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The Indian Pony Express
The
arrival of the summer season brings the start of the dangerous bareback
horse racing Indian relay race circuit in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.
Wyoming’s Fort Washakie and the Wind River Indian Reservation have been
a hub of such racing activity for years, with the Starr Weed team
taking the World Champion title several times. Weed, an 86-year-old
Eastern Shoshone tribal elder and an expert at relay racing, fielded
two teams last season.
A race team consists of four men and three horses. After a running leap
to mount the horse, racers tear around a half-mile track, exchange
horses on the fly, complete another lap, switch horses yet again and
speed off on the final lap. It sounds simple enough, but with up to
seven teams on the track there is much jockeying for position. Fairly
often, a rider will leap onto a horse’s back and knock heads with the
horse, resulting in a bump on the rider’s forehead or even being
knocked unconscious. Team members must carry the unconscious rider off
the track so he doesn’t get run over by the horses. Broken ribs are
common as well.
Team members who are charged with holding the horses must have great
strength and courage. During a race, the horses are highly excited,
straining and rearing, wanting to run, and the holder must keep the
1,000-pound animal under control and properly positioned with only a
bridle and rein.
It’s believed that the first organized Indian relay race sporting event
was held in 1913 in Idaho. Races will be held this summer as part of
Eastern Shoshone Indian Days in mid-June in Fort Washakie, Wyoming; at
Lander Pioneer Days Rodeo in Wyoming over the Fourth of July weekend;
and at Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming in July. The 2007 World
Champion Indian Relay Race takes place during the WYO Rodeo in
Sheridan, Wyoming, July 12–14. Relay races are also held annually at
the Shoshone Bannock Indian Festival in Fort Hall, Idaho the second
weekend in August, and the national championship races are held as part
of the Eastern Idaho State Fair in Blackfoot, Idaho each
September. —Cat Urbigkit
Out of the Woods: American Indian Scouts
The Boy Scouts of America program has done amazing things for our
nation’s youth, but before the late 1950s attendance was poor among
Native Americans. Then the American Indian Scouting Association (AISA)
was formed for the purpose of training adults to become leaders in the
Native community and to get Native kids involved. This special
organization has now grown to include more than 150 tribes.
The association’s major event of the year is a five-day seminar
presented as a joint venture of the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl
Scouts of the USA. A host tribe or nation welcomes not only members of
American Indian troops but all scouts, no matter what their ethnicity
or heritage background. It is a time to come together to exchange
ideas, learn about Indian culture—both the differences and
similarities—and to appreciate each other.
During the day, participants engage in workshops on varied topics such
as tipi building, beadwork, language, history, herbal remedies, shawl
making and games. Evenings are filled with dances, ice-cream socials,
parades of traditional clothing and banquets. The seminar is held
either at a local university/college near the hosting tribe, or
sometimes at the reservation complex itself.
Besides already-established troops and crews, some attendees are
scoutmasters coming alone to gather information, hoping to spark an
interest in their own troop to attend. The AISA seminar serves as
a wellspring of knowledge, inspiration and invaluable networking so
Native peoples can acquire the tools needed to begin.
The 50th American Indian Boy Scouting/Girl Scouting Seminar will be
sponsored by the Chickasaw Nation at East Central University in Ada,
Oklahoma, July 7–11. Cost of the seminar is $250, which includes
membership, room and board, and access to all programs and events.
Scholarships are available, and some troops/crews write grants to help
defer costs. Details: americanindianscouting.org or 972/580-2127.
—Cindy Ross
honoring
above, left to right: Four
Native Americans were among those honored in December with United
States Artists Fellowships (and $50,000 each!): author Susan Power
(Standing Rock Sioux), filmmaker Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/ Creek),
Chilkat weaver Anna Brown Ehlers (Tlingit) and basket weaver Teri
Rofkar (Tlingit). Details: unitedstatesartists.org
Artist and art curator Joe Baker (Delaware) was presented the second
annual Contemporary Catalyst Award from the Scottsdale Museum of
Contemporary Art in February for his role as the Lloyd Kiva New Curator
of Fine Art at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, where he has mounted many
innovative exhibitions.
Dancer, actress and choreographer Tamara Podemski (Saulteaux) of Canada
took home a special jury mention from the 2007 Sundance Film Festival
for her role as a young woman on the edge of self-destruction in
Sterlin Harjo’s new film, Four Sheets to the Wind.
The Chilocco Indian Agricultural School in Oklahoma has been placed on
the National Register of Historic Places, just in time for the June 7–9
annual reunion in Albuquerque of the Chilocco National Alumni
Association. Details: Betty Deer Shannon, 505/296-5150
Contemporary Native dancer Rulan Tangen (see cover, Sept./Oct. 2005)
was listed with a big photo in Dance magazine in January as one of the
“Top 25 to Watch” in the dance world this year.
Joanna Bigfeather (Western Cherokee/Mescalero Apache) has been
appointed as the new director of the Boehm Gallery at Palomar College
in southern California.
Painter, illustrator and Apache violin craftsman Terrill Goseyun (San
Carlos Apache) has been selected for an Arizona Folk Arts Master Artist
Apprenticeship Award from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the
National Endowment for the Arts. His son was awarded the matching
grant, pairing them up.
Taking the Best of Show award at the 2007 Heard Museum Guild Indian
Fair & Market in Phoenix for his impeccable red coral concho belt
was Vernon Haskie (Navajo). Other major prize winners: Russell Sanchez
(San Ildefonso Pueblo) in pottery, LeRoy DeJolie (Diné) in graphic arts
for a photograph, Nuvadi Dawahoya (Hopi) in wooden carvings, TahNibaa
Naataanii (Navajo) in textiles, Roger Amerman (Choctaw) in diverse arts
for a beaded bandolier bag, Marcus Amerman (Choctaw) in sculpture for a
blown-glass work, and Annie Antone (Tohono O’odham) in basketry.
shards
right: Danielle
Morsette (Chippewa Cree/Coast Salish) of Washington followed her dreams
to dance beneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris when she visited the City of
Light last spring with her high school French class and performed for
the French public.
Another of the growing number of Web-based Native art galleries is
Firstpeoplesgallery.com. Founded in 1994 by John Kunikis, it carries
art by Indigenous artists ranging from the Inuit to Pacific Northwest,
the Iroquois (including uncommon Mohawk pottery), and even Africa. The
goal, says Kunikis, is to provide a “greater understanding of who we
are as members of the human family.”
How do you build a nation? A group of experts in forming governments,
developing economies, solving social issues and balancing cultural
integrity and change have come together to offer their observations and
suggestions on such a challenge in a CD/DVD release titled Native
Nation Building. The series of 10 roundtable interview segments
examines where, how and why tribal nation-building is currently
occurring. Hosting are Mark St. Pierre (Metis) and Mary Kim Titla (San
Carlos Apache). It was produced by the Native Nations Institute for
Leadership, Management, and Policy at the University of Arizona.
Details: NNI, 803 E. First St., Tucson, AZ 85719; 520/626-0664 or
nni.Arizona.edu. Copies are $20 for the CD radio series or $35 for the
DVD series.
Emmett “Shkeme” Garcia (Santa Ana Pueblo) of New Mexico, best known as
the dynamic lead singer for the wonderful reggae band Native Roots and
as a charming storyteller and comedian, has added the title of author
to his credits. In October, the University of New Mexico Press released
Coyote and the Sky: How the Sun, Moon, and Stars Began, with 14
illustrations by Victoria Pringle. They are now collaborating on Sister
Rabbit’s Tricks. Details: 505/620-8539
The Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation of North Carolina, in
partnership with Southwestern Community College and Western Carolina
University, is launching an AFA, BFA and MFA art degree program based
on Native art. The program will kick off this spring and include both
studio and academic studies. Details: 828/497-1662.
above: The annual event The Weaving of Life
,
held in Park City, Utah to raise funds to support isolated elderly
Navajo weavers, passed a major milestone when it raised more than
$500,000 for the first time at its most recent gathering. A special
guest was actor Jay Tavare (The Missing, Cold Mountain, Pathfinder, Unbowed
, etc.). Details: 435/649-0535 or anelder.org
A nonprofit service called Missing From the Circle tracing missing and
unidentified American Indians has been launched by former FBI agent
Walter Lamar (an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation and descendant
of the Wichita Tribe). Kent Jacobs (Lumbee), 42 years old, has been
missing since March 10, 2002 and is the first to be featured on the
project’s web site. Details: 230 E. Capitol St. NE, Washington, D.C.
20004, 202/543-8181 or lamarassociates.net
passages
Phil Lucas (Choctaw), Emmy-winning producer of documentaries and
feature films, passed away on Feb. 4 of natural causes. He was 65. A
professor at Bellevue Community College in Washington, Lucas was a
pioneer in Native film, with a career spanning four decades. He wrote,
produced or directed at least 107 works, including the feature film The
Broken Chain, with Pierce Brosnan; Images of Indians, hosted by Will
Sampson in 1980 on PBS; and the Native Americans series on TBS.
We lost another artistic pioneer on Feb. 9 when musician and composer
Louis Ballard (Quapaw) died. He was 75. Ballard was renowned in music
circles worldwide for bringing traditional Native melodies, instruments
and themes to Western orchestral music. He earned a master’s degree in
music at the University of Tulsa in 1961, was an original member of the
faculty of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, and went
on to teach throughout his life. In 1974, his piece Incident at Wounded
Knee had its world premiere with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra during
the orchestra’s tour in Eastern Europe. Many other notable premieres
followed.
The Oneida Indian Nation of New York lost its Bear Clan Mother to the
Oneida Men’s Council and Clan Mothers when Marilyn John passed away on
Jan. 23. Mrs. John worked in tribal business capacities and as a
government leader since the late 1980s.
