new year in autumn. It’s interesting—and makes sense—that they chose the harvest to mark the end of the year. The earth had gone through a cycle: the food had grown from spring, through summer, and then was harvested in the fall. The cycle was finished; time to start anew. The New Year was celebrated with a festival that featured purifications, dancing, prayers and offerings, and food such as corn, beans, squash, and meat.Since the Cherokee calendar was and still is extremely tied to the phases of the moon, the timing of the New Year observation is somewhat up for debate. Some sources say that it was observed on the first full moon after the start of autumn, which is today, October 16th, 2016. Other sources report that the New Year was observed ten days after the first full moon, the ten days probably being a period of fasting and preparation for the festival. Still other sources cite the first full moon in the Cherokee month of Nvdadequa or Nvwatitequa—which happens during our month of November—as the true Cherokee New Year.
Whenever it was celebrated, it was surely around this time... when the earth turns, the days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, and the weather turns cold. We prepare for the introspection that comes with winter, when the ground sleeps under the snow. That is the beginning of the year, the beginning of time: from darkness and cold springs life, new growth.
I wish you all "alihelisdi itse udetiyvsadisvi" or Happy New Year!
http://www.cherokee.org/
Monday, September 28, 2015
Happy Cherokee New Year 2015!
Happy Cherokee New Year!
The Cherokee people ended their year and started the new year in autumn. It’s interesting—and makes sense—that they chose the harvest to mark the end of the year. The earth had gone through a cycle: the food had grown from spring, through summer, and then was harvested in the fall. The cycle was finished; time to start anew. The New Year was celebrated with a festival that featured purifications, dancing, prayers and offerings, and food such as corn, beans, squash, and meat.Since the Cherokee calendar was and still is extremely tied to the phases of the moon, the timing of the New Year observation is somewhat up for debate. Some sources say that it was observed on the first full moon after the start of autumn, which is today, September 28th, 2015. Other sources report that the New Year was observed ten days after the first full moon, the ten days probably being a period of fasting and preparation for the festival. Still other sources cite the first full moon in the Cherokee month of Nvdadequa or Nvwatitequa—which happens during our month of November—as the true Cherokee New Year.
Whenever it was celebrated, it was surely around this time... when the earth turns, the days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, and the weather turns cold. We prepare for the introspection that comes with winter, when the ground sleeps under the snow. That is the beginning of the year, the beginning of time: from darkness and cold springs life, new growth.
I wish you all "alihelisdi itse udetiyvsadisvi" or Happy New Year!
http://www.cherokee.org/
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Happy Cherokee New Year, 2014!
Happy Cherokee New Year!
The Cherokee people ended their year and started the new year in autumn. It’s interesting—and makes sense—that they chose the harvest to mark the end of the year. The earth had gone through a cycle: the food had grown from spring, through summer, and then was harvested in the fall. The cycle was finished; time to start anew. The New Year was celebrated with a festival that featured purifications, dancing, prayers and offerings, and food such as corn, beans, squash, and meat.Since the Cherokee calendar was and still is extremely tied to the phases of the moon, the timing of the New Year observation is somewhat up for debate. Some sources say that it was observed on the first full moon after the start of autumn. Other sources report that the New Year was observed ten days after the first full moon (which is today, October 18th, 2014), the ten days probably being a period of fasting and preparation for the festival. Still other sources cite the first full moon in the Cherokee month of Nvdadequa or Nvwatitequa—which happens during our month of November—as the true Cherokee New Year.
Whenever it was celebrated, it was surely around this time... when the earth turns, the days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, and the weather turns cold. We prepare for the introspection that comes with winter, when the ground sleeps under the snow. That is the beginning of the year, the beginning of time: from darkness and cold springs life, new growth.
I wish you all "alihelisdi itse udetiyvsadisvi" or Happy New Year!
http://www.cherokee.org/
Thursday, November 28, 2013
A Day of Thanks, A Day of Mourning
Today marks the 44th Day of Mourning observed with a vigil and rally on Cole's Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts.
For info on the vigil and rally:
http://www.uaine.org/2013_ndom/2013_Day_of_Mourning.pdf
or visit United American Indians of New England at
http://www.uaine.org/
For info on the vigil and rally:
http://www.uaine.org/2013_ndom/2013_Day_of_Mourning.pdf
or visit United American Indians of New England at
http://www.uaine.org/
Friday, October 18, 2013
Happy Cherokee New Year, 2013!
Happy Cherokee New Year!
The Cherokee people ended their year and started the new year in autumn. It’s interesting—and makes sense—that they chose the harvest to mark the end of the year. The earth had gone through a cycle: the food had grown from spring, through summer, and then was harvested in the fall. The cycle was finished; time to start anew. The New Year was celebrated with a festival that featured purifications, dancing, prayers and offerings, and food such as corn, beans, squash, and meat.Since the Cherokee calendar was and still is extremely tied to the phases of the moon, the timing of the New Year observation is somewhat up for debate. Some sources say that it was observed on the first full moon after the start of autumn (which is today, October 19th, 2013). Other sources report that the New Year was observed ten days after the first full moon, the ten days probably being a period of fasting and preparation for the festival. Still other sources cite the first full moon in the Cherokee month of Nvdadequa or Nvwatitequa—which happens during our month of November—as the true Cherokee New Year.
Whenever it was celebrated, it was surely around this time... when the earth turns, the days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, and the weather turns cold. We prepare for the introspection that comes with winter, when the ground sleeps under the snow. That is the beginning of the year, the beginning of time: from darkness and cold springs life, new growth.
I wish you all "alihelisdi itse udetiyvsadisvi" or Happy New Year!
http://www.cherokee.org/
Thursday, April 25, 2013
BEAUTY: Painting--Rick Bartow
Painter Rick Bartow is of Wiyot and Yurok heritage, tribes originating in Northern California. And his heritage plays a large part in the imagery of his work. His paintings speak to the Native idea of spirit or power animals, and Native myths and stories that blend human and animal forms. I believe we all have an animal form in another dimension; and conversely all animals have a human form. Bartow, a fine arts painter and sculptor, cites Francis Bacon and Marc Chagall as inspirations and indeed, Bartow's style possesses none of the kitsch usually (and unfortunately) associated with Native American art.
Top to bottom: Bear Heart; Bull Disguise; Cloak of Kestrel; Coyote Magic; Give Me Back My Father; Raven Chant
Rick Bartow at Froelick Gallery:
http://www.froelickgallery.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=227
Top to bottom: Bear Heart; Bull Disguise; Cloak of Kestrel; Coyote Magic; Give Me Back My Father; Raven Chant
Rick Bartow at Froelick Gallery:
http://www.froelickgallery.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=227
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
In Memoriam: The Dakota 38
ST. PAUL, Minn (Reuters) - The day after Christmas will be somber for Dakota Indians marking what they consider a travesty of justice 150 years ago, when 38 of their ancestors were executed in the biggest mass hanging in U.S. history.
Overshadowed by the Civil War raging in the East, the hangings in Mankato, Minnesota, on December 26, 1862, followed the often overlooked six-week U.S.-Dakota war earlier that year -- a war that marked the start of three decades of fighting between Native Americans and the U.S. government across the Plains.
President Abraham Lincoln intervened in the case, demanding a review that reduced the number of death sentences. But he allowed 38 to be executed, including two men historians believe were hanged in error, even as he was preparing the Emancipation Proclamation to free black slaves in the South.
This month, in an annual event that started in 2005, some Dakota are making a 300-mile trek on horseback in frigid winter temperatures to revive the memory of this footnote in U.S. history.
"It was just a terrible trauma that they had to endure, and we continue to have to endure this generational trauma to this very day," said Sheldon Wolfchild, former chairman of the Lower Sioux Indian Community in southwestern Minnesota.
This year's ride began on December 10 in Crow Creek, South Dakota, the reservation the Dakota were exiled to from Minnesota after the executions. It ends on December 26 in Mankato, where riders will attend a ceremony to remember the hangings.
Riders travel east across South Dakota, crossing the border into Minnesota and heading southeast to Mankato. Some ride the entire route, others join as their schedules permit. Support vehicles follow them.
The ride was captured in the documentary film "Dakota 38," which won a special jury award this year at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Film Festival.
"During the ride ... it feels as close to how we might have been in a camp," said Gaby Strong, who has participated in the ride or support for it each year. "That is really what we are doing over the course of the 10 or 15 days that we are all together."
Strong, 49, who lives in Morton, Minnesota, near the site of a key 1862 battle in the U.S.-Dakota war, said the ride has helped form bonds among the Dakota Sioux, especially the young.
"It's about healing, not only just for me, but for my community," said Vanessa Goodthunder, a rider and participant each year. "We are just bringing home our ancestors. You meet a lot of new people, and I get a lot of different perspectives."
Goodthunder, 18, who is majoring in American Indian studies and history at the University of Minnesota, said the rides have helped young Dakota connect with each other and their history.
"It's your identity. It is who you are," she said.
FORGOTTEN WAR
Over the next three years, Americans will commemorate the 150th anniversary of a host of Civil War battles. Almost forgotten are the conflicts with Native Americans that occurred in the second half of the 19th century as the United States rapidly expanded west.
Few of those conflicts are well known, with the exception of "Custer's Last Stand" -- when flamboyant officer George Armstrong Custer and his men were killed by Sioux leader Crazy Horse and his warriors in 1876 -- and the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890, which many historians consider a massacre and the end of the Indian wars.
Thousands of Native Americans, white settlers and U.S. soldiers were killed in the Indian wars. Native Americans were coerced to cede their lands and then forced onto reservations.
In the Upper Plains, that included members of the Great Sioux Nation, which comprises Lakota to the west, Nakota in the middle and Dakota to the east around Minnesota.
The seeds of the Dakota war were planted years earlier, in the 1830s, according to historians, when the fur trade that had been the basis of the region's economy since the late 17th century began to fade and land became valuable for settlement.
Under treaties in 1851, the four main Dakota bands ceded about 35 million acres of what is now southern Minnesota, parts of Iowa and South Dakota. In exchange, the U.S. pledged payments and allowed the Dakota a narrow tract of land about 10 miles wide on either side of the Minnesota River. Settlers swarmed onto the newly opened lands.
In 1858, just after Minnesota became a state, Dakota chiefs were summoned to Washington, D.C., and told they would have to give up the northern half of that narrow reserve, said St. Cloud State University historian Mary Wingerd.
By summer 1862, the Dakota, now largely dependent on government treaty payments that were long delayed, were starving. On August 17, young Dakota men out hunting killed five white settlers.
The hunters pressed Chief Taoyateduta, known as Little Crow, to back a war. Some Dakota, but not all, fought soldiers and settlers in the short, bloody war in August and September 1862.
Hundreds of settlers were killed and hundreds more taken hostage in the war during attacks on forts, federal Indian agencies, cities and farms around southwestern Minnesota. Thousands of settlers fled east, fueling a statewide panic, and federal troops marched in to quell the Dakota fighters.
The U.S. was victorious on September 23, 1862, and Little Crow left Minnesota.
Afterward, more than 2,000 Dakota were rounded up, whether they fought or not. Almost 400 men faced military trials, which often lasted just a few minutes, and 303 were sentenced to die.
LINCOLN'S REVIEW
Lincoln demanded a review limiting the death sentences to those Dakota who raped or killed settlers. The number sentenced to hang was reduced to 38, but even in these cases the evidence was scanty, said Dan Stock, history center director at the Minnesota Historical Society.
The 38 condemned men stood on a large square gallows surrounded by soldiers. Thousands watched as a single blow with an ax cut a rope and dropped the scaffolding.
Wingerd said she could understand why the Dakota fought, but the brutal killings of settlers could not be condoned and she could not agree with people who believed that no one should have been hanged.
"We have to understand it as a huge tragedy with victims on both sides," Wingerd said of the deaths of settlers and the forced marches and scattering of most Dakota from Minnesota.
"In fact, the Dakota nation did not go to war and most of the people who were expelled from Minnesota were guilty of nothing," Wingerd said.
About 1,700 Dakota women, children and older men who did not fight were marched to a prison camp at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, where up to 300 died that winter. They were exiled to Crow Creek, South Dakota, in 1863, but some began to return to Minnesota almost immediately.
"They continue to come home and this ride represents that," Strong said of Minnesota. "We continue to come home. This is our homeland."
Wolfchild said he wants authorities to recognize sacred Dakota sites in the area that is now the Twin Cities and its suburbs to help heal the lingering wounds from the broken treaties, Mankato hangings and exile.
"I would like to be buried where our people originated from," he said.
(Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Greg McCune and Douglas Royalty)
http://news.yahoo.com/dakota-indians-mark-hangings-1862-trek-horseback-145213610.html
Memorial to 38 hanged Dakota men unveiled in Minn.
MANKATO, Minn. (AP) — Hundreds of people gathered Wednesday for the unveiling of a memorial to 38 Dakota men who were hanged 150 years ago to the day in what is the largest mass execution in U.S. history.
About 60 horse riders, including some tribe members who rode for 16 days from South Dakota, were among the roughly 500 people on hand for the dedication of the "Dakota 38" memorial, which marks a dark chapter in the history of the region and country. Dakota runners who departed from Fort Snelling also made it to the ceremony, which took place in Reconciliation Park in downtown Mankato, which is about 65 miles southwest of Minneapolis.
"Today, being here to witness a great gathering, we have peace in our hearts — a new beginning of healing," said Arvol Looking Horse, the leader of the Dakota/Lakota tribe, according to The Free Press of Mankato.
The Dec. 26, 1862, mass hanging marked the end of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, which took place along the Minnesota River valley that fall. Following the war, 1,600 Dakota were held at a camp at Fort Snelling until being sent out of state, and virtually all other Dakota fled Minnesota.
Originally, 303 men were sentenced to be hanged. President Abraham Lincoln was aware of injustices in the men's trials, and also was urged to show compassion by Episcopal Bishop Henry Whipple. Lincoln reviewed all the cases and wrote a letter to Minnesota Gov. Alexander Ramsey, listing 39 men who should be hanged, including one who was later given a reprieve. Some Native Americans today feel Lincoln was wrong to order any of the hangings and that several of the men were innocent of any wrongdoing.
In August, Gov. Mark Dayton marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the war by asking Minnesotans to "remember the dark past" and by repudiating the actions of Ramsey, Minnesota's second governor, who said after the war that the Dakota should be exterminated or driven from the state.
A traditional drum and song group on Wednesday sang a song composed for the 38 Dakota, to the pounding of a large drum. Mankato Mayor Eric Anderson read a proclamation declaring this the year of "forgiveness and understanding."
Sidney Byrd, a Dakota/Lakota elder from Flandreau, S.D., read out in the Dakota language the names of the 38 men who were hanged. The names are inscribed on the monument, along with a poem and a prayer.
"I'm proud to be with you today. My great-grandfather was one of those who paid the supreme price for our freedom," he said. Byrd's great-grandfather was among the Dakota originally sentenced to death who were given reprieves by Lincoln. The men were sent from a prison in Mankato to one in Davenport, Iowa, where many died from squalid conditions.
The Dakota behind the new memorial and the ride and run have used the mantra "forgive everyone everything" to mark the 150th anniversary. Those words will be engraved in stone benches to be placed around the new memorial next summer.
"This is a great day, not only for the Dakota but for the city of Mankato," said Bud Lawrence of Mankato, who helped start a reconciliation effort in the 1970s.
State Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City, who co-chairs a state task force commemorating the Civil War and U.S.-Dakota War, said that while progress has been made through reconciliation and education, there remains a lack of understanding about what led up to the war and the problems that the Dakota suffered long afterward.
"Through understanding comes a healing that is still continuing today," Urdahl said.
Richard Milda, of the Crow Agency in Montana, was among a small group of riders who made the entire trip from Lower Brule, S.D., to Mankato. It's the third year he's taken part in the ride.
"I heard about the ride and was attracted to its message of forgiveness and remembrance," Milda said.
The 38 Names
Ti-hdo-ni-ca (One Who Jealously Guards His Home)
Ptan Du-ta (Scarlet Otter)
Oyate Ta-wa (His People)
Hin-han-sun-ko-yag-ma-ni (One Who Walks Clothed In Owl Feathers)
Ma-za Bo-mdu (Iron Blower)
Wa-hpe Duta (Scarlet Leaf)
Wa-hi-na (I Came)
Sna Ma-ni (Tinkling Walker)
Hda In-yan-ka (Rattling Runner)
Do-wan-s-a (Sings A Lot)
He-pan (Second Born Male Child)
Sun-ka ska (White Dog)
Tun-kan I-ca-hda ma-ni (One Who Walks By His Grandfather)
I-te Du-ta (Scarlet Face)
Ka-mde-ca (Broken Into Pieces)
He pi-da (Third Born Male)
Ma-kpi-ya (Cut Nose)
Henry Milord
Wa-kin-yan-na (Little Thunder)
Cas-ke-da (First Born)
Baptiste Campbell
Ta-te Ka-ga (Wind Maker)
He In-Kpa (The Tip Of The Horn)
Hypolite Ange
Na-pe-sni (Fearless)
Wa-kan Tanka (Great Spirit)
Tun-kan Ko-yag I-na-zin (One Who Stands Cloaked In Stone)
Ma-ka-ta I-na-zin (One Who Stands On The Earth)
Maza Kute-mani (One Who Shoots As He Walks)
Ta-te Hdi-da (Wind Comes Home)
Wa-si-cun (White Man)
A-i-ca-ga (To Grow Upon)
Ho-i-tan-in-ku (Returning Clear Voice)
Ce-tan Hu-nka (Elder Hawk)
Can ka-hda (Near The Woods)
Hda-hin-hde (Sudden Rattle)
Oyate A-ku (He Brings The People)
Ma-hu-we-hi (He Comes For Me)
Information from: The Free Press, http://mankatofreepress.com/local/x1303500941/-Forgive-everyone-everything
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Happy Cherokee New Year, 2012!
Happy Cherokee New Year!
The Cherokee people ended their year and started the new year in autumn. It’s interesting—and makes sense—that they chose the harvest to mark the end of the year. The earth had gone through a cycle: the food had grown from spring, through summer, and then was harvested in the fall. The cycle was finished; time to start anew. The New Year was celebrated with a festival that featured purifications, dancing, prayers and offerings, and food such as corn, beans, squash, and meat.
Since the Cherokee calendar was and still is extremely tied to the phases of the moon, the timing of the New Year observation is somewhat up for debate. Some sources say that it was observed on the first full moon after the start of autumn. Other sources report that the New Year was observed ten days after the first full moon, the ten days probably being a period of fasting and preparation for the festival (which means New Year is today!). Still other sources cite the first full moon in the Cherokee month of Nvdadequa or Nvwatitequa—which happens during our month of November—as the true Cherokee New Year.
Whenever it was celebrated, it was surely around this time... when the earth turns, the days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, and the weather turns cold. We prepare for the introspection that comes with winter, when the ground sleeps under the snow. That is the beginning of the year, the beginning of time: from darkness and cold springs life, new growth.
I wish you all "alihelisdi itse udetiyvsadisvi" or Happy New Year!
http://www.cherokee.org/
The Cherokee people ended their year and started the new year in autumn. It’s interesting—and makes sense—that they chose the harvest to mark the end of the year. The earth had gone through a cycle: the food had grown from spring, through summer, and then was harvested in the fall. The cycle was finished; time to start anew. The New Year was celebrated with a festival that featured purifications, dancing, prayers and offerings, and food such as corn, beans, squash, and meat.Since the Cherokee calendar was and still is extremely tied to the phases of the moon, the timing of the New Year observation is somewhat up for debate. Some sources say that it was observed on the first full moon after the start of autumn. Other sources report that the New Year was observed ten days after the first full moon, the ten days probably being a period of fasting and preparation for the festival (which means New Year is today!). Still other sources cite the first full moon in the Cherokee month of Nvdadequa or Nvwatitequa—which happens during our month of November—as the true Cherokee New Year.
Whenever it was celebrated, it was surely around this time... when the earth turns, the days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, and the weather turns cold. We prepare for the introspection that comes with winter, when the ground sleeps under the snow. That is the beginning of the year, the beginning of time: from darkness and cold springs life, new growth.
I wish you all "alihelisdi itse udetiyvsadisvi" or Happy New Year!
http://www.cherokee.org/
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Seeker of Visions
“Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn’t have any kind of prison.
Because of this, we had no delinquents.
Without a prison, there can be no delinquents.
We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves.
When someone was so poor that he couldn’t afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift.
We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property.
We didn’t know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth.
We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another.
We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don’t know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.”
--John (Fire) Lame Deer
In the early 70s, Lakota (Sioux) wichasha wakan or holy man John (Fire) Lame Deer, (in Lakota: Tȟáȟča Hušté) recounted his fascinating life to writer Richard Erdoes. The book was published as LAME DEER, SEEKER OF VISIONS.
Because of this, we had no delinquents.
Without a prison, there can be no delinquents.
We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves.
When someone was so poor that he couldn’t afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift.
We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property.
We didn’t know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth.
We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another.
We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don’t know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.”
--John (Fire) Lame Deer
In the early 70s, Lakota (Sioux) wichasha wakan or holy man John (Fire) Lame Deer, (in Lakota: Tȟáȟča Hušté) recounted his fascinating life to writer Richard Erdoes. The book was published as LAME DEER, SEEKER OF VISIONS.
Happy Cherokee New Year, 2011!
Happy Cherokee New Year!
The Cherokee people ended their year and started the new year in autumn. It’s interesting—and makes sense—that they chose the harvest to mark the end of the year. The earth had gone through a cycle: the food had grown from spring, through summer, and then was harvested in the fall. The cycle was finished; time to start anew. The New Year was celebrated with a festival that featured purifications, dancing, prayers and offerings, and food such as corn, beans, squash, and meat.
Since the Cherokee calendar was and still is extremely tied to the phases of the moon, the timing of the New Year observation is somewhat up for debate. Some sources say that it was observed on the first full moon after the start of autumn. Other sources report that the New Year was observed ten days after the first full moon (the ten days probably being a period of fasting and preparation for the festival). Still other sources cite the first full moon in the Cherokee month of Nvdadequa or Nvwatitequa—which happens during our month of November—as the true Cherokee New Year.
Whenever it was celebrated, it was surely around this time... when the earth turns, the days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, and the weather turns cold. We prepare for the introspection that comes with winter, when the ground sleeps under the snow. That is the beginning of the year, the beginning of time: from darkness and cold springs life, new growth.
I wish you all "alihelisdi itse udetiyvsadisvi" or Happy New Year!
http://www.cherokee.org/
The Cherokee people ended their year and started the new year in autumn. It’s interesting—and makes sense—that they chose the harvest to mark the end of the year. The earth had gone through a cycle: the food had grown from spring, through summer, and then was harvested in the fall. The cycle was finished; time to start anew. The New Year was celebrated with a festival that featured purifications, dancing, prayers and offerings, and food such as corn, beans, squash, and meat.
Since the Cherokee calendar was and still is extremely tied to the phases of the moon, the timing of the New Year observation is somewhat up for debate. Some sources say that it was observed on the first full moon after the start of autumn. Other sources report that the New Year was observed ten days after the first full moon (the ten days probably being a period of fasting and preparation for the festival). Still other sources cite the first full moon in the Cherokee month of Nvdadequa or Nvwatitequa—which happens during our month of November—as the true Cherokee New Year.
Whenever it was celebrated, it was surely around this time... when the earth turns, the days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, and the weather turns cold. We prepare for the introspection that comes with winter, when the ground sleeps under the snow. That is the beginning of the year, the beginning of time: from darkness and cold springs life, new growth.
I wish you all "alihelisdi itse udetiyvsadisvi" or Happy New Year!
http://www.cherokee.org/
Monday, June 13, 2011
BEAUTY: Clothing--Native American
Native American clothing. Buffalo and deer hide. Feathers. Sinew. Seed and glass beads. Buffalo horn and bone. Quills.
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