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Archive Issue |
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Tribal Fires Journal |
Ojibwe Art and Cultural Preservation Art is a key element and identifier of the Ojibwe Culture. Native artists are history keepers, educators and healers. Sam Watso, former curator for the Two River’s Gallery stated, “Art is life, life is Art”. His statement referring to art and life in the native culture are one, it is the same, you can not have one without the other. He further cemented his statement with a comparison to European art versus Native art. European art is separated from daily life, it is stored in a museum, or coveted in a wealthy consumer’s home. Native art is used in daily living activities and events, as native artists create items from moccasins, ribbon shirts, birch bark baskets, to beaded salt shakers or pen holders that are functional for daily living tasks. Before the arrival of glass beads, man made technology. Native artist’s used natural material. Artists made beads out of wood. Butch MacDonald, MicMac of Nova Scotia, told of how people gathered small stones on the beach that were pounded smooth and round from the ocean waves. Artists would puncture a hole into the stones and use them as beads. These beads were highly prized as they were limited in quantity. Other material used were hair from animals, most recently, horse hair. Natural dyes were used to color the hair and it was coiled and sewn to buckskin items. Other material were used, such as, deer hooves/toes that were hollowed out by boiling and shaped into a cone. The deer cones were applied to a female dress. This was an earlier style of the jingle dress. The deer cones made a soft sound versus the loud clanging of the metal cones. My grandmother, Jennie Smith, told me that the sound of the deer cone dresses should sound like the leaves of the birch bark in the wind. A women dances gently to achieve this sound. The switch from deer toes to metal cones came from a spiritual dream that was honored by following the instructions given in the dream. The result is the jingle dress, also known as a medicine dress, an example of art used for healing. There are a few women who still dance with deer cones, the former style still remembered. Ojibwe designs are derived from the natural surroundings. Most notable Ojibwe floral designs used on moccasins, gloves, and vests. Ojibwe live in the hardwood forest region where flowers, berries, ferns grow abundantly. Keeping our environment close to us and to remember to care for our habitat is depicted on the our ceremonial clothing and every day jewelry. Design templates were made on birch bark strips and transferred onto their items. Earlier designs were made from biting onto a piece of birch bark folded into quarters. When unfolded the designs were symmetrical blocks stacked side by side. Later, the designs were still placed on long strips of birch bark and cut out became linear with flowing lines and transferred to velvet cloth. Yet changes are seen today, with technology allowing us to remain in our homes, travel in cars and away from nature. As we are altered so the floral designs are altered. Anne Dunn, Ojibwe storyteller, remembers her mother telling her that today some floral patterns were taken off of fabric and she called them fantasy flowers. Walker Art Museums’ Ojibwe floral collection are made up of unidentifiable flowers, fantasy flowers. Yet, they are still an important factor of the Ojibwe culture, as it shows the changes in history. Those works record the beginning of reservation life and being bound to a small region. Other indicators of Ojibwe art recording history and the environment are the use of shells, bones, and baby elk teeth. These items are no longer used in abundance for decoration or to create art pieces. Today, many items that were used in the past are replaced by man made materials such as, cut glass beads replaces stone beads and wooden beads; mirrors were an added addition to create flash and sparkle to draw attention to the dancer at the newly established contest powwow‘s. The dwindling of exquisite art pieces made by natural material is due to the limited number of natural material available; the near extinction of animals and plants caused by the expansion of man and importing exotic species that do not have a predator and choke out the natural species. Art is also spiritual. Many artists will create artwork derived from dreams, storytellers, and life. Will St. Cyr, Ojibwe Artist, creates stone carvings of the water beings told from original stories. His intricate miniature carvings are masterfully detailed as the story unfolds for the viewer. At times, he is an educator as he gently guides the misguided to a better understanding of his work and Ojibwe history. Another example is how, the jingle dress transformed from deer cones to metal cones made out of tobacco lid tops. Native Art is an indicator of how well the cultural is surviving, adapting and evolving. It is seldom we see a drum made out of the hollow truck of a tree, with rawhide stretched across it and decorated with sweet grass, and shells. Nor do we see drum sticks made out of ironwood and leather strips. But, the drum is still there, only it takes the form of a marching band bass drum. The drum sticks are made of fishing rod sticks wrapped and tied with cotton batting. It is a recorder of our history by the changes made to the process of creating, designs reflecting where we are with relation to our environment and our spiritual stability. *** Written by Cherylin Z. Martin-Wade |
The Circle Three old men and a boy sit in a dilapidated shed, on a cold November night. The wind howls outside, and blows snow through cracks in the walls and under the door; but it is warm inside—almost too warm for wool and mackinaws—with the woodstove (its really only a barrel) and its stovepipe red-hot, wood popping, crackling, but the old men and boy barely notice the fire; they’re busy sitting in a circle, on rickety wooden chairs that squeak with every movement, skinning muskrats from the day’s catch. The shed is filled with wood smoke, cigarette smoke, and laughter and stories (no one can tell stories like these old men), and the boy is proud to be part of the circle. What happens when all our stories become fables and ridiculed, in someone else’s world? Do we become someone else in their world, a world without stories? Stories live in the circle, and the circle sustains the old men, and the boy. Jeff Lockwood Subscription rate is $12.00 for one year. Four issues of Tribal Fires Journal. click here for subscription form |
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Tribal Fires Journal is currently open for submission of poetry, essay's and short stories for the coming Fall issue.
Please send copies of writings to:
Tribal Fires Journal | 4807 Onigum Marina Drive NW | Walker, MN 56484
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by CZ Martin Art & Design
Updated: November 22, 2005
