R. Carlos Nakai is the world's premier Native American flautist - bar none. This has an orchestral accompaniment that sounds like it's from a 40's film soundtrack, so it works here. It's from his Fourth World CD - Canyon Records, '02. (4:16)
f A Note on the Paintings
The Santa Fe Railway was the first major US corporation to use art as an integral part of a massive advertising campaign. The two paintings above, "Smoke Purification" and "Pictographs," by E.I. Couse, a member of the Taos Art Colony, are among hundreds the railroad either purchased reproduction rights to, or commissioned and bought outright. The art was used in the famous calendars the railroad distibuted, gratis, throughout the country, as well as on dining car menu covers, in magazine ads, and as copies in various formats and sizes - from litho prints to pocket calendars. The images were sold throughout the system, and were certainly available at the "Trading Post" here at the Santa Fe Indian Village. The Santa Fe Railway art collection, with over six-hundred works, is considered to be one of the best in the west. The criticism by academia (social anthropologists, American Studies gurus, social-psychologists, etc.) of the Santa Fe Railway, and its roll in image-making of the American Indian has lately picked up steam. We'll have more about the eggheads and the Santa Fe down the line. Well, were the images a romanticized version of Indian reality? No doubt, and no doubt either, at least in my mind, that if the Santa Fe hadn't been around and made a conscious, deliberate, dedicated decison to exploit the many possibilities of the Southwest - the natural wonders, the original inhabitants of America, the American Adventure of it all - then someone else would have. Nature abhors that ol' vacuum. The Indians could have ended up with a bunch of New York hustlers out to make a fortune in the tourist business, and God only knows where Madison Avenue would have taken "Chief." Or it could be even worse, it could all be hyped as a giant: CASINO- CONVENTION CENTER - LUXURY HOTEL-GOLFCOURSE, with all the crap that comes with Vegas-style hype and glitz. Now just think about THAT for a moment! w
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Another note: a There will be a lot more art throughout the series than just images from the Santa Fe Railway collection. You'll find other Western artfrom across the years, as well as contemporary and older paintings and art objects from Native Americans, many of the paintings from graduates of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. We'll have some background information about the photographs further down the line. b
e From the "Santa Fe Railway Indian Village" Souvenir Brochure a Navajo Medicine Lodge a The Navajos have developed many elaborate ceremonies, each of which is under the control of a shaman or medicine man. These ceremonies for the most part are held at the request and expense of someone of their tribe who is ill or indisposed. To conduct these ceremonies a special lodge is constructed, similar to the Navajo Medicine Lodge reproduced in the Santa Fe Village.
The ceremonies in these lodges are alike in certain particulars, such as the use of the sweat bath, the making of many sand paintings, and the singing of a number of songs. The sand paintings are one of the most interesting parts of these ceremonies and a medicine man will construct one of these paintings every day in the Navajo Medicine Lodge in the Santa Fe Indian Village.
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Sand paintings are not just Navajo creations; they are also to be found among the Apache, as in the photo above, as well as the Hopi, Zuni, Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Egyptians, hippies (?!?), and more. Frank Waters, in Masked Gods, states: "Often called mandalas, these geometrical designs have been extensively studied by Dr. C. G. Jung....The oldest he discovered was that of a paleolithic "sunwheel" found in Rhodesia. Others he finds in the Middle Ages of Europe, in Jacob Boehme's book on the soul, and in drawings of his mentally diseased patients who had no idea of their psychological meanings....Christian mandalas show Christ in the center, with the four evangelists at the cardinal points, as in Egypt Horus was represented with his four sons the same way. Other forms take that of a flower, of a cross, of a wheel, always with four as the basis of the structure. These compare, of course, with the....symbols of Navajo ceremonialism: the circle, the cross separating it into quadrants, and the Encircled Mountain as a four-petalled flower. Whatever their origin, says Jung, these basic symbols come from two primary sources. One source is the unconscious which produces them spontaneously. The other source is life, which, if lived with complete devotion, brings an intuition of the self. r
This song comes from a native "old school" (if you'll pardon the expression) CD titled Zuni Traditional Songs from the Zuni Pueblo, by Leo Quetawki. It came out in 2003 on Canyon Records. (2:31)
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F From the "Santa Fe Railway Indian Village" Souvenir Brochure a Kiva a The Hopi word kiva signifies an assembly-room, and in every pueblo there are two or more kivas, depending on the number of the ceremonial and religious organizations which need such a community chamber. These structures are similar to those of prehistoric times, and may be either circular or rectangular, built under the ground, or to some height, as in the case of the very striking kiva at San Ildefonso which is duplicated here in the Santa Fe Village. The kivas are the ceremonial rooms of the men where the secret religious rites, preceding the public ones, take place. In the intervals of ceremonials they serve as assembly-rooms, as workshops where cotton is spun or prayer sticks made for ceremonial purposes, and as a sort of men's clubroom. The Spaniards evidently did not understand the use of these buildings, for they called them estufas - that is, stoves or hot places - perhaps because they were sometimes used by the men for steam baths. The kivas in the pueblo villages of the southwest are not usually open to the public, but here in the Santa Fe Indian Village visitors have the opportunity to inspect two of these unusual structures. The round kiva is copied from the type the Indians have built at San Ildefonso Pueblo. The square kiva is similar to the type built by the Hopi Indians. i
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"The Indians keep burning an eternal fire, the sacred fire of the old dark religion. To the vast white America, either in our generation or in the time of our children or grandchildren, will come some fearful convulsion. Some terrible convulsion will take place among the millions of this country, sooner or later. When the pueblos are gone. But oh, let us have the grace and dignity to shelter these ancient centres of life, so that, if die they must, they die a natural death. And at the same time, let us try to adjust ourselves again to the Indian outlook, to take up an old dark thread from their vision, and see again as they see, without forgetting we are ourselves."
