Tag: Native Americans

Photographs of the 2010 Hopi Show

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn Hopi Show, Photography, Photos1 Comment

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Photographs by Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

Every year before I attend the annual Hopi Show at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, I intend on taking many photographs of the event. However, once I arrive at the venue, I end up spending most of my time visiting with family, friends and talking to the artists and vendors.

Prior to photographing someone at the Hopi Show, I ask their permission and explain to them how I plan on using their photo. This year I gave people my business card with the BEYOND THE MESAS web address written on the back. I told people that their photo would appear on my blog within the next few weeks.

Many thanks to everyone who agreed to have their picture taken for this post.

Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

A Hopi runner and his marathon trophy

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn Hopi scholarship, Running, Sherman Institute10 Comments

Photograph by Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

Most people who visit the Sherman Indian Museum in Riverside, California, see this first place trophy without knowing who won it. Marathon officials did not engrave the athlete’s name on the trophy, but they did include the date and the event, which was the Vallejo Pre-Olympic National Marathon held in California on December 22, 1929.

At one point in the school’s history, the student’s at Sherman Institute knew who won this award. But as time passed, the trophy, one of the largest in the Museum’s collection, became disassociated from its owner.

The trophy belongs to Hopi runner Harry Chaca from the village of Polacca on First Mesa. He was among the great Hopi runners of the twentieth century. Chaca attended Sherman in the 1920s and early 1930s and he earned several marathon honors while a student at the school.

I wrote about Chaca and his victory of the 1929 Vallejo Pre-Olympic National Marathon in my article “Hopi Footraces and American Marathons, 1912-1930” (American Quarterly, March 2010). I note that prior to this event, Chaca had won other prestigious marathons and his reputation as a great runner spread far beyond the United States.

In Japan, for example, a runner named Yoshikio Sudsuki heard that Chaca was the best runner in America and so he traveled to the U.S. for the sole purpose of competing against the Hopi from Polacca. But at the 1929 Vallejo Pre-Olympic National Marathon, Chaca’s speed and endurance proved too much for the forty-nine year old runner from Tokyo. In my article I write that the

Hopi runner ran at a “killing pace to win” the full marathon in two hours, forty-one minutes, and twenty-five seconds, a “full second better than the performance of Alpien Stenroos” in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. One of the fifty thousand spectators of the marathon recalled that Chaca’s “victory” was “all the more noteworthy for his sensational finish. After trailing for twenty-three miles it was at that mark that he applied a final burst of speed that sent him ahead” of Hopi runner Franklin Suhu. In addition to winning the race, Chaca set a new American marathon record, which immediately confirmed his place as the top long-distance runner in the nation. [p. 91]

Shortly after Chaca’s marathon victory, school officials took his trophy and displayed it in a large cabinet located in Sherman’s administration building (now the Sherman Indian Museum). According to school administrators, all individually won trophies belonged to the school.

At times Hopi students attempted to obtain their trophy cups after their terms at Sherman had expired.  During the 1940s, for example, Hopi runner Philip Zeyouma asked the school’s superintendent if he could reclaim his trophies (pictured on the front cover of American Quarterly), but school officials refused to honor his request.

More than eighty years after Chaca won the Vallejo Pre-Olympic National Marathon, his trophy remains at the Sherman Indian Museum. Although government officials consider the award to be property of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the trophy will always belong to Harry Chaca and his family.

Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

Behind the camera at the Oraivi Footrace

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn Hopi Running, Photography, Photos8 Comments

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Photographs by Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

For the past five years, Juwan Nuvayokva, an accomplished Hopi long distance runner, has organized the Oraivi 8K Footrace and 2 Mile Fun Run and Walk on the Hopi Reservation. Both races begin and end in the village of Oraivi on Third Mesa.

Last summer I received permission from Nuvayokva to take pictures of the Oraivi Footrace, which was held on August 9, 2009. When I arrived at the venue, I was informed that the person scheduled to photograph the race was unable to attend, and so the organizers designated me as the “official photographer” for the event.

Some of my pictures are posted on the Oraivi Footrace website, including other photos by George Silas and Lavanya Polacca. The above slideshow includes 41 of the nearly 1,800 photographs that I took of the race.

This year’s Oraivi 8K Footrace and 2 Mile Fun Run and Walk will take place on Sunday August 8, 2010. All individuals are encouraged to participate. There will also be a new race called the 1/2 Mile Kids Dash. For more information, please visit the Oraivi Footrace website at http://oraivifootrace.com/1.html

If you are pictured in the slideshow, and you would like a high-resolution copy of the photograph, feel free to contact me and I will send you the picture via email:   sakiestewa@gmail.com

Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

Hopis and the Outing System at Sherman Institute

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn Sherman Institute3 Comments

OUTING SYSTEM

As part of the school plan the outing system is practiced each year. Students have no difficulty securing positions, the girls in the best families in Southern California and the boys on ranches or other industrial lines.  The extensive production of oranges, berries, and other fruits, cantaloupes, and grain furnish employment for the boys at all seasons.  The practice of sending out students for experience and to earn a little money during vacation is an advantage to the students, but it is not compulsory.  The wishes of the individual and of parents, if necessary, are always consulted.  – Sherman Institute Booklet (1908), Sherman Indian Museum, Riverside, California

One of the gaps in the historiography of Indian boarding schools is a book length study on the Outing System. Government officials established Outing programs at off-reservation Indian boarding schools to create an Indian working class. At Sherman Institute, the boys labored on farms and ranches, while the girls worked in homes in the greater Riverside community.

Although school officials wanted the girls to be exposed to the  so-called civilizing influences of white Americans, the system ultimately “trained” girls to become domestic servants. The girls often spent their days cleaning, making food, and taking care of children who belonged to white families.

In BEYOND THE MESAS, Eilene Randolph and Leslie Robledo from the village of Bacavi on Third Mesa note that Hopi girls at Sherman did not have trouble securing work in the school’s Outing program.  Hopis had a reputation of being “hard workers,” and the people in the community routinely “hired up” the girls to work in their homes.

Local farmers were also eager to employ Hopi boys to work in their fields and orchards. The boys had come from an agricultural based society and used their knowledge of planting and harvesting in Southern California.

While I have written more about the Outing System in my book Education beyond the Mesas: Hopi Students at Sherman Institute, 1902-1929, and other scholars have examined the topic in their works, a comprehensive study (book) devoted entirely to this important program has yet to be published.

Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

The search for Polingaysi Qoyawayma

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn Don Talayesva, Hopi authors, Hopi history, Polingaysi Qoyawayma, Sherman Bulletin, Sherman Institute2 Comments

When I started researching on the Hopi boarding school experience at Sherman Institute, I thought for sure that I would come across many references of Polingaysi Qoyawayma (Elizabeth Q. White) at the Sherman Indian Museum. She is, after all, one of the school’s most famous alums. I looked in the Sherman Bulletin, the school’s student-written newspaper. I examined various letterpress books and other school records, but I never came across her name.

While conducting research at the National Archives in Laguna Niguel, California, I uncovered a file with a name similar to Polingaysi Qoyawayma written on the tab. I thought I found the documents that I had been searching for. But when I examined the records closely I discovered that the file belonged to someone else.

In an attempt to find clues that would lead me to archival information on Qoyawayma, I reread Don Talayesva’s autobiography Sun Chief. Talayesva and Qoyawayma attended Sherman at the same time. They both came from Orayvi and likely traveled with each other to the school in November 1906. But nowhere in Talayesva’s book does he mention her name.

Fortunately, one does need to depend on Talayesva or an archive to learn about Qoyawayma’s experience at the Indian school in Riverside. Although the archival record may appear to be silent, at least in reference to her time at Sherman, her story remains with her family, others who knew her, and in her book No Turning Back.

The documents that I searched for may never surface. They may not even exist. But Qoyawayma has already shared with us about her school days at Sherman Institute. She has already provided us with the archive, the documents, and the narrative of her life.

Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

Hopi studies at the 2010 NAISA conference

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn Hopi scholarship, Hopis and the academyLeave a comment

There will be several Hopi presentations at this year’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) conference hosted by the University of Arizona in Tucson. This event will take place on May 20-22. I have copied a list of Hopi presenters and Hopi related papers/panels to this post. To learn more about the conference and to access the complete program, please click on the following link: http://naisa.ais.arizona.edu/

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FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2010 10:00-11:45 am

76. Youth & Culture [S29]
Organizer: NAISA Program Committee
Chair: TBA
“The Good Life” and “The Fast Life”: Childhood and Youth among Algonquian Peoples at Mid-Century
Kim Anderson, Centre for Research in Inner City Health/ St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Canada
Unintended Truths: The Paradoxes of Cultural Reconnection for Urban Native Youth
Tracy L. Friedel, University of British Columbia, Canada
Traditional Education Tools in Hopi and Dakota Communities
Sherrie L. Stewart, University of Arizona
Cultural Identity in Education
Roy Weasel Fat, Red Crow Community College
Comment: Audience

79. Attending to “Missing” Youth and Opportunities for Language Activism in Indigenous Language Contexts [P74]
Organizer & Chair: Leisy T. Wyman, University of Arizona
Indigenous Youth – The Missing Link in Language Revitalization Research and Praxis
Teresa L. McCarty, Arizona State University
Articulating a Critical Language Consciousness among New Mexico’s Indigenous Youth
Tiffany S. Lee, University of New Mexico
Hopi Youth “Wanting in Tradition”: Seeking the “Missing Piece” – The Heritage Language
Sheilah E. Nicholas, University of Arizona
Recognizing Youth Migration in Linguistic Ecologies and Educational Efforts: Yu’pik Examples
Leisy T. Wyman, University of Arizona
Comment: Perry Gilmore, University of Arizona

FRIDAY May 21, 2010 12:00-1:45 pm

87. ROUNDTABLE: Collaborating on Native American History: The Hopi History Project [R6]
Organizer: Anton Daughters, University of Arizona
Chair: Thomas E. Sheridan, University of Arizona
Participants: T.J. Ferguson, University of Arizona
Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, Hopi Cultural Preservation Office
Stewart Koyiyumptewa, Hopi Cultural Preservation Office
Lee Wayne Lomayestewa, Hopi Cultural Preservation Office

FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2010 2:00-3:45 pm

93. Displaying Common Unity: New Directions in the Exhibition of “Indigenous” and “Black” Lives in the Americas
[P21]
Organizer & Chair: Robert Keith Collins, San Francisco State University
Toward a Dynamic Ethnography of Common Unity between Africans and Native Americans: Evidence from WPA Slave
Narratives
Robert Keith Collins, San Francisco State University
Mulattos, Mongrels, and Mulgenons: Race, Ideology, and Public Policy in the Construction of American Indian and
African American Identity
Angela A. Gonzales, Cornell University
Our brethren by the ties of consanguinity, of suffering, and of wrongs: Narrating Crispus Attucks and Paul Cuffee
“Home”
Judy Kertész, North Carolina State University

101. Intellectual Property, Cultural Patrimony, and Museum Partnerships [S19]
Organizer: NAISA Program Committee
Chair: Kevin Gover, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution
Perspectives on Working Relationships and Contracts: Indigenous Intellectual Property and Museums
John R. Grimes, Cook Inlet Tribal Council and Merry Glosband, Peabody Essex Museum
Repatriation and Representation in Tribal Museums and Cultural Centers
Sunny K. Lybarger, University of Arizona
Returning Hopi Voices: Redefining Repatriation through Community Partnership
Trevor Reed, Columbia University
Iroquoia Collected: The Alienation of Haudenosaunee Cultural Patrimony
Scott Manning Stevens, Newberry Library McNickle Center
Comment: Audience

SATURDAY, MAY 22, 2010, 8:00-9:45 a.m.

103. Renewal of Indigenous Languages & Cultures: Up and Coming Indigenous Scholars’ Research Findings [P26]
Organizer & Chair: Candace K. Galla, University of Arizona
Reversing Language Shift in the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
Jesse Johnson, University of Arizona
Use of Ancestral Indigenous Languages to Promote Student Development within the Classroom Maxine R. Sam, University of Arizona
“Uma tuuqayi, umu sinmuy amungem lavaywisni” (When you have learned, advocate for your people)
Darold Joseph, University of Arizona
Revitalizing Our Languages: Towards Decolonizing Technologies for Indigenous Communities
Candace K. Galla, University of Arizona
Comment: Audience

SATURDAY, MAY 22, 2010 2:00-3:45 pm

129. New Directions in Hopi Arts: Incorporating the Past, Inventing the Future [P72]
Co-Organizers & Co-Chairs: Jessica Welton, Virginia Commonwealth University and Zena Pearlstone, California
State University, Fullerton
Picturing the Rational Mind: Archaeology Meets Michael Kabotie
Kelley Hayes-Gilpin, Museum of Northern Arizona & Northern Arizona University
Brian Honyouti: Send in the Clowns
Zena Pearlstone, California State University, Fullerton
New Directions and Change: Discomfort and Growth
Mark Tahbo (Hopi), Independent Scholar
New Directions from Ancient Roots: The Art and Philosophy of Michael Kabotie
Jessica Welton, Virginia Commonwealth University
Comment: Audience

A classical guitarist from Kykotsmovi

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn Hopi news of interest, Hopi youth1 Comment

When I was younger I studied classical guitar with Tom Sheeley at Northern Arizona University. I had dreams of becoming a professional Spanish classical guitarist, but that aspiration never came to be. Below is an article about a sixteen year old Hopi guitarist named Malcolm Mowa from Kykotsmovi. One of his compositions titled “Aerial Ice” was recently aired on National Public Radio. I am looking forward to hearing more about this Hopi musician in the future.

The story and photo are courtesy of Stan Bindell and the Navajo-Hopi Observer (NHO). Many thanks to Wells Mahkee Jr., Managing Editor of NHO, for granting me permission to republish this story on my blog. Here is the link to the original source: http://navajohopiobserver.com/main.asp?SectionID=74&subsectionID=111&articleID=12247

Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

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Hopi student’s music hits national airwaves

Stan Bindell, The Observer

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

POLACCA, Ariz. – A Hopi High School music student has hit the national airwaves. Malcolm Mowa had his musical composition, “Aerial Ice,” performed on National Public Radio. He wrote the piece, which was performed by Ethel, a four-string quartet.

Mowa, a 16-year old junior, said Ethel performed great and he was excited about having his piece aired nationally. He initially wrote the piece as part of the Grand Canyon Music Festival when artist in residence Raven Chacone came to Hopi High and taught six students how to compose.

Mowa learned about his piece being aired nationally when it was announced over the school’s intercom. “It motivates me to want to do more with music,” he said.

“I want to go to school for music composition and guitar.” He also wants to learn to play the piano. Mowa said his parents were excited and happy about his composition being aired nationally.

“Everybody wants to hear it, but nobody knows when it was played,” he said. Thomas Irwin, band teacher at Hopi High, was equally ecstatic about Mowa’s piece getting national airtime.

“It was great, cool,” he said. “There are new people at NPR working on programming.”

The new programming allows the top high school students from throughout the nation to have their pieces aired. One of Irwin’s former students at Monument Valley High School received a $10,000 endowment for his work.

Irwin said he hopes Mowa stays serious about his musical work because he can major in guitar or composition, and scholarships are available to him.

“I’m confident he can get scholarships,” Irwin said. “He’s a great example of what can happen when kids apply themselves. Chances are we’ll get more success stories.”

Irwin said Mowa’s fellow students were happy for him, although some teased him about his success.

Mowa said “Aerial Ice” was a happy tune about how he felt at the time. It’s classical music and it’s just instrumental; there are no words. He added that he likes classical music better than hip hop or rap.

“It’s better than a lot of the music that’s out there. It’s mellow, nice – not bad stuff,” he said.

Mowa likes alternative rock, classic rock and pop music.

Mowa is also part of the Hopi High guitar class, which recently performed at the Hopi Cultural Center and other places in the community.

“It was weird because we were playing off to the side while people were eating, but people were happy we were playing. They would put down their food and listen,” he said. Mowa, who also plays baseball, maintains a B average and hopes to get a music scholarship to college. He is the son of Uberta and Clifton Mowa from Kykotsmovi.

Navajo-Hopi Observer

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Hopi runners in the audience

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn American Indian Studies, Hopi scholarship, Running11 Comments

I recently returned from attending the American Indian Studies Association (AISA) Conference in Tempe, Arizona. I delivered a paper titled “Hopi Footraces and American Marathons, 1912-1930.” This paper, in its article form, will appear next month in American Quarterly. I was happy to see that some Hopis came to my talk, including two students from ASU. Since I first presented on this topic, I cannot recall the last time I had Hopi long distance runners in the audience. Both of these students were runners.

After the session I talked at length with the students about how the world focuses so much attention on Louis Tewanima, but back home our people realize that while Tewanima was good, other Hopi runners were just as good or better than the famous Olympian from Shungopavi. Although these students already knew about Tewanima, they had not heard of the other runners that I mentioned in my paper. I also did not know about these runners before I started this project.

One of the most rewarding aspects of being a faculty at the University of Illinois is the opportunity I have to make my research available and meaningful to the Hopi community. This has always been the driving force behind my work.

Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

Misrepresenting the Hopi with photos

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn Photos, Protocols3 Comments

Earlier this week I blogged about a tourist who took a photograph of a home at Orayvi and posted it to his blog. The tourist admitted that there were signs up that forbid people from taking photos, but he took one anyway. It appears from his post that the reason he published the photo was to show his readers how poor he perceived the Hopi to be.

In my earlier post I mentioned that some Hopis do not want tourists to take photos of their villages because they desire to protect their privacy. Still others post these signs at the entrance of the village so that tourists will not misrepresent them. The sandstone homes and the condition of the village may cause outsiders to conclude that the Hopi people are poor and in desperate need of help. But is this the message that the people of Orayvi want the world to believe or hear?

I wonder if the author of Boquete Panama Guide has ever been inside an Orayvi home? During his recent visit to the reservation, did he speak to the owner of this or other Hopi homes? Did he hear their stories about how members of their families/clans built these homes in the early 1900s or earlier? Did they tell him that people from the village once traveled by foot to Nuvadakovi (San Francisco Peaks) to cut down wood beams to use for their ceilings, and carried them back to the village? If so, did he see the pride in their faces when they told him that their families have lived in these homes for more than a hundred years? Did they explain to him that many years ago the people of the village decided to live without modern conveniences such as electricity and running water? Did he care enough to ask? Did he care enough to ask why?

Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

Hopi professor earns tenure and promotion

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn Hopi education, Hopi news of interest, Hopi scholarship, Hopis and the academy, HTGSP1 Comment

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Hopi professor Angela A. Gonzales from Shungopavi on Second Mesa has received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor at Cornell University. This truly is an incredible accomplishment. Gonzales received her undergraduate degree from UC Riverside and her MA, EdM, and PhD in Sociology form Harvard University. Her first academic post was at San Francisco State University where she served as an assistant professor and acting chair of American Indian Studies from 1997 to 2000. In 2002 she joined the faculty in the Department of Development Sociology at Cornell where she also teaches in the American Indian Program. As an assistant professor Gonzales has had a prolific and remarkable career.

In addition to publishing chapters in many books, her articles have appeared in the Social Sciences Journal, the Public Historian, the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, and the International Social Sciences Journal. Alongside her faculty appointments, she was the director of the Hopi Tribe Grants and Scholarship Program on the Hopi Reservation from 1994 to 1995, and from 2005 to 2007 she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado at Denver Health Sciences Center, Native Elder Research Center, and the American Indian and Alaska Native Program.

In 2009 she was awarded the Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship for her project titled “Racializing American Indians: The Politics of Identity, Displacement, and Dispossession.” Gonzales’ tenure and promotion is a proud moment for Hopi people. She is only one of a few Hopi professors in the academy with indefinite tenure.

Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign