Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/899551
Heritage Matters 48 This does not mean that the ceramic pot is 'dead.' Far from it. It has its own kind of life force – a living spirit that can communicate with those who are ready. However, it cannot recreate itself, or modify its form. However, it can stimulate the human mind to do that very thing. Old art inspires new forms. The clay pot exists as itself. It manifested its destiny with the helping hands of the person who made it. It was a collaboration between the human and the earth. Haudenosaunee oral traditions tell of an important moment when the world was being created. A pregnant woman fell from the sky and was placed on the back of a giant turtle. A tiny muskrat dove to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve a small pawful of mud. When that mud was placed on the back of the turtle, magic took over. It began to grow. The Sky Woman began to dance in a counter- clockwise circle, shuffling her feet in such a way that flattened and widened the clay underneath, eventually to form the shape that we call the Great Turtle Island, which would later become the Mother Earth from which humans, along with all of the plants, birds, animals, trees and medicines, were also made. When we hold ceremonial dances today, we dance in the same direction that Sky Woman first travelled on the Turtle Island. To give thanks, we relive the Creation with our dances, the most sacred of them to the beat of a rattle made from the carcass of snapping turtle, itself a symbol of the earth. When we move our feet in harmony with that beat, we are literally and figuratively moving in harmony with the heartbeat of the earth. It is difficult to describe what it is like to be in the middle of rows of dancers, with singers in the inside, a row or two of women dancing the same way that Sky Woman made the Turtle Island, and rows of men on the outside, with children interspersed throughout. Everyone has brought their hearts and minds together to bundle our thankfulness in a great dance. You feel the connection to the ancestors, who also did the same dance, the countless generations of singers who sang the same songs, and a deep connection to what makes the Creation a sacred place. All seem to be present in these dances. It is something that no painting, no sculpture, no video or no essay can capture respectfully. You have to be there and be part of it to know what it is. When we dance, we are instructed to dress in our most beautiful clothes. It is amazing to see women literally wrapped in their culture. They bead symbolic designs of their Creation on their wraparound skirts. It is here that verbal culture and visual culture come together. The tiny beaded designs are like a cosmogram – a graphic depiction of our universe. By seeing the symbols, you reaffirm your understanding of your being. Certainly, some of the beadwork is more expertly crafted, some more intricately depicted. Some with more harmonious colors. No two are alike. Yet, they all make up one large narrative. In that moment of the dance, the differences in beadwork do not matter. It is how they look as they move in the dance circle that matters. They exist for that moment, come alive during the song, then slowly settle back into their more static form. Just like the annual cycles of nature. The same happens with the split feathers on the men's headdress, called a gustoweh. The striped turkey, hawk and eagle feathers flutter in a special way when the men dance. The large upstanding eagle feathers twirl as if they are birds circling about. As the men move their shoulders and heads, the feathers react and seem to have a dance of their own. For a brief moment, all seems to be perfect. You don't want the dance to end. Its vibration stirs our hearts and unites our spirits. For one moment, we truly understand what it means to be Haudenosaunee. Then we get in our cars and go back to our single-family homes. Back to our jobs and secular life. Back to school or back to the protest. Yet, we carry the memory of that moment. We carry the memory of our ancestors. We carry the memory of our Mother, the earth. The memory of beads and the memory of feathers. That is what sustains us through the rest of our non-Indigenous lifestyle. We are thankful for those moments of clarity. Rick Hill is a Tuscarora of the Beaver Clan, an artist, writer and curator. He is Curriculum Development Specialist for the Bundled Arrows Intiative located on the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. 1870s Seneca Gustoweh worn by Solomon O'Bail. Photos courtesy of Rick Hill