Censorship

Don't know exactly what's going on, but media documentation of direct action at the pipeline site in North Dakota is being targeted for suppression by law enforcement. There have also been reports of Facebook deleting videos of police action against the demonstrators and media.


Water Protectors Arrested by Militarized Police from Unicorn Riot on Vimeo.

I saw NewsHour's report on the action last night; it was quite a bit better than most mainstream news reports.



Red Warrior Camp maintains a Facebook page and its news is usually better overall. But some of their material has been deleted by Facebook.

Unicorn Riot has done exemplary work, but they have been harassed and arrested.

Sacred Stone Camp is the other primary information source.

It's estimated that 6,000 or more are now gathered to protect the water.

The camps are getting ready to endure through the winter.

Now That The Hillary Hysteria Has Subsided (Somewhat)

[I started this post yesterday but got caught up in other stuff that left me no time to finish it... such is life.]

About 35 Institute of American Indian Arts students have left Santa Fe for the long drive to North Dakota and the Red Warrior Camp where they intend to participate and give strength to the ongoing Water Protector actions against the unnecessary and deeply destructive and dangerous Dakota Access Pipeline.

These IAIA supporters of the action in North Dakota intend to provide arts and cultural activities and enrichment to the children and young people in the camps. I'm sure that some of the IAIA people will also participate in direct action against the pipeline construction which could subject them to felony arrest, as the state of North Dakota and the counties adjacent to the pipeline construction insist on protecting the pipeline at all costs and appear to have no interest in protecting the people, particularly not the people involved in resistance against this private sector pipeline.

Dozens and dozens have been arrested so far, some on felony "interference" (or whatever they are calling it) charges. Police forces have massed in riot gear armed with assault weapons to control the unruly -- and by the way, unarmed -- Natives and their allies. They have made a point of targeting the media and what they regard as leaders of the movement. So far, they have not invaded the camps where up to 6,000 or more Water Protectors and their allies have been praying and socializing for months now, but they are keeping those camps under close surveillance and the National Guard is manning roadway checkpoints, not unlike a certain foreign country under occupation.

It has been claimed that this is the largest gathering of Indian Nations in modern history and that more than 300 tribes and bands are represented. Many of the long time divisions between tribes are being healed through prayer and ceremony and through the need for common action against this more and more lunatic pipeline project and its apparently brain damaged protectors.

Don't know how this will ultimately play out, but the Indians who are in charge of it say that no matter if this pipeline is eventually completed and put into operation the principles and ideals and unity of the protest/protection will continue.

I can only cheer them on from afar.

The Overclass and the Lesser People

What's going on in North Dakota is ultimately the story of America from its earliest episodes with the invaders from Europe to today. It's a microcosm of colonialism and dismissal of the Native Peoples, their interests, their concept of the universe and the place of humanity on the earth. This is pretty serious stuff, and it is the stuff of conflict between Euro-Americans and Native Americans (who we here in New Mexico call Indians as they typically call themselves, but that's another story for another time).

It's a conflict that should never have been.

So often, Natives have had no real issue with Euro-invaders -- so long as they behave in a decent and cooperative manner. The problem has been that so often they don't. It appears that in many ways, they can't.

They think they have to dominate, exploit, destroy or... what? What will happen if they don't? They can't know because so many won't let go of whatever impulse for domination and destruction drives them.

Note, they still call this need, this impulse "Progress."

The Indians say, "No, this is not really 'progress' at all. It's simply a fury of destruction. Why do you do this? What is wrong with you?"

It's customary among "concerned" white people to almost worship Natives as some sort of exemplars of a Paradise Lost. If only whites could be more like the First Peoples in the Americas, how much better we all would be. Yes, that's all well and good but it presumes lack of agency and contemporary ways of life among the multiplicity of Native Peoples throughout the Americas. They are all supposedly driven by their Native Culture(s) -- thought of as a unity -- to be One With Mother Earth, yadda, yadda, in a primitive but righteous understanding of the basic elements of life, elements long forgotten by the Euro-invaders and colonists.

Well, no. This point of view kind of drives me nuts. Indians and Native societies have been so disrupted for so long by the invader-colonists that what the invaders think of as the "primitive" -- permanently primitive, mind you -- righteousness of Indian life and lore is mostly white-folk fantasy of Indians and their cultures and societies.

Indian societies were never perfect by any means, nor did they necessarily live in Paradise(s). The disruption and destruction caused by the invader-colonists -- including genocide -- left a remnant Indian population, one that had fallen so steeply that in the early part of the 20th Century, scholars and politicians and much of the popular media were convinced that the Indian Peoples would shortly become extinct.

Thus an all-out effort was undertaken to "preserve" what could be saved of ancient Indian culture and society for later scholarship and consideration (by Anglo scholars, of course) before all the Indians were gone.

I have friends a few years older or younger than me who believe -- some passionately -- that Indians are a "dying race," that the few pitiful survivors are drunks, drug addicts or criminals, that they all live on reservations where everyone is dirt poor, but where, somehow, the ancient ways and beliefs are preserved intact by medicine men and history preservers, and that those ways and beliefs are -- somehow -- intrinsically superior to those of the invader-colonist-destroyers.

I sometimes try to tell them they believe in a fantasy of Indians, one that has a long history but is basically false.

Indians are not a dying race, for one thing. They reached a low point in population over a century ago and have been on the rebound ever since. Most Indians do not live on reservations, most are not drunks, most are not dirt poor. Quite a few have been de-tribalized, even de-racialized and de-culturalized. They're not quite "white people," but they're not "Indians" in the sense that white people often think of Indians, either. They're somewhere in between.

Indian societies continue relatively intact in isolated pockets where the colonist-invaders were not able to overwhelm and suppress them, but not generally. Some Indians have as much of a fantasy view of their own cultures as many white people do, and some Indians deliberately adopt whatever white folks believe that Indians believe. Other Indians have a deep-seated understanding of their own Native cultures which they cannot and do not share much of with outsiders (not just with Anglos, but with other Indians as well). In other words, the invader-colonists as well as other tribes may never know what these other Indians know. Ever. It's not so much a secret as it's just not shared -- nor is it in some cases sharable.

Much of contemporary Indian society is not traditional or primitive at all. It is in many cases a cobbled together hybrid of limited ancient understandings and a modern (ie: culturally, socially, and economically indistinguishable from the dominant society) way of life. That's probably the way most North American Indians live today.

On the other hand, we have what's going on in North Dakota -- which strikes me as one of the most unifying means of expressing a spiritual understanding of the proper relationship of humans and the earth according to long-held tribal beliefs, beliefs adapted to the contemporary world.

This is not ancient or primitive, this is now.

There are thousands gathered near the pipeline route in North Dakota, Indians and their allies alike, to bring to bear the power and authority of a deeply rooted Native spirituality against the power and authority of crass materialism. Anti-spirituality if you will.

From a practical standpoint, this pipeline is essentially unnecessary and is ultimately a waste of energy and resources. It's dangerous in that it can -- and likely will -- leak oil into water supplies, whether into the Missouri River or elsewhere along its route. A point has been made that this risk is somewhat less than the current method of transporting oil from the Bakken Fields to refineries by rail,  on what are colloquially known as "Bomb Trains," but that diverts attention from the fact that none of this oil needs to be extracted or transported at all. The use of petroleum is declining in the United States. Oil is often sold for less than the cost of production and transportation as it is, and many people have pointed out that it is likely that this oil will be transported and exported, because there is no real need for it in the United States, no market as it were. Consequently, the whole project is in essence a boondoggle, not the first nor the last in the petroleum industry, but one that has reached a kind of absurdity that few have before.

Even the unnecessary KXL pipeline (currently in suspension) was not as absurd as this one.

From a spiritual standpoint, the Dakota Access Pipeline is a form of rape of the Mother, for no other reason than that its makers can do so. Spiritually it's wrong in every conceivable way. In the Judeo-Christian sense, it's a sin. A mortal sin.

Why is this being done? As an assertion of Power? Or is it something else?

This goes back to the origins of the invader-colonial society that became the United States of America (Inc.). Dominance and destruction are the key elements of that society, and when they are challenged or denied, as is the case in North Dakota, then the whole edifice trembles. We see this in the current overreaction of the North Dakota and pipeline authorities to the Water Protectors (love the name) and their actions. The National Guard has been called up. Arrest warrants for journalists and spokes people issued. Checkpoints established along the highways. A tightening protective cordon established around the camps and the pipeline.

Destruction-construction continues despite the denial of permits for construction under the lake that is in the way of pipeline completion. The pipeline will go as close as it can to the Missouri River lake (Oahe) that's in the way until the permits and easements are issued. I don't think anybody doubts that.

It's almost certain that the permits and easements will be issued, it's just a matter of when.

But the actions of the Indians and their allies in North Dakota against the construction or completion of the pipeline have highlighted just how stupid and deleterious the project is. How essentially all of these pipeline projects are idiotic. The overreaction of North Dakota authorities to the actions of the protester/protectors has highlighted how stupid and deleterious the civil authorities have become in their zeal to protect the project at all costs.

This has a cumulative effect, much as civil rights and anti-war actions did back in the day, much as many other forms of activism continue to have.

I suspect that the pipeline will be completed almost on schedule, but the ultimate result will be disastrous for its builders and operators. The shame of it is one thing. The lack of need for it will be something else again. And finally, when it does break or leak, which it will, I suspect it will be quietly shut down, and eventually the Indians will be vindicated. "They were right."

Well, yes.

Isn't that already obvious?

But in the meantime, the Overclass MUST dominate the Lesser People or risk its own extinction. They dare not stop now, oh no. They must continue to the bitter end. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Debra White Plume Speaks

https://www.facebook.com/peoplesmediaproject/videos/930968280365577/

Sorry for the Facebook link, but as of yesterday, there was no direct link to the video on the peoplesmediaproject YouTube page.

Then the White House Intervenes

and through the Corps of Engineers, tells the pipeline construction company to back the fuck down.

Which... they may or may not do, depending on what they think they can/will get away with. Initial reports were confused, to say the least, as the intervention from On High was not expected once the court denied the temporary restraining order. Obviously, however, the White House and the Corps were prepared with a counter-move should the court deny the request for a halt to construction.

I haven't read the court's order, but reports of what was in it struck me as condescending and deliberately inflammatory. North Dakota's governor probably got a heads up as did the White House and so the National Guard was activated as a back up in case those Indians got more unruly than they already are. The white folks who run things up there are clearly scared to death of the Indians, and they are preparing to do battle, just like in the Old West when it was so necessary for the good of white folks to kill off the savages in their multitudes and to confine whatever remnants that might survive to prison camps called "reservations."

Sigh.

What wasn't expected at all was that the White House, though the Corps, would essentially call a halt to construction until certain unresolved issues could be hashed out. The initial confusion was over just  what had been ordered and what had been requested. Apparently the pipeline route is supposed to tunnel under the Missouri River just north of the present Standing Rock Sioux Reservation boundary. The Corps controls the river access and Lake Oahe at that point. The Corps has apparently been directed to refuse to issue required easements for the pipeline crossing until additional environmental studies are considered (not necessarily undertaken) and Native issues addressed. Then in the fall, the Corps is supposed to convene a meeting or meetings with interested Indian Nations to see how they would like to proceed on these matters -- given current legislation -- and to find out how the Corps can consult with them better in the future.

The Corps has requested that the pipeline company cease construction within 20 miles east and west of the river crossing, but it is powerless to order cessation.

This intervention has nothing at all to do with the cultural sites, burial grounds and so on that are said to be in the path of construction or have already been destroyed by the bulldozers. Apparently the court ruling dismisses those concerns. The environmental issues, however, have been a stronger argument against the pipeline all along, specifically with regard to the potential hazards to drinking water for millions should there be a break in the pipeline in or near the Missouri River.

There are thousands of Indians and allies gathered in the vicinity of the Standing Rock Reservation, and it is clear that the North Dakota authorities simply want them to go away. They are an impediment to the Advance of Civilization. As they have always been since the first White Man set eyes on Dakota Territory.

It appears that the white rulers of North Dakota are unable to get over theit essentially fearful and contemptuous point of view. Indians are still in the way of Progress, regardless of whether that so-called Progress has any utility in the vast eternal scheme and regardless of any ultimate disaster(s) that Progress may cause.

It's not so much a matter of agreeing with the Indians as it is respecting them and their point of view.

Too many white folks in positions of power simply aren't ready to do that or possibly they're not capable of doing that, though in this case, the Indians seem to be doing everything in their power to induce a white Awakening.

It's really been remarkable to watch. The Indians have the high road and they know it. In a way, it doesn't matter what the white rulers do. They're fundamentally in the wrong, and their errors will simply compound if they don't change their ways. The Indians are trying to bring them to consciousness -- nonviolently -- and they know the struggle may be futile, but it must be undertaken.

So we have what we've seen, a huge encampment, growing daily, of Indians and allies from all over North America, engaged in spiritual warfare with an enemy that is basically "unconsciousness." It's not against white people, in other words, as many of the allies encamped in North Dakota are white. It is against the unconsciousness of so many white people (and others, it's not just them) in power.

To my mind, it's a brilliant strategy.

What I've read says that the Indians intend to press this struggle no matter what the eventual outcome
of the pipeline issue. It is bigger than the pipeline and necessary.

So far, they seem to have "awakened" quite a few otherwise somnambulant Americans.

Good.

Call Out The Guard -- Update: The Court Denies Injunction Against the Pipeeline

Powwow in Bismark coming up this weekend, so what does the gov do? Calls up the National Guard to Protect the Pipeline from all those Wild Indians.



This won't end well.

Court denies injunction.

Protests to continue.

Wild Indians

Up in North Dakota there is a huge gathering of Indians and allies who have been camping and protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline for months. They call themselves "Water Protectors" -- among other things -- and their goal is to prevent the construction of this pipline that is supposed to carry crude oil from Montana to Illinois, crossing the Missouri River twice as it does.

The complaint is that oil pipelines can't be secured from leaks and blow outs and water contamination is inevitable if the pipeline is constructed and put in operation. The Indians are trying to preserve and protect the water. Note has also been made of the fact that the route of the pipeline goes through Indian burial grounds, sacred sites and ceremonial grounds, and that already, numerous Indian remains have been destroyed by over enthusiastic bulldozers, including last Saturday when there was a violent confrontation between the protectors of the water and the protectors of the bulldozers. It did not turn out well.

Attack dogs were set upon the crowd by the security guards who'd been hired by the construction company and numerous individuals were bitten -- including a horse.The guards used pepper spray on the protectors. There were reports that a child was bitten by one of the dogs, but a published photo of the purported child victim had actually been taken in 2012, so the incident on Saturday in which a child was bitten was not yet documented as of Saturday.

The guards claimed that four of their number had to be hospitalized (a lie) and that two of their dogs were injured severely enough to be seen by a vet (unknown if true.) The guards claimed that the water protectors attacked them with sticks, flagpoles and horses, but it's clear from video of the incident that the attack came entirely from the guards and their dogs, and that at least one of the dogs actually turned on its handler and attacked her. At least one dog escaped from the leash and went wild in the crowd. In several cases, the protectors tried to defend themselves as best they could against the onslaught of dogs and pepper spray, and in other cases, protectors attempted to defuse the situation.

Story and video from Democracy Now!



Nasty business. Indian Country Today has a good story on the incident and there is more in their news section.

Students at the Institute of American Indian Arts where Ms Ché is studying are collecting food, water and donations to send to North Dakota in support of the action. The campsite is said to host thousands at this point, almost doubling during the weekend after Saturday's violence.

These incidents and protests are becoming more and more common as our neoLibCon overlords insist on exercising their might against any and all popular outcries. This pipeline, like so many others, simply isn't needed, and it is an active danger to water supplies for millions of Americans including the Standing Rock Sioux who are spearheading the protests. Our overlords do not care, and when they are challenged this way, they have a tendency to double down -- until they give up.

Give up they will, but not without any number of incidents like Saturday's.

People have been and are gonna get hurt. It's the way these things play out. But I don't see the Indians and their allies giving up.

It may be a small matter in the vast eternal scheme to stop this madness, but it has to be done.

March in Solidarity, October 6, 2016

"We Are Power" -- Hopeful Signs Continue

A march and demonstration of solidarity between a number of Indian movements and causes took place during the parallel Indian Markets in Santa Fe on August 22, 2015. We weren't there for the march and demonstration but we heard about it later, and we were particularly intrigued with the notion that the demonstration was instigated by members of the Indigenous Fine Arts Market specifically to disrupt the SWAIA (Southwestern Association for Indian Arts) Market. Nothing could be further from the truth, but it shows some of the paranoia out there as well as some of the rivalry.

The following video (embed disabled, but the video is available to view at Vimeo; use button on video screen or link) was assembled by Frost Fowler from IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts) in Santa Fe. Spoken Word by John Trudell.

We Are Power - Santa Fe 2015 from FFowler on Vimeo.

Resistance Art -- The Art of Resistance (or "Why don't you put a feather on it?")

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art in Santa Fe, a project/program of the Institute of Native American Arts -- where Ms Ché is now a student.

The whole place has a fresh-new feel and the art on exhibit is much edgier than that of the recent past or even longer ago (I can't recall offhand when I first visited the museum, but it's been years and years). Candice Hopkins is the new curator, and I'm sure it is her vision more than any other that has guided the re-vision of the exhibits at MoCNA, and that vision is one of continual resistance by Native people and particularly Native artists against the impositions of stereotypes and expectations.

Consequently, there is much resistance art on view. I wish I could illustrate this post with images from the exhibitions, but as a rule, MoCNA does not post many pictures of what's on exhibit, indeed, sometimes there are none at all.

What is "resistance art?" I supposed it depends to a certain extent on one's own perceptions of resistance. In order to arrive at a realistic definition, we may ask: "What or whom is being resisted, by what or by whom, and to what object -- if there is one?"

Many artistic forms and expressions can fall into the resistance category, even when the artist is not consciously trying to create resistance art. Among the most commonly recognized forms of resistance art is the poster highlighting a particular issue, rebellion or campaign. One of my all time favorites is "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge" (El Lissitsky, 1919), propaganda art produced to help inspire the struggle against the White Russians in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (El Lissisky, USSR, 1919)

The poster, while intended as a populist statement regarding the civil war then under way in the nascent Soviet Union, is in fact constructivist fine art, one of the strongest examples of the genre. Very often, posters and other forms of resistance art are both populist statements and fine art simultaneously. There's no real dividing line between them. There is no way I know of to separate the fine artist from the populist rabble rouser and propagandist. When the cause is strong or just, the works emerge almost spontaneously from many sources, including the studios of fine artists.

In the case of the exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, many of the pieces of resistance art are the works of honors students at IAIA or of alumnae of the Institute. Some of it is straightforward and in-your-face, some is subtly subversive. The point of much of it is the rejection of stereotypes of what "Indian art" is supposed to be as well as challenging expectations of who qualifies as an "Indian artist."  These seem to be constant themes within the fairly small Indian arts community, especially in Santa Fe and New Mexico in general where Indian art and artists have a very prominent position and role in the highly competitive art market.

On the other hand, much of the resistance art on exhibit at MoCNA deals with specific issues in the ongoing Native struggles for dignity and justice in the context of constant predation and expropriation by the dominant culture, whether it's war, poverty, abuse, abandonment, dispossession or what have you.

Indian artists fight stereotypes, and they also fight for what's right.

David Bradley, for example, has produced an enormous body of resistance (fine) art that mocks and disparages, indeed insults, the "Disneyfication" of Santa Fe in particular, the Southwest in general, as it molds and shapes everything to attract and please the tourists who flock to the region every spring and summer -- and the poseurs who settle in for the long term. Bradley currently has a major exhibit at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe. Resistance art that he did early on, collages of various "Indian" ideas and struggles, are on display at the MoCNA.

And example of one of his statements of resistance is his Land o' Fakes Museum Currency:

Virgil Ortiz has been creating subversive images of his re-visioning of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 -- translated into contemporary iconography -- for years. His vision is encompassing. He uses every bit of his talent, skill, connections and imagination to create what is becoming an enormous body of resistance art that focuses almost entirely on the most successful Indian resistance action in North American history.

Why would he do this? Isn't it just "style," "fashion," or "entertainment?"

I say no, not at all. Virgil uses the elements of the high-style and fashion world he once served in the Donna Karan studio in order to highlight something that's often forgotten about Indian history -- the Pueblo Revolt -- and to send a clear message to his high and mighty clients that it can come again.

In effect, he becomes a translator, an interpreter of the Revolt, both for the benefit of young Indians who might not otherwise find the events of so long ago interesting or relevant, and for the education of a clientele that instinctively believes they are the Masters of the Universe.

Virgil left New York and the high-fashion industry he'd been eagerly accepted into in order to return to Cochiti Pueblo where he was from -- something that was in and of itself an act of resistance and rebellion -- where he develops his re-vision and the themes of revolt and rebellion based on what happened to chastise and drive the Spanish out of New Mexico in 1680. An aspect of that re-vision was the Venutian Soldiers concept of 2012, which was -- I think -- the first gallery exhibit we attended after moving to New Mexico in 2012.

Venutian Soldiers c. 2012, Virgil Ortiz

Now wait. Surely this is not resistance art, it's some kind of wild-ass fashion statement, right? Actually, it's both. The "soldiers" depicted are the soldiers of a Pueblo Revolt of 2180, futuristic images of what may be to come based on what went before.

Virgil now has a major exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. 

Through similar images -- in ceramics, leather and fabric, paint, video and film, and whatever other materials and means Virgil decides to use -- a picture emerges of his vision that ought to give some of his expensive clients pause. I'm not sure it does because I still see some of them parading around Santa Fe in the Virgil Ortiz creations, many of which are the figurative equivalent of daggers and arrows to the hearts of those who wear them. It's all highly subversive but in a way that -- perhaps -- his targets can't understand at all, any more than the Spanish were able to comprehend what Po'pay and the other Pueblo rebels were up to in advance of the Revolt itself. They thought they knew... but they were wrong...

At the IAIA Scholarship Dinner Virgil and Rose B(ean) Simpson, presented a collaborative performance piece that took these resistance concepts several steps further, but I'm convinced most of those who saw it had no idea what they were seeing. To them, perhaps, it was something charming, even cute. But to others, it was as strong a statement of resistance to the status quo as had ever been presented in that context.

At the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Rose and Virgil have extended their collaborative efforts with an installation of even more elements of the re-visioning and translation of the Pueblo Revolt theme. There are manikins wearing costumes Virgil created for his characters and also, importantly, ceramic "masks" for each of eight named characters in the  story of the Revolt (c. 2180). I put masks in quotes because they are more like three-dimensional head-shots rather than face coverings, though they are called masks in the exhibit. To me they are quite disturbing -- which is, I think, what they are supposed to be -- because they do not depict humans. They are from another realm altogether, and I'm not at all sure they are benign.... they wouldn't be, would they, if they were representations of the forces of a future Revolt.

But then, most of what's in the Redness exhibit is disturbing. Deliberately so. Resistance art? Absolutely.

Carmen Selam is a young artist whose work I was able to purchase at last year's IAIA open house. The piece I bought was a print called "Indian Red":

"Indian Red", Carmen Selam, 2014

I was immediately attracted to it because it is a piece of resistance art that comments on the mis-appropriation of "Indian-ness" for commerce and (Anglo) 'beauty.' Carmen has written very well about it on her website:

Throughout my indigenous life, I have lived with elements of racism over the duration of my existence. The misappropriated usage of Native American imagery can be seen as a metaphorical modern day scalping. There was once a time when gathering pigment for the earth was a long and arduous task. This pigment, carefully selected was used to make paint that we used in ceremony and on the war field. We gathered the elements from the earth that my ancestors were buried. It was honorable to wear paint, eagle feathers, amongst other things. However, these days, it is not the same. The scapegoat for blunt racism is often disguised by the cloak of one word: honor. Often times we are dishonored in the name of honor by non-natives appropriating our sacred motifs and regalia as Halloween costumes, sports logos, and corporate emblems. My piece Indian Red is a reflection of the idea that the pigment and color of our skin is seen as a commodity by the red-lipped, twenty-something, non-native hipsters, who don the plastic war bonnet and faux war-paint.

Resistance art? Of course. What else could it be?

There are many other Native artists whose work is on exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts and elsewhere in galleries and museums around the country and particularly the Southwest, much of it resistance art -- but some of it not.

There's a joke that goes around in the Indian arts community: "Oh, yer stuff ain't sellin'? Why don't you put a feather on it? That's what they like to see, you know?"

Yep.

That's what they like to see. They don't -- usually -- want their Indian stuff to bite, if you know what I mean. But what I've been seeing more and more of, encouragingly, is Indian resistance art flourishing in galleries and museums, where some of the wealthy and powerful might see it. Whether they understand it or not is another question. But it really doesn't matter.

What matters is that artists are once again rebelling and resisting the pressure to conform to stereotypes and expectations. Artist rebellions typically presage popular rebellion, and I think we're getting closer every day.

"Free Leonard Peltier"

It was bound to happen.

When Ms Ché contemplated her first week as a student at the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, she warned me, saying, "I just might turn into a radical Indian, yanno."

I said, "It wouldn't surprise me at all. I can just see you marching and carrying a sign reading 'Free Leonard Peltier.'" That's when she gave me the side-eye and a little grin. "That's only the beginning," she said.

So Friday we were up in Santa Fe for that talk on Native American women sculptors mentioned in the previous post, and we stopped by the Indigenous Fine Arts Market in the Railyards afterwards where we ran into the Free Leonard Peltier booth, manned by Peter from the Indigenous Rights Center in Albuquerque and Leonard's son Chauncey, featuring dozens of Leonard's paintings, prints, posters, and all sorts of minor items-- buttons, patches, t-shirts, etc -- with that theme: "Free Leonard Peltier."

I think he is the longest-held political prisoner in the nation's history. Not even Geronimo was held as long as Peltier has been.

The story is complicated, and I won't go into the details here, but from our perspective, he's been held in Federal prison (for the murder of two FBI agents in 1975 at the Pine Ridge Reservation) not for the crime -- which he may or may not have had some role in (the evidence is more than sufficient for reasonable doubt) but because he was and still is an outspoken advocate of Indian rights which at the time had led to remarkable events throughout Indian Country, events which still reverberate. In other words, he's been an effective activist, advocate, and voice for the Indian peoples -- all oppressed peoples, really -- and that is, in this country, unforgivable.

Ms Ché has been moved by injustice all her life, as have I been throughout my own life. Injustice seems to be rampant these days, but in some ways it's been worse, oh far worse, in the past. Ms says she was awakened to the necessity to express and defend her own Native heritage by the AIM occupation of Alcatraz from 1969 to 1971. Prior to that, she, like many other de-tribalized and urban Indians, had learned to suppress and almost keep secret her Native roots. It was not something to be widely, frequently or openly mentioned.

In fact, I didn't know she was an Indian when I first knew her. It literally did not occur to me. When she told me, after we'd known each other for a year or more, I was surprised, even delighted. But my ignorance was profound, and I've spent a lifetime learning the rudiments of her Cherokee culture, and I have been blessed to be part of her family -- both her immediate relatives and her extended family through various Cherokee and other Indian organizations and associations.

The occupation of Alcatraz and the subsequent AIM and other Indian rights actions galvanized her sense of being an Indian, but the context of our lives in California and our peripatetic travels around the country in the show business didn't include a lot of "Indian-ness." After settling down, much later in our lives, to a more mundane routine and lifestyle, there still wasn't a lot of Indian cultural integration -- because in California, there really isn't much of it to speak of. California was all but wiped clean of its Native peoples soon after the Gold Rush though pockets of Natives were allowed to persist on rural/remote scraps of land called "rancherias" scattered here and there, most of them were either slaughtered outright, kidnapped and turned into slaves, or assimilated willingly or not into the dominant (white) culture.

Not till the casinos arose was there more than an historical awareness of California's Native peoples and heritage, and it's still somewhat of an exotic topic among Anglos in California.

Meanwhile, Indians from other parts of the country were being sent to California, or -- like Ms Ché's mother -- were leaving their tribal lands and going out to California on their own to make another life.

Once they did, in so many instances, they didn't mention their Indian heritage -- at least not around white folks.

As a sidenote, I think I mentioned previously that in my genealogy research the past year or so, I discovered a purported Indian ancestor on my mother's side. There is some dispute over whether Prudence Eldridge was actually a Ketchemeche Lenape (ie: Delaware) Indian or whether the claim that she was arose in the 19th century after her death as a sort of romantic fiction that tied her, and thus the Thompsons and the Piersons who descend from her, to the the Native people of New Jersey's Cape May peninsula where my mother's ancestors (her grandmother was a Pierson descended directly from Prudence Eldridge and her husband Benjah Thompson) originally came from. At any rate, even if Prudence was a full (or perhaps half) blood Indian (other descendants claim she wasn't an Indian at all) it was so long ago, that my mother not only had no knowledge of her, she had no inkling she might have had Indian ancestry.

I had no knowledge of it, either.

Back to the topic at hand. We made initial contact with the "Free Leonard Peltier" booth at the Indigenous Fine Arts Market in Santa Fe on Friday. We did not know it was there prior to encountering it, though we found out later there has been quite a lot of press about it, and not a little controversy, too. John Torres Nez, who founded the IFA Market after he and a number of others quit SWAIA a little over a year ago (I won't get into the politics of it at this time) invited Leonard's people to exhibit his works and be part of the Market as part of his overall commitment to justice, and their presence at the IFA Market was galvanizing. Some people disapproved and a few exhibitors refused to participate because of the Leonard Peltier booth, but for the most part, they were eagerly welcomed with open arms.

Yesterday, there was a reception at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice for Chauncey Peltier and there was a small exhibit of Leonard's works. We learned that the Indigenous Rights Center, housed at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice since its formation in May, is a project of Leonard Peltier's struggle for human rights and his own freedom, and that the Indigenous Rights Center is fully involved not only with Leonard Peltier's campaign for clemency from the Obama administration but with a range of human rights and Indigenous support projects. Though still in the initial stages, it's really quite wonderful.

Chauncey Peltier is Leonard's son. He said he was not involved in the "Free Leonard Peltier" campaign before last year because he wasn't ready. When he'd visit his father in prison, his father told him to live his own life and not feel obligated to help or serve his father. Then, after he had lived his own life, raising a family, working in construction, conquering alcoholism, and so on, he realized he was ready, and he did have an obligation to help his father. He said he asked his father what he needed and what he could do, and he found himself put in charge of marketing Leonard's art, and serving as head of the International campaign to free Leonard Peltier, and he's never looked back. The past year has been the most rewarding and fulfilling aspect of his life. A transformative aspect as well.

Ms Ché was asked to read a prayer Leonard had composed in prison as part of the ceremony last night. She did so, eagerly and with aplomb. She was not the only other Indian there (besides Chauncey) but she was someone "new" -- a recruit if you will -- and she was ready:

A Prayer

Grandfather,
Mysterious One,
We search for you along
this Great Red Road you have set us on.

Sky Father,
Tunkashila,
We thank you for this world.
We thank you for our own existence.
We ask only for your blessing
and for your instruction.

Grandfather,
Sacred One,
Put our feet on the holy path
that leads to you,
and give us the strength and the will
to lead ourselves and our children
past the darkness we have entered.
Teach us to heal ourselves,
to heal each other
and to heal the world.

Let us begin this very day,
this very hour,
the Great Healing to come. 

Ms Ché and Chauncey Peltier became family yesterday, and through Chauncey, she and Leonard Peltier became extended family joining millions who already express their support for Leonard and his freedom. There is much more to come... The Great Healing continues...
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Would you like to know more?

Incident at Oglala -- The Leonard Peltier Story

Incident at Oglala - The Leonard Peltier Story from CivilDisobedienceCompany on Vimeo.

Tired-Energized. What a Week

I haven't written a whole lot about what we've been up to -- indeed, I haven't written a whole lot about much of anything -- in a while now. It's partly been a slow-down for the summer, partly physical/health issues, partly a slow transition from one phase to another as we get older and our lives in New Mexico become fuller.

This last week has been astonishing in many ways, and it represents some of the changes we're going through. It's been extremely busy, especially for Ms Ché as she returns to college to (finally) get her degree, a BFA in Creative Writing from IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts) after decades of doing other things in other places. That change in her life means I get to take up a lot of the domestic chores that were once her bailiwick, including looking after the feral cat colony which she's been wrangling and supervising. Given the fact that I don't get around as well as I used to, this domesticity on my part is probably for the best. At least I can make my way around most of our modest spread here and take care of it relatively well -- for the time being anyway.

One of the challenges we're facing is that IAIA is about 50 miles away, a good hour's commute if she drives herself, an almost 3 hour commute if she takes transit. There is a free bus to Santa Fe that picks up passengers at the Park and Ride not too far from our place (maybe three-four miles) -- at 6am. It gets to Santa Fe around 8am; there she has to catch a city bus to another transit center at a mall south of town where she can catch yet another bus to the IAIA campus where she arrives just before 9am. She's done it once. She says it's grueling, basically because of the early start and the bus changes. She can use the time to do her studies, so there is that. But it makes for a very long day, close to 14 hours on the road, in study and in classes. For the time being, at any rate, she's decided it's better for her to drive herself. It's still a long day, but doing so cuts 4 hours off the commute, though it adds considerably to expenses for the car.

When the weather changes, we'll reassess the situation. Snow can be heavy at times, and the road to Santa Fe, while well-maintained, is a rural two-lane highway, and the spur she takes from Galisteo to Highway 14 and then to the campus is tricky even in good weather.

We have some friends in Santa Fe who say she can stay with them if the weather is too severe to travel from there to our place, so that's a plus.

This last week has included activities that are more social than educational, though they overlap in various ways.

On Tuesday evening, we went to the Allan Houser Scholarship announcement/reception at the Compound restaurant in Santa Fe. This was one of the periodic social/fundraising events IAIA engages in throughout the year to raise and distribute money for the college and its students. In this case, the proprietors of the Compound established a scholarship fund in honor of Native American Sculptor, IAIA founding instructor, and artist mentor Allan Houser last year during celebrations for his 100th birthday. They gave out their first scholarship last Tuesday evening at a gala event that included a lot of Santa Fe's swells, plus a number of others, including some we talked to who had no idea why they were invited! The scholarship recipient, Maria Fairbanks(? -- not sure of her last name, actually) is a wonderful individual studying studio arts with a minor in performing arts, and there is little doubt in our minds that she's going to go far, as far as she wants to doing pretty much whatever she pleases. Interestingly, I was chatting with Allan Houser's widow, Anna Maria, at the event, and she pointed out that this is not the first "Allan Houser Scholarship" as the family has been giving scholarships and money for scholarships for years. But it was the first scholarship from this specific fund, and so...

On Wednesday evening, we attended the annual Scholarship Dinner and Auction at La Fonda in Santa Fe, an event that raises money for general scholarships that we've attended three times now since moving to New Mexico. Tuesday night's event was gala, the Wednesday Scholarship benefit event was gala-squared. The main ballroom at La Fonda was packed with Santa Fe's and some of the rest of New Mexico's swellest of swells, and money flowed like water. These events have been raising about $150,000 for scholarships each year, but I suspect this year's event raised quite a bit more. There is a silent auction of items -- mostly art -- many of which are produced by IAIA students, faculty and alums. There's also a live auction during the dinner which can raise large amounts of money, as many of the items auctioned are works by some of the country's major Native American artists, IAIA alums or faculty, including Dale Chihuly, Preston Singletary, Virgil Ortiz, Tony Abeyta, Rose Simpson and others... oh, so many others. Some of the works this year and in past years have been remarkable. We usually can't afford to bid on them, but quite a few of those in attendance can and do. Last year, we bid on some plates by Virgil Ortiz but we were outbid almost immediately by the governor of Pojoaque Pueblo (who's also an artist) who pushed the price into the stratosphere and well out of our budget range. (The pueblo has considerable casino money and has used a lot of it on purchasing art and establishing some rather stunning art exhibitions and funding arts education.)

This year, we didn't bid in the live auction at all, but we did bid on and win a number of items in the silent auction, including a large painting by Tyrone Headman (IAIA alum) entitled "Geronimo Sipping Latte." I may photograph it and post it at some point. Our house is already full of paintings, so it took some juggling to find a place for it. But it got hung. Hopefully to the amusement of a guest one night.

We purchased more items in the silent auction than we have in the past because we attended the dinner as guests of a friend who has a Native American art appraisal business and so we did not have to pay for the dinner -- meaning we could spend more for other things, and so we did... Ms Ché's favorite item from the silent auction is a lapis wolf fetish carved by Ray Tsalate of Zuni Pueblo that she almost didn't get because another woman wanted it and kept outbidding her. But in the end Ms bid the full "buy it now" price and so, it is now hers.

Ms Ché has received several scholarships to attend IAIA, so it seems only fitting that we do our part to return the favor. Since we've been contributing to the scholarship fund for years, we're happy to do a bit more this year if we can.

The event also featured a performance-art piece by created by Virgil Ortiz and Rose Simpson that seemed to enthrall, stun and puzzle the audience. I've mentioned Virgil a number of times in these pages as he was one of the artists we became immediately attracted to when we moved here. He's a well-known fashion designer, but there's much -- much -- more to his work than "just" fashion. His focus is on a futuristic version of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, set in 2180, with a whole elaborate cast of characters, a series of pottery figures depicting some of those characters (and others), film and video of those characters and their adventures, and many other items of art and fashion that relate to his theme. The performance art at the Scholarship Dinner was puzzling to those who were not familiar with that theme of the Pueblo Revolt and its futuristic counterpart, but for those who knew it, the piece was relatively clear. A god-like illuminated musician (he wore electric lights and played an amplified violin) accompanied a young man and young woman who find items in a trunk which they learn to wear as a kind of cloaking element, protection in a way, as they contemplate and prepare for the Revolt to come. At least that is how I interpreted the piece. It seemed obvious to me!

Rose Simpson is the daughter of Roxanne Swentzell, a very well known Native American sculptor -- whose exhibit at the Pojoaque Pueblo is stunning. Rose has been collaborating with her mother and with other Native American artists in a flurry of creativity which we were also privileged to encounter and enjoy yesterday at a "Breakfast With the Curator" event at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

The curator in this case was Leticia Chambers who I think we can fairly say has become a friend in the past year or so since we met her at an event at her house held to introduce the New Mexico Film Foundation to a wider public.

Leticia is from Oklahoma and believes she is of Cherokee descent though she is not a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her interest in Native American art goes way back to her childhood when her family visited Taos for the first time, and she spent the small allowance she had on a pot created by a Taoseno. She's been collecting, she said, ever since. She claimed, modestly, that she doesn't have a very large collection, but having seen it myself, I'd say she has one of the most important collections of Native American contemporary art in private hands in Santa Fe -- and perhaps in the nation. It is nothing short of amazing. I think a word I used when I saw it was "breathtaking."

When she and Ms Ché met that evening, they seemed to bond almost immediately, as if they were long-lost sisters or cousins (which they might be, who knows!) and they've remained bonded ever since though they're not in particularly constant or close contact.

Yesterday at breakfast and afterwards we heard Leticia explain about the sculptures and the sculptors she chose for the Museum's exhibit of monumental pieces by Native women about Native women. It was remarkable and very moving. We'd seen the exhibit before, but not in this way, not as intimately, not as fully elucidated, not as touchingly personal. The works are remarkable for themselves but the stories behind them -- how and why they came to be, and who created them -- added depth and dimension that otherwise we wouldn't have known. Leticia happens to be an excellent story-teller to boot, so the morning was extraordinary. Ms Ché became overcome with emotion at one point and Native staff members recognized what had happened immediately and offered her their comfort and understanding -- because it had happened to them, too.

Leticia herself knew and saw and empathized with Ms Ché and said she often found herself choked up when she contemplated the works and the women who made them. Indeed.

We left the museum a little after ten and went to Santa Fe's Railyard district to attend the Indigenous Fine Arts Market, the rebel-alternative to the immense SWAIA Indian Market in Santa Fe's historic plaza and surrounding areas. We went to the SWAIA market once and I doubt we'll return simply because it is too big. The IFAM market is smaller, more intimate, more comprehensible in fact, and I think it's fair to say it's edgier with a more contemporary feel on the one hand, and a wider variety of Native arts and artists on the other.

We were delighted to see so many artists from the East, from the Northwest and Alaska, and from Oklahoma. While the SWIA market does include artists from these areas, Pueblo and Navajo artists predominate to such an extent it can be difficult to locate the "others." At IFAM, it was not a problem. Though there were many top-notch artists from Navajo and Pueblo areas, there were also many from other areas mixed among them, which helped make for some very interesting/exciting juxtapositions.

At the Scholarship Dinner on Wednesday, America Meridith, publisher of First American Art Magazine, shared our table and she insisted that we had to go see the pottery by Karin Walkingstick, a Cherokee potter from Oklahoma. She said Karin would be at both markets -- and we had to see her work. Had to.

So we made it a point to find and check out her booth at the IFAM. Sure enough, her pottery was extraordinary and compelling. More amazing still was that she had only been potting for two years, but there was nothing at all raw or tentative about her work. It is all fully and beautifully realized, remarkable in fact, and we were very glad to have seen it for ourselves. Unfortunately, we couldn't purchase anything from her as our budget for art is exhausted for the year.

We had some other stops to make in Albuquerque later in the day which meant the long, boring drive down the hill from Santa Fe. Smoke from the fires in California and Washington has made its way to central and northern New Mexico and so casts a pall on the scenery. The mountains practically disappear in the murk, but there were also rain squalls mixed in with the smoke, so the usually boring drive down to Albuquerque had moments of interest as cloud bursts and rain-spattering periodically interrupted our boredom.

We got our business done in Albuquerque and headed home late in the afternoon. It was a heady day after a very heavy and heady week, and we were both exhausted -- but remarkably energized and elated.

One of the booths where we spent quite a bit of time at the IFAM was that of Leonard Peltier, wrongly convicted of crimes he didn't commit and wrongly held in Federal prison for those crimes -- and smeared and slandered by the FBI for decades. Dozens of Peltier's paintings were on exhibit -- and for sale -- along with posters, prints and minor items all to help fund his legal challenges to his continued imprisonment.

I had never seen so many of his paintings before. He's a highly talented artist in a more or less traditional style. Again, we couldn't afford any of them, but just to see so many was a remarkable experience. Among the minor items on display, Ms Ché found a patch with the combined figures of a wolf and a raven (both spirit animals for her) around which was the motto: "Do right and fear no one," and "Free Leonard Peltier." Well, that was something we could afford, and that patch now has a place of honor in the library here at the house (which is also her study.)  Peltier has been a symbol of Native oppression and resistance for decades. His continued incarceration is an injustice -- among so many injustices that typify the American system of injustice these days. To find his work in the "rebel" Indian market seemed just right somehow, and we felt privileged at that moment.

As Ms Ché has said, after spending a lifetime in the white world and learning how to survive and succeed in it while preserving something of her Indian heritage, she's now "becoming" what she's always been -- a strong and purposeful Native American woman. She's coming into her own in ways that simply weren't possible before. Exhaustion is part of the process of transformation they say!...

[I haven't put links in this post but will try to include them within the next day or two.]

NDN Stuff, Change of Pace

Went up to Santa Fe yesterday for the 2015 commencement ceremonies for students at IAIA -- the Institute of American Indian Arts.

It was the first commencement we've attended there, and just getting to the campus at all was an adventure.

The day started at our place some fifty miles south of Santa Fe with heavy rain and thunder. So odd in the middle of May, but we've been experiencing a very wet spring in Central New Mexico, much wetter and cooler than last May.

The heavy rain let up just before we had to leave our place in order to arrive at the IAIA campus in time for commencement. The sun was shining, and the winds had stopped blowing as we left home for the drive north.

As we passed through the Galisteo Basin, a slight rain began and we could see heavy weather on the west in the Oritz and Jemez Mountains. There were signs of weather to the north over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains as well. Santa Fe is nestled below those peaks, and the IAIA campus is somewhat south of the City Different itself, perched on a peak with a dazzling 360 degree view of the mountains and plains all around.

But passing through the village of Galisteo -- where bridge repair and road repaving has been going on for months and to get through the construction zone, you have to follow a pilot car which threads its way carefully around the various piles of gravel and earth and rock -- the rain was light. The sky grew darker, though, as we turned onto Camino de los Abuelos beside the village church and headed over hill and dale, through a surprisingly unflooded wash, across the railroad tracks, through the section of road that had been washed out at some point during one of the passing storms, past the Houzous Place where many of Allan Houser's bronze and stone sculptures are on display, but Mrs Houser wouldn't live there, "out in the middle of nowhere!" she said, and on to Highway 14, the Turquoise Trail, that would take us to the turn off at Rancho Viejo leading -- eventually -- to the IAIA campus.

In the distance, beyond the abandoned ruin of the New Mexico State Penitentiary where dozens of prisoners had been killed in an appalling riot in 1980 and where ghosts now wander, I could see the sky was darker still and the clouds reached to the ground. I said, "That looks like snow up ahead," and sure enough, it was.

Snow, in the middle of May in Santa Fe. What a wonder. As we took the Rancho Viejo turnoff, the snow turned into a near-blizzard, and we wondered how the IAIA commencement would be dealt with,  since it was scheduled to be outdoors in the Dance Circle. The outside temperature gauge on the dashboard had been falling and now read 34°. We weren't really dressed for Winter. It was the middle of May!

We drove through the blizzard following a half-dozen cars headed the same direction. A pick-up truck wove in and out of traffic, its driver having no patience for the courtesies others were giving drivers ahead and behind. Ms. Ché observed, "That must be a student, late for the commencement." The clock said we had fifteen minutes to get to the campus, find our way through the snow storm to the Dance Circle -- or wherever else they decided to hold the ceremonies -- and get settled before the  commencement began. We were about a mile and a half from the campus, and there was no let up from the snow. The temperature gauge now read 32°. It was going to be an interesting experience.

We made it to the campus but then had to figure out where to park as all the regular parking lots were blocked off. We went to an overflow lot on the east side of the campus and jockeyed with other drivers for a decent spot in the gravel and mud. There was a car next to us, a white Lexus driven by someone who couldn't figure out what to do in the gravel and mud, who kept backing up and moving forward, alarming people already parked and trying to park sufficiently that they refused to get out of their cars until this one settled. I don't know what the problem was, but it took several minutes for the Lexus driver to stop going back and forth and alarming people. Finally, when the car's motion stopped, people in cars round about got out and slogged in the snow through the mud and gravel toward what looked like a tent, maybe a circus tent, erected over the Dance Circle. It was quite a hike.

Some people brought umbrellas, but most didn't. It was the middle of May. Nobody expected snow in the middle of May. The news cast the night before said that snow was expected "above 10,000 feet," with flurries possible as low as 8,000 feet during the night. Santa Fe is at 7,000 feet, and it was close to 11:00am, so this snow storm seemed very odd indeed.

We slogged our way toward the tent, me having to move somewhat slowly due to my lingering lameness from sciatica. When we got there, snow-dappled, muddy-booted and somewhat chilled, the welcome from the staff was pleasant. There was no heat in the tent, but many of those who were in attendance had wisely brought blankets and sat wrapped and huddled while waiting for the ceremonies to begin.

There were several hundred chairs, and we found seats quickly enough. We were not far from the platform where the ceremonies would take place. The tent was decorated with the flags of the many dozens of tribes represented by the student-graduates and the staff of the Institute. And it was cold.

After a while, the assembly was urged to cease socializing and be seated. The ceremonies were about to begin. There had been a lot of socializing beforehand. We knew a few of the student-graduates, instructors and staff, but not a whole lot of them, and we knew practically none of their families and friends, so our socializing was somewhat limited. Some of the people we thought we would see at the commencement did not show up for whatever reasons, including the weather, so ultimately there were a few empty chairs under the tent.

Soon enough, the commencement ceremonies began with the entrance of the administration, board, faculty, staff, and student-graduates, accompanied by hand-drumming and song from the student hand-drum corps. It was wonderful. While many were dressed in traditional graduation robes and mortar-boards, many of those in the procession opted for ceremonial Native dress and head-gear. Whatever they felt was appropriate to the occasion was what they wore, and it made for a highly diverse -- rather than a strictly uniform -- graduation procession. I liked it, I liked it a lot.

Feathers. There were lots of feathers. Turquoise, velvets, blankets, shawls, traditional Native dress from a wide variety of tribes, even a Plains warbonnet. Everyone was smiling. Even some laughter as the group made their way to the front. The Dignitaries sat on the platform; everyone else sat on the chairs in front.

There was a prayer ceremony that acknowledged the inclement weather, particularly the rain and the snow and how much they were needed and wanted by the people of New Mexico, and how meaningful was the snow in particular to the Pueblo people for whom it represented perhaps the best medicine possible for a gathering such as this one.

The board president acknowledged the dignitaries and supporters among the assembly, and what a surprise it was for us to hear our own names called out as "Friends of IAIA." Indeed we are, but how did they know we would be there? One of those mysteries, I'd say, of which there are so many in New Mexico. So many mysteries and so many convergences.

Luci Tapahonso, Navajo Nation poet laureate and creative writing professor at UNM gave the keynote address. She was a last minute substitute for Sherman Alexie who had to withdraw and canceled all his summer travel due to a bad back. Luci pointed out -- to much laughter -- that she wasn't Sherman, and she offered one of her best known early poems, "Hills Brothers Coffee," to the assembly. It was very well received by those who are so familiar with it they can speak the lines along with Luci and by those who were hearing it for the first time. It is as true and loving a  depiction of Indian life on the Rez as any that's so far been offered by Native authors.

Jon Davis offered Sherman Alexie's thoughts to the soon-to-graduate MFA students -- just as those thoughts were transmitted from Sherman's very expensive stand up desk in Seattle. "Congratulations graduates. You must be asking yourselves, 'What the fuck am I going to do now?'" Indeed.

There were fifteen MFA graduates in the creative writing program, about half the entire MFA class, and many were intending to pursue an academic career. That's what you get an MFA for, after all. There is really no other reason for it.

On the other hand, there were some forty or so Certificate, AA, BA and BFA graduates, some of whom intended to pursue a post-graduate degree, but many of whom had no intention to. They were going to change the world, however, just you wait and see.

Many tribes were represented, but many surprisingly were not. There were no Cherokee among the graduates, for example. Well, there was one, from the Etocha Tribe of Alabama, a group recognized by the State of Alabama but not by the Federal government nor by the Cherokee Nation. In fact, the CN calls them "fraudulent." Interesting. The graduate wants to pursue a law degree. Even more interesting.

There were no graduates from California Indian Tribes, either, which was just as surprising as the absence of Cherokee. There were only a handful from Northwest tribes. The preponderance of graduates were from the Navajo Nation and from New Mexico's Pueblo tribes. But IAIA recruits globally, and their students can be of any indigenous or non-indigenous origin.

We were not able to stay for the luncheon afterwards as we had another event to attend later that afternoon, and so we bid adieu and headed back south. The day had turned warm and sunny in some places, still heavy cloud in others. The newly fallen snow glistened on the peaks of the Jemez in the west, while snow squalls were scattered through the Sangres and over the Oritz Mountains. As we continued south out of the glorious Galisteo Basin, the cloud cover over the Sandias thickened perceptibly. It was raining on the road where we were, snowing -- probably heavily -- along the crest of the Sandias and even lower down. Sun shafts pierced the clouds ahead, and to the east there were piles and piles of cotton-ball clouds piled up against a brilliant azure sky.

"Don't forget to thank your neighbor for the rain; don't forget to say hello to the sky."

Movie Night

You don't need a Weatherman to tell which way the wind blows...

I've heard about the "Weather Underground" film done by Sam Green for KQED in San Francisco for a decade now, but until yesterday, I hadn't seen the whole thing. Well... (I recently signed up to Snag Films on the internet, where "Weather Underground" and a number of other films and documentaries I've wanted to see are available free but not without commercial interruptions... like with some of the other online film services you have to turn off your adblock software for the duration.)

Memories... I wasn't part of SDS or the Weather Underground back in the day, and by 1969 I was becoming somewhat more socialized to a standard adult lifestyle though hardly as a member of the bourgeoisie.

The rebel in me would not permit that.

Though I wasn't part of the Revolution by 1969, I followed SDS and Weather Underground more than casually, them and the Black Panthers and American Indian Movement and so many others who actually engaged in a kind of Revolution as the '60's got going and then petered out, slip-sliding through pools of blood and misery right here at home. Not quite on the scale of Vietnam, no, not even close to that scale, but the bloodshed here at home had a profound effect on the counterculture.

Let it be said and let it be known.

What hasn't been explored, however, is how the bloodshed here at home affected the Establishment, because it most profoundly did. We who were not Establishment rarely look at things from the other side, so it can be difficult to grasp and gauge what kind of effects the radicals and the revolutionaries were having in real time, and it's still difficult to understand how those effects have played out since then.

Sam Green's film doesn't directly explore the question of how the radicals and revolutionaries affected the Establishment, either, and Mark Rudd, Todd Gitlin and others interviewed essentially declare that the Revolution was a failure and leave it at that -- as they go back, with a big sigh, to their sinecures in various academic settings and NPOs.

Oh. Yes. Wasn't it all such a very big waste in the end?

On Having Buffalo for Dinner

"Back in the day, when the Lakota were strong people, there was no such thing as a fat Indian."

Twice this week we've had buffalo for dinner, the first time up at La Fonda in Santa Fe during the IAIA scholarship dinner and auction, and then last night just because we could do so -- with a steak from the market.

I have to confess, we like buffalo meat. Not only does it taste better than beef, it is seemingly much "cleaner" as well. Some of the Pueblos around here are breeding and raising buffalo with the intention of returning more of them to the range. Given the number of cattle that are currently range-raised in this area, returning buffalo to the high plains should be a no brainer -- though I'm not altogether sure the high plains of New Mexico were buffalo range back in the day. If they weren't they should have been. Or they might have been. Or they could have been.

I'm sure some of the ranchers in these parts would get a bit tense if someone started running buffalo instead of cattle on their range. There is a heavy weight of myth and fancy to overcome, after all. Buffalo were exterminated as pests in the 19th century, but more than that, they were seen as devil-beasts, scary creatures that couldn't be tamed. And they were food and clothing and shelter for the Indians. Which was even scarier.

People and Place

Lots of people have tried to describe what constitutes the enchantment of New Mexico, "The Land of Enchantment."  It's a subject I've wrestled with a few times myself -- not very successfully.

I've driven out here dozens of times over the years. The first time we came to New Mexico in 1982 was by driving hell-bent for leather from California on the way to St. Louis (I had work there.)  There was a moment and a vision on that drive -- and on every subsequent one -- that triggered the sense of enchantment: the cleft between those painted cliffs which I've long called a Baroque Mesa at the border between Arizona and New Mexico.

This is kennedymarijuanaseed's video that gives you some idea of the gasp-worthy visuals at the crossing. (I have some photos, but they aren't loaded to this computer, so...)


It's breathtaking. And for me at any rate, the instant we cross over from Arizona into New Mexico, we are in a different environment. The sky is different. It's clearer and bluer, a nearly sapphire deep blue. The clouds are whiter and fluffier. The land is different, still high desert, but not like Arizona. It's less, how shall I say, manipulated for gain, and people's presence seems much lighter on the earth. It's Navajo country on both sides of the border, one is in Dinetah no matter which side of the line you're on, but the New Mexico side seems spiritually much freer. My heart soars on crossing the border.

That's the first enchantment for a visitor driving through. You see something you aren't really expecting given the flat arid high desert of Arizona's eastern sector, and you're transported into another world.

You see Indians everywhere; you hear their languages on the radio; you can get some frybread or oven bread at the stands along the road or in surprise locations where you don't expect to find such things. There are horses and sheep wandering free.

The place seems laden with silver and turquoise.

As you travel east, you see a series of red mesas marching along in formation, but soon enough you're in the presence of Mt. Taylor, known to the Diné as Tsoodził, "the Sleeping Woman." If the light is just right -- which it often is -- the reason for the Navajo name of the mountain is obvious. There is a long haired woman sleeping on her side taking up the whole top of the mountain.

We like to stop for a bite at a place called the Kiva Cafe in Milan, just under the mountain -- which you can't see from the ground because the peak is hiding behind a mesa. The place is often packed with people from the area out for lunch or dinner, many of them Indians. The food is abundant and good and the staff is friendly -- if sometimes harried! Next door is the Chaco Canyon Trading Company, which is a remarkably fine and complete place to find Indian jewelry (some made on the spot), pottery, and other items. Most of what they sell is made by nearby artisans, much of it of very high quality and at prices that are certainly fair. The total experience at this location (it's also a truck stop and convenience store) is very down to earth, not at all what you may encounter in the more fashionable places frequented by denizens and visitors to Santa Fe, say. 

At one time I didn't care for Santa Fe at all. I didn't even want to go anywhere near it, I had such a bad reaction to the place. After a while, I found out why. I was a smoker, you see, and Santa Fe is at an altitude of 7,000 ft. It's very, very difficult for someone who smokes heavily like I did and has not adapted to the altitude to breathe in such a rarefied atmosphere. The body reacts as if you are suffocating -- which in a way you are -- and most people suffering under those conditions get very crabby, essentially panicking. 

I could recognize what was happening after I stopped smoking, but not until then. 

I still mock Santa Fe as "Fanta Se" and otherwise poke fun at the pretensions of so many Santa Feans, both newly minted and some of the crusty old timers. But it's no longer a problem being there, nor do I tend to become panicked because "I can't breathe!" 

Yesterday we had a surprisingly delightful time in the City Different, going up to attend some events as part of Indian Market week. There were some Navajo made short films playing at the History Museum, and in the afternoon, there was a book-signing at the Collected Works bookstore featuring about a dozen Native American artists whose work was featured in Contemporary Native American Artists by Suzanne Deats and Kitty Leaken. 

We also attended a workshop on support for Native American documentary film making presented by Native American Public Telecommunications. Ah, the grant process! I've been out of that realm for quite a while, but it's like riding a bicycle. You never actually forget how, though your skills may become rusty with disuse. It was really a useful presentation, though it's not clear that either the "White Guys" or the Indians in attendance (and one Filipino) could realistically participate in the program. Personally, I've never been fond of the film making process though I've been in some movies and have dabbled in making a few films and videos -- but generally only in support of theatrical projects. For their part, many film makers have trouble appreciating the theatrical process, and it is not as if one is superior to the other. They are different, and to my mind their purposes are quite different as well. I have been more attuned to and more comfortable in the theater-making process than in the movie making process.

Be that as it may, I learned a great deal about how Native Americans can gain valuable assistance in documentary film making through the NAPT. Some of the productions they've supported include "Good Meat," "Reel Injuns," and "Thick Dark Fog" among many others. 

After the workshop, we attended a showing of Navajo made short films, collectively called "Navajo Paradiso." It was quite a variety of styles and topics, all with a Navajo perspective, some spoken in the Navajo language. The film-makers were all in attendance and spoke afterwards about their work and process and intent. 

I found myself quite drawn to two of the works. One, called "Floating," was surprisingly compelling. I say surprisingly because it was so... edgy... a non-Indian is smoking dope and trying to fix hot dogs while arguing on the phone with his (Navajo) girlfriend in what the film maker referred to as an "epic" redundant conversation. Yes. It was. OMG. Stylistically, the film was innovative -- clever cuts and dissolves, unusual screen proportion manipulations, unexpected visual and auditory moments. It would not change your life by any means but it was certainly a definitive slice of what you might call an ordinary life. 

The other was titled "The 6th World," an innovative Navajo science fiction picture centering on a future mission to Mars which relies on corn (as it happens, Indian corn) to provide oxygen for the trip and to form the basis of terraforming the red planet. It wasn't a fully-developed idea, but it was a start on a topic that could prove fascinating to explore in film and other formats. Just how would Navajos and other Native peoples approach a Mission to Mars or the other planets? (According to Buffy Sainte-Marie, an old Indian told her after the moon landing in 1969, "You know, they really ought to leave that Moon alone.")

The film makers were mostly women (there were two men), they were young, enthusiastic, creative in different ways, and each film was unique. The film makers were exploring the medium and the possibilities of story telling through film. None of the films was particularly polished (which is not meant as a criticism), but neither were they obviously amateur products by people who were just fooling around. They were all serious attempts at formulating and presenting unique visions of "what is" through Native eyes. And they all met that specific objective.

We had lunch at the Plaza Cafe, a Santa Fe institution that was closed several years ago due to an unfortunate kitchen fire. The restoration seemed to take forever, in part due to the requirements for upgrading so much infrastructure before the reconstruction could proceed. There were many, many delays. This was the first time we'd been back since they reopened earlier in August, and it was a treat. 

Like the Kiva Cafe in Milan, the Plaza Cafe on the Plaza in Santa Fe is not a fashionable eatery, so you'll rarely see those who suffer from "Santa Fe Style" inside its doors. On the other hand, plenty of locals seem to like it a lot, and tourists and travelers who just wander in are surprised and delighted with the food and service. It's a New Mexican/Greek diner sort of restaurant, and you can get your New Mexican dishes with a Greek accent if you like. 

It was nice being back.

Then it was off to the book-signing at Collected Works. This is where things got really intriguing. I was almost certain we'd been to other events at Collected Works, but walking in the door, I didn't recognize anything, so... maybe not. We found seats and were almost immediately approached by an elderly lady who said that Kitty was her daughter. We were not familiar with the book under discussion, so "Kitty" didn't mean anything at first. But then I looked closely at the older woman and a younger one who seemed to be in charge of the event and the resemblance was obvious, so that must be "Kitty," and then I realized that "Kitty" was Kitty Leaken, the photographer for the book "Contemporary Native American Artists" which was the topic of the event and the reason why everybody was there. Oh. Well. 

Later, we would meet Kitty through Peter. Who was Peter? I had no idea, but we struck up a conversation while waiting in line to get our books signed by the dozen or so artists featured who were in attendance. Peter had just come back from leading a tour at Chaco Canyon, and he thought he had missed this event. He was very glad he didn't. Turns out he was close friends with Kitty and knew some of the artists featured in the book. We were joined shortly by Mark, from Tesuque Pueblo, who was the manager of the tour outfit and had been a Chaco too. Turns out Mark -- in addition to running tours -- is an artist, a sculptor of some repute (well, his works are at the Wheelright and the Smithsonian among other places) but he was too modest to say that. No, I found out later when I Googled him up -- actually, I was Googling something else and his name appeared, oh. Instead, he and I chatted about Berkeley in the '60's and how things got a little tense there in 1969 when his family decided it was time to get the hell out and return to the comparative sanity of New Mexico. What a story. 

We continued to chat as if we were old friends while waiting to get our books signed, and then we chatted as if were were old friends with the artists themselves. Of course Mark was an old friend of many of them, as were many of the others in the room. 

I noted with interest that I was one of a dozen or so people in attendance happily sporting a Hawaiian shirt. Yes. Well, it's summertime in Santa Fe, and if you don't want to be taken as a tourist, what are you going to do? Wear a Hawaiian shirt, of course!

So we yakked and continued through the line -- I learned a good deal about relations between artists in Santa Fe and New Mexico which I sort of knew of in the past... and then it occurred to me how I was drawn here to begin with. 

I've written about it before, but it was this event that brought it home to me. 

Harry Fonseca.

He was a Native American artist in Northern California who created the "Coyote and Rose" series and made the Coyote character an American icon, especially in Santa Fe. I was lucky enough to have known him in California, and was intrigued when he said he was going to move to New Mexico, initially to Albuquerque. He was already famous, you see, for his Coyote character series, but it would be just a little while longer before Coyote became a... well, for want of a better word, "meme."

This is the Coyote Harry Fonseca did for Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe in 1994:

Coyote for Coyote Cafe by Harry Fonseca, 1994

Harry told New Mexico stories before he moved here, and they were filled with both mystery and joy for me. The night sky was a special pleasure to hear about -- because in most of California you never see a brilliant starfilled night sky, you never see the Milky Way, and you can't know what is out there for your amazement. You can and often do in New Mexico.

Seeing for yourself is what it takes, along with the motivation to make it possible. 

New Mexico itself provides the motivation, I think. If it draws you back again and again, eventually you have no choice. You have to live here. You must.

I was talking to one of the artists featured at the book signing yesterday, Upton Ethelbah (Greyshoes) who is at least as well known as Harry was, and he asked me about moving to New Mexico, as he's been all over and now works in Albuquerque. I told him it was "time." He laughed and said something like, "Yah, sure. You leave California for a better quality of life out here!" I said, "Yes, that's it exactly. It IS a better quality of life, though you'd never convince most New Mexicans or Californians of that." He said, "Everybody should find the place they're best suited to. California, New Mexico, they're all good places. So don't be ashamed of being from California. Enjoy living here. It's called you home." Or did he say, "It's called your home?"

That's the key to the Enchantment; it's not just a marketing slogan. When the land calls you, you know it, and you're drawn, there's no escaping it. I've talked to so many people who live here now who came from some part of California (usually the south, because the landscape is somewhat similar)  who say exactly that. From the first time they saw it, they knew that New Mexico would one day be Home, there was no way around it. For some, like me, it took years, decades in fact, to make it real, but New Mexico would be Home no matter what.

Harry Fonseca clued me to the spirit of the place, and once he moved here himself, it was as if he, too, were part of the lure. Even after he passed away.

Yesterday, as we were going about to the various events we attended, we kept running into so many people who had made that trek east from California to New Mexico, quite a few having just arrived and who said they were just getting familiar with the place and the people. I don't know whether they felt the same pull we did, but if they did, they knew what that Enchantment was all about too. 

Practically every time I've attended events in Santa Fe or elsewhere in New Mexico -- or just been hanging around someplace-- I've been amazed at how quickly, almost instantly, I've become integrated with the locals, as if I had lived here for years and years and everybody knew me and I knew everybody. There are any number of tight-knit communities in Santa Fe and New Mexico in general, this is after all  a very tribal society, and it's not easy for outsiders to penetrate these communities, though outsiders are usually treated pleasantly and politely. 

What's so striking in our experience is that at least momentarily we are welcomed into the tribe, which ever it happens to be, spontaneously, sincerely, as if we have always been here.

It happened again tonight. We were went to the opening reception of Virgil Ortiz's "Venutian Soldiers" series of pots, sculptures, and photographs at the Zane Bennett Gallery in the Railyard District of Santa Fe. It was an adventure.  No one we knew was there. Virgil Ortiz himself we only knew by reputation. 

Spontaneously, literally out of nowhere, people started talking to us, chatting away as if we were old friends, telling tales and sharing life stories, making connections that might last. The problem for so many years has been that these spontaneous contacts can be made only one time because we almost immediately have to go back to California, and we may not be back in New Mexico for months. By then, the moment will have passed.

But now we live here, this is our home, and when we go back to California tomorrow, it will be to finish packing up for the final move east.

This has been quite a week. One we will not soon forget.