When I woke up this morning around 7 am, camping on the side of a quiet road near a major highway, near Lupton, Arizona, someone walked by my vehicle, and asked if I could give him a ride. He wanted to go to Gallup, New Mexico, about 20 miles away. He said he was hitching to work, which began at 10. "I don't steal, or anything," he said. He might have been between 35 and 60 years old.
I said I didn't have much space, but I cleared a spot for him, and we rode together. His name was Leonard.
As we rode, he said he was a full-blooded Navajo. I asked how things are for Navajo people today. He said not bad. I asked him what Navajo people are doing these days. He mentioned traditional crafts like weaving and silversmithing, and construction. The mother of his kids works in a hotel, he said. I asked him about a vision for the Navajo people, and cultural processes like vision quests. He didn't say a lot about a contemporary (positive) vision for Navajo, and he said vision quests occurred. He was a little quiet in general, and Native-white ways of relating were a little in the air from the beginning of our interaction.
He asked me where I was heading. And I told him the canyon lands in northwestern New Mexico, and then mentioned "Cuba, NM." He asked what I was going to do there, and I eventually told him I was going to the Rainbow Gathering. He said "What's that?" I wondered how to characterize it to someone who hadn't heard of it, but might be sympathetic. I said it was kind of a gathering of hippies, - a little like a pow wow, maybe. After a while, he said "like Woodstock?" I said yea. And we laughed out loud together.
We talked a little about the Navajo. He said there are around 265,000 - 300,000 Navajo. Navajo have a president these days. It's Joe Shirley now - opvp.org. The Navajo presidency is modeled after the U.S. presidency. Presidents hold office for 4 years, and are elected. The four corners area (Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah) is a center of the Navajo world, and there are some Navajo in Mexico, but I got a sense that he was answering a kind of white (sociological) view. I was interested in his views, but wasn't sure how to elicit them.
He said where I camped was on reservation-land. Having arrived where I camped after dark, the views of Arizona around my camping spot were beautiful, I saw, as we started to drive.
He asked if I had gone to the "Gathering of the Nations," a native gathering which happened last year near Lupton, AZ. He said native peoples had come from as far as Canada. I said I hadn't gone but that I did go to a Sundance last year in northern California, in the Sierra Valley, and there were First Nations people there from Canada, too.
He asked me what I do, and I said I'm a college teacher, with an interest in the information technology and their social effects, that I'm writing a anthropological book about a place in northern California - Harbin Hot Springs - and that I'm developing World University & School {http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University}, which is like Wikipedia, where we can all teach and learn.
He asked if anthropologists study the Anasazi, and I said archaeologists do this. Anthropologists study the current social fabric of life. (I was a little hesitant to say anthropologists study groups of people, and historically have studied native peoples). He said Navajo ancestors were supposed to have come from Alaska. And I said this happened all pretty recently, in a sense, and that North America - Turtle Island - wasn't inhabited by people before 16,000-20,000 years ago.
I asked him if the Navajo were pretty integrated into the modern world these days, and he said "yea." I asked him if he thought this was good, and he replied affirmatively. He told me about a radio station in the Navajo language - 660 on the AM dial. I turned this station on, and we listened to the Navajo language. I asked him if he spoke Navajo. I wasn't sure what he said, but he told me the radio announcers were talking about the weather. I let him out in Gallup, and he said "Do you have any change I can have?" I said I don't have any change, but I thought later to have asked him whether he had any change I can have. The Navajo radio station was still on, and I heard an advertisement from an Apache lawyer for legal services. The station next played country music, and the Navajo announcer mentioend the English title of the song, speaking otherwise in Navajo.
*
Leonard mentioned Arizona State University pretty positively in passing, and it made me think that World University & School would potentially help a lot of native people, too.
,
{Getting in touch with Keith Basso, an anthropologist who wrote the fascinating anthropological book "Wisdom Sits in Places" is sensible vis-a-vis WUaS}.
**
I'm writing this blog entry from Rick's Cybercafe in Gallup, New Mexico.
Two partners started it 3 months ago, and they look as if they have Native American background. I hear someone nearby talking excitedly about current Firewire and USB (universal serial bus) technologies, and that his daughter is going to school in the fall.
... life today in Navajo land
~ to the Rainbow Gathering ...
Showing posts with label Sundance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sundance. Show all posts
Friday, July 3, 2009
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Sundance: Sierra Valley in northern California, Native Americans & ritual
I went to the Sundance on Sunday, June 21, 2008. It was 10 miles away from Sierra Hot Springs in the Sierra Valley, near Calpine, California. From the very small town of Calpine, people drove along a dirt road, which was marked only by a flag on a tree, and went in about 1 mile. It was in a beautiful lodgepole-like pine forest, interspersed with meadows in the Sierra Valley. It was at about 5000 feet elevation, and there was a number of forests fire in the area, so the air had smoke in it. The forest near Calpine on the road had also seen undergrowth fire.
When I got to the area where the Sundance was occurring, a man, white with long hair, came over and said it’s the last day. I said yes. I had seen H, whom I know from Harbin, at Sierra Hot Springs, too, as well as some other First Nations' Canadian women and one man in the pools at Sierra Hot Springs They were wearing bathing suits, although Sierra Hot Springs is clothing optional, and most people are naked. (Sierra Hot Springs is also one of the nicest, uniquest and economical places to stay in the Sierra Valley for this Sun Dance). I had also met HF, who has Native American background, at Sierra Hot Springs.
The man at the entrance to Sundance said I could only go into the dance itself wearing bare feet or moccasins. I said my feet were chapping and cracking, and would it be possible to wear my Birkenstock sandals. He said no, and, looking at what I was wearing, also saying I couldn’t bring the sun glasses I was wearing or bring what I had in my pocket – a pen and Olay Regenerist skin lotion and sun protection, because my skin has been very dry. I said O.K. and removed them. He pointed to where I could park. The area was filled with tents & vehicles, all spread out haphazardly under an open forest of Lodgepole-like pine.
I walked through the area toward the drumming and found the Sundance. It was a circular area, with a kind of circular wood arcade covered with shade cloth, inside which the ritual was occurring. I saw the entrance to the whole circle, before which people could smudge themselves and enter, leaving their shoes behind. A few people were going in and out. There was a rope around the whole Sundance area that marked clearly what was inside and what was outside. And in the ritual, onlookers were marching their feet to the drumming, while the ritual participants were moving in and out toward the central pole, which was a upright, felled tree, wrapped with many colorful cloths, its leaves still on some branches, at the top, and also wrapped at the trunk with colorful, mostly red cloth, as well as some braided rope work.
Part of the Sundance ritual, I had read (Lawrence 1980 - (http://www.psyeta.org/sa/sa1.1/lawrence.html), involves a kind of self-mutilation - where people pierce their backs inside the scapula area, and their chests, inside and above their nipples. A native woman at the Sierra Hot Spring's pools this morning had mentioned this. This woman - with the 3 other native women and a native man from Ontario, Canada - was actually originally Micmac (tribe) from Nova Scotia. They were flying back to Ontario, Canada, on Tuesday.
As the ritual went on, with the regular beat of the drum in the background, I saw men, mostly dressed in red ankle and shin-length dress-like clothing, with naked torsos, and some with a ocher mark on their left temple, and many with long hair, many Native, a few white people, and one black man.
A group of dancers circled the perimeter of the ring, just inside the shade cloth, and at the head of the procession, two men accompanied another man who had one or two lines attached to his back – piercing the skin in two places right at the inner edge of the shoulder blades – and he was dragging 4 cattle skulls, which possibly weighed around 40 pounds together. A long parade of men in the ritual followed them, and the two men on either side of the man with the ropes attached to his back, seemed to act as support, as he probably was in pain. A large number of eople inside the cordoned area watched. As the man got to a place just in front of me – I was sitting 20 meters away outside the rope perimeter - the lines broke out of his back, and he continued forward, wincing a little. His skin had ripped. This was a peak of the ritual, it seems to me, when a kind of sacrifice of pain occurs.
This was the last day, and the last dance, and the Sundance proceeded for another 15-30 minutes, with men going into and away from the central pole, and other men going into a covered-with-shade-cloth central area at one side of the ring. At the end people broke into groups in the ritual area, and it looked like some people were passing around sage, and others maybe sharing a peace pipe.
Behind the ritual area were four teepees and between the main shade-cloth area on the side of the ritual circle and these teepees, were two large mounds, and a large hole and fire pit. From where I was sitting, I saw a flag pole outside of the circle, with U.S. marines, navy, air force and army flags on it, an incongruous addition to an already syncretic Native American event. Some people with native American blood were probably in the armed forces at one time. As people left the cordoned area of the ritual, they held one hand up and turned in a circle. I also saw E, who is a Harbin resident from E. in one of the closing group circles, come out of the ritual area. And I think I saw H lying down by the fire part after the ritual was over.
I walked to the other side of the circle, and, there, many of the ritual participants – men – lying on blankets, with one man in a kind of hole in bark covered earth which he had dug, were resting. They were still wearing their long red cloths, and some men were inside the shade cloth area resting in a similar way. It looked like ritual-resting to me, or perhaps the dancers were simply exhausted. They may have been dancing for 8 days. Other bystanders and viewers talked quietly sitting in small groups in and out of the circle. It was a friendly, family, open atmosphere. Whether the Sundance was primarily Sioux and Lakota, at root – both plains Indians – and then syncretic on top, I’m not sure, but this ritual is vitally important to a lot of people.
I decided to leave then, and perhaps I’ll come back for the feasting at night. I saw the woman, and the man she was with, whom I had talked with at Harbin the evening before, who characterized the event as harsh and a step back 500 years in time.
In some ways, the Sundance itself is a form of information technology, where the ritual (as a kind of information technology) may function to unify an identity, and where the people who participate in it exchange information.
When I got to the area where the Sundance was occurring, a man, white with long hair, came over and said it’s the last day. I said yes. I had seen H, whom I know from Harbin, at Sierra Hot Springs, too, as well as some other First Nations' Canadian women and one man in the pools at Sierra Hot Springs They were wearing bathing suits, although Sierra Hot Springs is clothing optional, and most people are naked. (Sierra Hot Springs is also one of the nicest, uniquest and economical places to stay in the Sierra Valley for this Sun Dance). I had also met HF, who has Native American background, at Sierra Hot Springs.
The man at the entrance to Sundance said I could only go into the dance itself wearing bare feet or moccasins. I said my feet were chapping and cracking, and would it be possible to wear my Birkenstock sandals. He said no, and, looking at what I was wearing, also saying I couldn’t bring the sun glasses I was wearing or bring what I had in my pocket – a pen and Olay Regenerist skin lotion and sun protection, because my skin has been very dry. I said O.K. and removed them. He pointed to where I could park. The area was filled with tents & vehicles, all spread out haphazardly under an open forest of Lodgepole-like pine.
I walked through the area toward the drumming and found the Sundance. It was a circular area, with a kind of circular wood arcade covered with shade cloth, inside which the ritual was occurring. I saw the entrance to the whole circle, before which people could smudge themselves and enter, leaving their shoes behind. A few people were going in and out. There was a rope around the whole Sundance area that marked clearly what was inside and what was outside. And in the ritual, onlookers were marching their feet to the drumming, while the ritual participants were moving in and out toward the central pole, which was a upright, felled tree, wrapped with many colorful cloths, its leaves still on some branches, at the top, and also wrapped at the trunk with colorful, mostly red cloth, as well as some braided rope work.
Part of the Sundance ritual, I had read (Lawrence 1980 - (http://www.psyeta.org/sa/sa1.1/lawrence.html), involves a kind of self-mutilation - where people pierce their backs inside the scapula area, and their chests, inside and above their nipples. A native woman at the Sierra Hot Spring's pools this morning had mentioned this. This woman - with the 3 other native women and a native man from Ontario, Canada - was actually originally Micmac (tribe) from Nova Scotia. They were flying back to Ontario, Canada, on Tuesday.
As the ritual went on, with the regular beat of the drum in the background, I saw men, mostly dressed in red ankle and shin-length dress-like clothing, with naked torsos, and some with a ocher mark on their left temple, and many with long hair, many Native, a few white people, and one black man.
A group of dancers circled the perimeter of the ring, just inside the shade cloth, and at the head of the procession, two men accompanied another man who had one or two lines attached to his back – piercing the skin in two places right at the inner edge of the shoulder blades – and he was dragging 4 cattle skulls, which possibly weighed around 40 pounds together. A long parade of men in the ritual followed them, and the two men on either side of the man with the ropes attached to his back, seemed to act as support, as he probably was in pain. A large number of eople inside the cordoned area watched. As the man got to a place just in front of me – I was sitting 20 meters away outside the rope perimeter - the lines broke out of his back, and he continued forward, wincing a little. His skin had ripped. This was a peak of the ritual, it seems to me, when a kind of sacrifice of pain occurs.
This was the last day, and the last dance, and the Sundance proceeded for another 15-30 minutes, with men going into and away from the central pole, and other men going into a covered-with-shade-cloth central area at one side of the ring. At the end people broke into groups in the ritual area, and it looked like some people were passing around sage, and others maybe sharing a peace pipe.
Behind the ritual area were four teepees and between the main shade-cloth area on the side of the ritual circle and these teepees, were two large mounds, and a large hole and fire pit. From where I was sitting, I saw a flag pole outside of the circle, with U.S. marines, navy, air force and army flags on it, an incongruous addition to an already syncretic Native American event. Some people with native American blood were probably in the armed forces at one time. As people left the cordoned area of the ritual, they held one hand up and turned in a circle. I also saw E, who is a Harbin resident from E. in one of the closing group circles, come out of the ritual area. And I think I saw H lying down by the fire part after the ritual was over.
I walked to the other side of the circle, and, there, many of the ritual participants – men – lying on blankets, with one man in a kind of hole in bark covered earth which he had dug, were resting. They were still wearing their long red cloths, and some men were inside the shade cloth area resting in a similar way. It looked like ritual-resting to me, or perhaps the dancers were simply exhausted. They may have been dancing for 8 days. Other bystanders and viewers talked quietly sitting in small groups in and out of the circle. It was a friendly, family, open atmosphere. Whether the Sundance was primarily Sioux and Lakota, at root – both plains Indians – and then syncretic on top, I’m not sure, but this ritual is vitally important to a lot of people.
I decided to leave then, and perhaps I’ll come back for the feasting at night. I saw the woman, and the man she was with, whom I had talked with at Harbin the evening before, who characterized the event as harsh and a step back 500 years in time.
In some ways, the Sundance itself is a form of information technology, where the ritual (as a kind of information technology) may function to unify an identity, and where the people who participate in it exchange information.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
