“Since the drum is often the only instrument used in our sacred rites. I should perhaps tell you here why it is especially sacred and important to us. It is because the round form of the drum represents the whole universe, and its steady strong bet is the pulse, the heart, throbbing at the center of the universe. It is as the voice of Wakan Tanka, and this sound stirs us and helps us to understand the mystery and power of all things”
Michael Oren Fitzgerald, Indian Spirit (Bloomington, IA: World Wisdom, 1949), 69.
“All of our essays and artwork found here contribute to a large and ever-expanding circle that we call the Native Universe. Yet, numerous circles exist within the overarching circle: cultures, tribes, clans, families, and individuals. Our circles today are based on ancient teachings, values, and beliefs handed down through the oral tradition. Stories, songs, languages, medicines, music, paintings, pottery, basketry, beadwork, clothing, and a host of other arts and teachings convey these circles. Some have changed dramatically over time, but others have remained the same for centuries. Each is part of living Native cultures that continue to pass on their knowledge, beliefs, and feelings to subsequent generation.
N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), 88.
“We sing our songs, perform our dances, and pray. In many ways, we remember the old traditions, and by telling our stories of being, we reenter and renew our sacred circles. With each song, story or ceremony, the Native world is re-created, linking the present with the past. In so doing, we bring ourselves into the larger circle of Indian people, nurtured by sweet medicine that lives today. Native Americans stand in the center of a sacred circle, in the middle of four directions. At this time and for all time, American Indians are in the presence of, and part of, many vast, living, and diverse Native universes.
From Our Universes. An exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the
American Indian, Washington, D.C., opened on September 21, 2004.
“New circles are bringing American Indians together in ways unforeseen by our ancestors. Satellites are orbiting Earth beaming information from one end of Turtle Island (The United States) to the next; telephone lines and fiber optics connect Indian people from the most distant regions of the Arctic, Amazon, Pampas, Caribbean, and Great Plains; and modern transportation systems allow us to gather together and celebrate more often and in greater numbers. Through books, magazines, newspapers, and the Internet, we are getting our messages across about our diverse worlds. Radio and television networks now offer programs that bring American Indian history and cultures into the homes of millions of non-Indian people. And in Canada, the new Native-run Aboriginal Peoples Television Network broadcasts throughout the country twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with the catchphrase, “Sharing our stories with all Canadians.” Like a great swirling hurricane, the circle of Native America has been enlarged and broadened – in many ways enriching us to see and speak with newfound authority.”
Gerald McMaster & Clifford E. Trafzer, Native Universe: Voices of Indian America
(Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2003).
“Powwow,” as described by George P. Horse Capture: “Led by two veterans, one carrying the Stars and Stripes and the other holding the Indian flag – a buffalo fur-wrapped curved staff, decorated with feathers from the golden eagle – we form a large circle in the entry procession. Like tipis, drums, Sun Dance lodges, and the Earth itself, the dance arena shares in the ancient and sacred Native symbolism of the circle.”
Tom Dunkel, “Powwow on the Potomac,” (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, November
2002), 44.
In Native North American philosophy, the roundness of a drum symbolizes the inseparable unity of the past, present and future. This unit is a circle that binds all people. The beating of the drum represents the eternal rhythms of nature. For Native North Americans, these rhythms are echoed in the speech of the traditional storyteller and the stories of the modern Indian writer . . . According to many Native North Americans, the rhythms of the universe are like those of a steady drumbeat, renewed and repeated only for as long as the drummer performs. In order to be renewed, the rhythms and cycles of nature also require human participation, in the form of rituals that mark important points in the cosmic circle.
Most Native peoples respect the earth as the source of an endless cycle of generation, destruction and regeneration, through which all things are believed to pass.
Scattered across the plains and prairies of North America are large stone circles known as “medicine wheels.” They were built out of the small boulders left on the surface of the earth by retreating glaciers. The “hub” of each medicine wheel is a pile of stones, or cairns; other cairns may be positioned around the circumference. Lines of stones sometimes radiate like spokes from the central cairn to the outer ring.
The best-known of these structures is the Big Horn medicine wheel in Wyoming, which is nearly all feet (30 km) in diameter with 28 spokes and six small cairns around the rim. The identity of its builders, and when and why it was made, are unknown. A widely-held theory is that the “spokes” of a medicine wheel are (or were originally) aligned with astronomical events, such as the position of the sun at dawn on Midsummer’s Day.
Another theory is that medicine wheels are more purely symbolic, perhaps intended as visual representations of sacred cyclical principles that bind the universe. They resemble forms found in Native dance and the shape of some lodges. Many are on high ground, so their form may symbolize the dome of the heavens.
Larry J. Zimmerman & Brian Leigh Molyneaux, Native North America (Norman, OK:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1996.
Michael Oren Fitzgerald, Indian Spirit (Bloomington, IA: World Wisdom, 1949), 69.
“All of our essays and artwork found here contribute to a large and ever-expanding circle that we call the Native Universe. Yet, numerous circles exist within the overarching circle: cultures, tribes, clans, families, and individuals. Our circles today are based on ancient teachings, values, and beliefs handed down through the oral tradition. Stories, songs, languages, medicines, music, paintings, pottery, basketry, beadwork, clothing, and a host of other arts and teachings convey these circles. Some have changed dramatically over time, but others have remained the same for centuries. Each is part of living Native cultures that continue to pass on their knowledge, beliefs, and feelings to subsequent generation.
N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), 88.
“We sing our songs, perform our dances, and pray. In many ways, we remember the old traditions, and by telling our stories of being, we reenter and renew our sacred circles. With each song, story or ceremony, the Native world is re-created, linking the present with the past. In so doing, we bring ourselves into the larger circle of Indian people, nurtured by sweet medicine that lives today. Native Americans stand in the center of a sacred circle, in the middle of four directions. At this time and for all time, American Indians are in the presence of, and part of, many vast, living, and diverse Native universes.
From Our Universes. An exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the
American Indian, Washington, D.C., opened on September 21, 2004.
“New circles are bringing American Indians together in ways unforeseen by our ancestors. Satellites are orbiting Earth beaming information from one end of Turtle Island (The United States) to the next; telephone lines and fiber optics connect Indian people from the most distant regions of the Arctic, Amazon, Pampas, Caribbean, and Great Plains; and modern transportation systems allow us to gather together and celebrate more often and in greater numbers. Through books, magazines, newspapers, and the Internet, we are getting our messages across about our diverse worlds. Radio and television networks now offer programs that bring American Indian history and cultures into the homes of millions of non-Indian people. And in Canada, the new Native-run Aboriginal Peoples Television Network broadcasts throughout the country twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with the catchphrase, “Sharing our stories with all Canadians.” Like a great swirling hurricane, the circle of Native America has been enlarged and broadened – in many ways enriching us to see and speak with newfound authority.”
Gerald McMaster & Clifford E. Trafzer, Native Universe: Voices of Indian America
(Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2003).
“Powwow,” as described by George P. Horse Capture: “Led by two veterans, one carrying the Stars and Stripes and the other holding the Indian flag – a buffalo fur-wrapped curved staff, decorated with feathers from the golden eagle – we form a large circle in the entry procession. Like tipis, drums, Sun Dance lodges, and the Earth itself, the dance arena shares in the ancient and sacred Native symbolism of the circle.”
Tom Dunkel, “Powwow on the Potomac,” (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, November
2002), 44.
In Native North American philosophy, the roundness of a drum symbolizes the inseparable unity of the past, present and future. This unit is a circle that binds all people. The beating of the drum represents the eternal rhythms of nature. For Native North Americans, these rhythms are echoed in the speech of the traditional storyteller and the stories of the modern Indian writer . . . According to many Native North Americans, the rhythms of the universe are like those of a steady drumbeat, renewed and repeated only for as long as the drummer performs. In order to be renewed, the rhythms and cycles of nature also require human participation, in the form of rituals that mark important points in the cosmic circle.
Most Native peoples respect the earth as the source of an endless cycle of generation, destruction and regeneration, through which all things are believed to pass.
Scattered across the plains and prairies of North America are large stone circles known as “medicine wheels.” They were built out of the small boulders left on the surface of the earth by retreating glaciers. The “hub” of each medicine wheel is a pile of stones, or cairns; other cairns may be positioned around the circumference. Lines of stones sometimes radiate like spokes from the central cairn to the outer ring.
The best-known of these structures is the Big Horn medicine wheel in Wyoming, which is nearly all feet (30 km) in diameter with 28 spokes and six small cairns around the rim. The identity of its builders, and when and why it was made, are unknown. A widely-held theory is that the “spokes” of a medicine wheel are (or were originally) aligned with astronomical events, such as the position of the sun at dawn on Midsummer’s Day.
Another theory is that medicine wheels are more purely symbolic, perhaps intended as visual representations of sacred cyclical principles that bind the universe. They resemble forms found in Native dance and the shape of some lodges. Many are on high ground, so their form may symbolize the dome of the heavens.
Larry J. Zimmerman & Brian Leigh Molyneaux, Native North America (Norman, OK:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1996.
No comments:
Post a Comment