Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
The original lands of the Crow or Apsáalooke peoples were east of Yellowstone National Park in Montana/Wyoming, the Absarokas, across the Basin to the Big Horn Mountains, and southeast to the Wind Rivers. This story, recounted to anthropologist Robert Lowie at the turn of the 20th Century, reveals the esoteric visionary experience of a young Crow, and his interest to visit the Land of the Birds.
Shadow-Trickster Donald Trump, preaching revolutionary change and unending prosperity, emerged from the shadow of hatred and aggression, and now proceeds to install one of the most repressive, socially regressive, selfish, greedy, and racist US Presidential Administrations in generations. It must be resisted, but with a trickster spirit.
Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains has year-round outdoor attractions, including skiing, hiking, boating, and fishing. Yet long before the resorts, the area was called Yuhaviat, or “Pine Place” by the original inhabitants, the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians, with their sacred site of snow quartz called the Eye of God.
The Kumeyaay of southern and Baja California have a rich history of coexistence on the border of California and Mexico in the mountainous region of San Diego County. Here we republish Florence Shipek’s treatise on the preservation of their sacred mountain called Kuuchamaa, also known as Cuchuma, as well as several videos on their culture, history and stories.
In the sacred Tibetan Skeleton dance two Dharmapalas (Protectors of Truth) appear, played by Monks, deities whose role is to protect the cemetery grounds. Their presence also reminds the audience of the ephemeral nature of this world and of their own mortality. The cult of ?the Se?cond Buddha?, Padmasambhava, initiated the practice through the rich mythological literature.
Paul Gauguin, the bourgeois-turned-bohemian artist who left France for Tahiti, reveals a darker, almost menacing mythological vision, in contrast to his exploitative picture-postcard fantasy-native Polynesian paintings for which he is known. The exhibition continues at MoMA in New York until June.
Northern Shoshone Myth on how the Wolf, father of the native people, defeated the white-man’s father “Iron-Man,” documented by Robert Harry Lowie in 1909.