I keep forgetting, I got a beautiful elk hide at wačipi. It’s back to being safely tucked away for when I have time to work on it. Roughly 70something inches x 50something inches. No, I don’t know yet. Well, I know what I’m going to do with part of it, not all, and it’s something for us, so it won’t be for sale.
© C. Ford.
Courtesy Sacred Stone Camp
Police raise weapons and approach unarmed water protectors at a peaceful action on September 28, 2016
A police officer raises his weapon at unarmed water protector. Courtesy Leland Dick.
Women plant willow tree seedlings in the path of Dakota Access construction on September 25. Courtesy Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN).
As I wrote in this post, cops are getting increasingly worrisome here in Ndakota. Sarah Sunshine Manning has a column up at ICTMN, please go read, and more importantly, share! We need help getting the truth out, and countering the increasing amount of lies coming from cops and oil corps.
Last week, water protectors from the camps near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, engaged in peaceful non-violent direct action at three different Dakota Access Construction sites. And despite the peaceful and prayerful atmosphere at all three sites, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department quickly released a statement alleging that the demonstration turned violent, and that one unidentified Dakota Access security worker was assaulted by “protestors” as knives and guns were wielded.
Water protectors on the ground vehemently refute this claim, and they contend that the allegations of the Morton County Sheriff’s Department are completely fabricated.
Still, just days later on September 28, police confronted water protectors with armored police vehicles blocking the road, and with shotguns drawn, as water protectors gathered for another peaceful action.
The unarmed water protectors reported being terrified, and many made frantic and fearful pleas over social media calling for support and help.
“Please share and make everyone aware!” Linda Black Elk posted on Facebook. “COPS WITH GUNS DRAWN APPROACHING UNARMED PEACEFUL PROTECTORS.”
For many water protectors, social media has become a means of documenting actions in order to counter the continued false narratives of the Morton County Sheriff’s Department.
The tactics of the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and Dakota Access continue a tragically predictable pattern of villainizing peaceful protests in order to justify excessive police, security and military presence.
It is critical that the voices of water protectors on the ground be elevated.
Nick Tilsen, an organizer and executive director for Thunder Valley CDC, was among those present at the prayerful action Sunday as well as the action where the alleged violence occurred; the same alleged violence that prompted excessive police force later in the week.
In an interview with Sonali Kolhatkar of the show “Rising Up with Sonali,” Tilsen said of the accusations of violence and the attack on a security worker “is 100-percent wrong. This false accusation is totally made up.”
Tilsen said the allegations were nothing more than propaganda.
“By the time we got to the construction site, all of the workers had packed up and left, because they saw us walking for a quarter of a mile,” Tilsen said. “We actually didn’t have interaction with the security guards or interaction with the workers that day.”
According to water protectors and journalists on the ground, all actions that day were peaceful. Additionally, women, children and elders continue to be among those standing in prayer for water and life.
The first peaceful action on September 25 took place much earlier than the action where the alleged violence took place. This earlier action was at a Dakota Access construction site in South Dakota, where a handful of water protectors gathered before daylight and strung over a thousand small prayer ties across Dakota Access machinery.
The full article, and more images is here. If you are able, please, please share, get this news out, get it everywhere, we need help with this.
The winners of the 16th Annual Native American Music Awards were announced earlier this month at the Seneca Allegany Resort & Casino Event Center in Salamanca, New York. Rapper and Black Eyed Peas member Taboo was inducted into the NAMA Hall of Fame while acclaimed Flutist Joseph FireCrow and Actor/Motivational Speaker/Writer/Artist Saginaw Grant received the Lifetime Achievement award and Living Legend award respectively. Comedy duo Williams and Ree, who were at the inaugural NAMA show in 1998, were voted Entertainers of the Year.
A highlight of the festivities hosted by Comedian/Actor Paul Rodriguez was a two-part tribute honoring John Trudell by two of his musical collaborators. Annie Humphrey performed DNA followed by Thana Redhawk with Ancestors Song featuring Trudell’s vocals.
A special appearance was made by the family of Joseph Flying Bye, who was nominated posthumously for his Putting The Moccasins Back On recording in the Best Historical/Linguistic Recording and Best Traditional Recording categories. His son, Allen and another ten family members drove from Standing Rock, North Dakota to the event. They received an overwhelming response of solidarity from the attendees supporting their opposition of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Seneca President Maurice John recently visited with Standing Rock Tribal Chairman David Archambault II and NAMA nominees contributed their songs to two free Water Is Life CD compilations to support the Standing Rock Sioux Community.
Twelve year-old hand drummer, Nizhoo Sullivan, the youngest NAMA nominee, was one of several Traditional performances that included Theresa Bear Fox and the Akwesasne Women Singers along with Joseph Fire Crow. Artist of the Year Shelley Morningsong sang and played the flute accompanied by her husband and musical partner Fabian Fontenelle resplendent in his regalia. Best Pop Recording winner Spencer Battiest and his brother Doc impressed the attendees with their renditions of a ballad and hip hop song.
Late singer/songwriter, Chairman of The Confederated Tribes of The Colville Reservation, and Native icon Jim Boyd won Record of the Year for his final recording, Bridge Creek Road. Boyd’s widow Shelly accepted the award accompanied by 15 members of his family including their children. The final performance of the night was a tribute performance to Chairman Boyd by Keith Secola with long-time Boyd drummer Alfonso Kolb, Annie Humphrey, and Sage Bond.
There’s much to check out: http://www.nativeamericanmusicawards.com/nama-16 Also, Women of Heart, who won Best Traditional Recording, have made their winning album free to download.
Via ICTMN.
Excerpts only, click links for full articles.
On My Final White House Tribal Nations Conference, by President Barack Obama:This week, I hosted my eighth and final White House Tribal Nations Conference as President, a tradition we started in 2009 to create a platform for people across many tribes to be heard. It was a remarkable testament to how far we’ve come.
It was just eight years ago when I visited the Crow Nation in Montana and made a promise to Indian country to be a partner in a true nation-to-nation relationship, so that we could give all of our children the future they deserve.
Slow, Clean, Good Food, by Winona LaDuke:In an impressive fossil fuels travel day, I left the Standing Rock reservation and flew to Italy for the International Slow Food gathering known as Terra Madre. A world congress of harvesters, farmers, chefs and political leaders, this is basically the World Food Olympics. This is my fifth trip to Italy for Slow Food. I first went with Margaret Smith, when the White Earth Land Recovery Project won the Slow Food Award for Biodiversity in 2003, for our work to protect wild rice from genetic engineering. This year, I went as a part of the Turtle Island Slow Food Association- the first Indigenous Slow Food members in the world, a delegation over 30 representing Indigenous people from North American and the Pacific. We have some remarkable leaders, they are young and committed.
It is a moment in history for food, as we watch the largest corporate merger in history- Bayer Chemical’s purchase of Monsanto for $66 billion; with “crop protection chemicals” that kill weeds, bugs and fungus, seeds, and (likely to be banned in Europe) glyphosate, aka Roundup. Sometimes I just have to ask: ‘Just how big do you all need to be, to be happy?’
Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Donates $250,000 to Standing Rock Legal Fund:The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians is donating $250,000 to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s legal fund, citing the need to keep pushing for proper consultation even after the Dakota Access oil pipeline issue is decided.
“We support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s effort to ensure the United States Army Corps of Engineers, or any other agency or department of the United States, strictly adheres to federal environmental review and tribal consultation requirements prior to authorizing any projects that may damage the environment or any sites that are of historic, religious, and cultural significance to any Indian tribe,” said Agua Caliente Chairman Jeff L. Grubbe in a statement on September 27, calling on President Barack Obama to make sure consultation is thorough.
Natives Speak Out Against the Santa Fe Fiesta – The Bloodless Reconquest:A loud group of about 50 mostly Native protesters disrupted the Entrada kickoff event of the Fiestas de Santa Fe. This is the annual reenactment of Don Diego de Vargas’s “peaceful reconquest” of Santa Fe in 1692 as produced by Caballeros de Vargas, a group which is a member of the Fiesta Council, and several current and past City of Santa Fe Councilors are members of the Fiesta Council or played parts in the Entrada over the years. So these are layers you must wade through when people ask questions and protesters demand changes. And changes or outright abolishment of The Entrada are what the groups “The Red Nation” and “In The Spirit of Popay” are asking for.
Dire Climate Impacts Go Unheeded:The social and economic impacts of climate change have already begun to take their toll—but most people do not yet know this.
Politicians and economists have yet to work out how and when it would be best to adapt to change. And biologists say they cannot even begin to measure climate change’s effect on biodiversity because there is not enough information.
Two studies in Science journal address the future. The first points out that historical temperature increases depress maize crop yields in the U.S. by 48 percent and have already driven up the rates of civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa by 11 percent.
‘Counting the Hours’ By Rick Bartow:Rick Bartow, a member of the Mad River Band of Wiyot, walked on April 2, 2016, and had suffered two strokes before he passed. The IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts reports that those events affected his work, and it can be seen in his collection as “exciting examples of Bartow’s production since his stroke… that evidence a new freedom of scale and expression.”
Born in Oregon in 1946, Bartow was never formally trained in the arts, though his artistic nature was encouraged and he did graduate from Western Oregon University with a degree in secondary arts education in 1969. Right after that he served in Vietnam from 1969-1971, and it was demons from that war that he spent his early years in art exorcising. He says he was “twisted” after Vietnam and his art can be described as disturbing, surreal, intense, and visionary; even transformative.
Celebration of Forgiveness at Black Elk Peak:On a recent Autumn Saturday in the Black Hills, a handful of men and women gathered at around 9 a.m. at the Sylvan Lake trailhead just below Black Elk Peak. By 10 a.m., they numbered close to 80.
“The focal point of our gathering was to have family members of General Harney have an opportunity to apologize to members of the Little Thunder family,” said Basil Brave Heart, Oglala Lakota, an organizer of the event. Brave Heart initiated and led the effort to change the name of this highest peak east of the Rocky Mountains from Harney Peak to Black Elk Peak.
Among those standing in a circle that morning was Paul Stover Soderman, a seventh-generation descendant of General William Harney, known as The Butcher of Ash Hollow, and to the Lakota as the architect of the same conflict, known to them as the Massacre at Blue Water Creek. Soderman had come to apologize to Sicangu descendants of Chief Little Thunder, the Brule leader of those murdered in that conflict, and to seek forgiveness and healing.
All this and much more at ICTMN.
Click for full size.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
Riders in traditional dress perform stunts on horseback at the the second World Nomad Games
© Viktor Drachev/TASS
World Nomad Games are an international sport competition dedicated to ethnic sports practiced in Central Asia. The first two World Nomad Games were held in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan. This years the games are underway from 3 to 8 September. Fifty three countries are participating in the event. Sports include eagle hunting, bone throwing and kok-boru, a Central Asian form of polo in which two teams battle for control of a decapitated goat carcass. The highlights of the unusual competitions on the shores of Lake Issyk Kul – in this gallery by TASS.
Left to right, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II, Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier, Lakota elder Faith Spotted Eagle, Apache Stronghold founder Wendsler Nosie Sr., and youth representative Gracey Claymore speak to Democratic U.S. Representatives at a forum on Thursday September 22. Courtesy House of Representatives via YouTube.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ approval of permits for the Dakota Access oil pipeline did not comply with legal consultation requirements, House Democrats Raúl Grijalva and Raul Ruiz, MD, concluded after a forum late last week.
Even as the sale of Cannonball Ranch to Dakota Access LLC was being finalized by its private owners on September 22, Lakota and Apache leaders were in Washington D.C. to give statements before Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives about not only the current trials of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, but also the bigger picture.
In a two-hour discussion attended by about two dozen lawmakers, a panel consisting of Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II, Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier, Lakota elder Faith Spotted Eagle, Apache Stronghold founder Wendsler Nosie Sr., and youth representative Gracey Claymore spoke and answered questions about the crisis surrounding the Dakota Access oil pipeline’s construction. They also addressed the larger issues surrounding Indigenous Peoples and their relationship with the United States—what consultation really means, what the implications are for industrial projects, and what needs to happen next with Dakota Access.
The discussion ranged from how the permitting process is conducted, to the impact of sacred sites destruction within the context of historical trauma, to the resurgent hope that has indigenous youth standing up for their cultures, and to the very notion of what constitutes archaeology and who gets to define it.
In terms of Congress, what it came down to was a matter of law.
“I just want to remind everybody that the piece of land we’re talking about is on federal land,” noted Ruiz, the ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Indian, Insular, and Alaska Native Affairs, in closing remarks. “So this is land that is under the jurisdiction of the federal government. And that what we’re talking about here is not just a matter of what is right. It’s the law.”
Not only that, he said, but those laws had been violated, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had been warned earlier this year when three federal agencies wrote separate letters urging the Corps to do a more in-depth environmental and cultural study of the areas of the pipeline that would run through federal land.
The Sierra Club has a column up on No DAPL:
…In addition to its potential impacts on land and water, new analysis shows that building the pipeline would also be inconsistent with the United States’ climate goals. According to a new analysis by Oil Change International (OCI), the pipeline would lock in greenhouse gas emissions in an amount equivalent to the emissions of 30 coal plants. By reducing shipping costs for large amounts of dirty oil, particularly with current oil prices so low, building this pipeline would significantly increase the amount of crude oil getting to market. OCI calculated that, at typical utilization rates of 95 percent of capacity, total lifecycle emissions from producing, transporting, processing, and burning the products derived from the oil would amount to 101.4 million metric tons of CO2e per year. Given this estimated impact and the White House’s recent guidance on how federal agencies should assess climate impact, it is only logical that a climate test be applied to this project, but thus far none has been conducted by the Administration.
As the 8th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference (WHTNC) kicked off Monday in Washington DC, the White House released a massive plan of continued action, entitled “An All-of-Government Approach to Serving Indian Country.” Vincent Schilling.
As the 8th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference (WHTNC) kicked off Monday in Washington DC, the White House released a massive plan of continued action, entitled “An All-of-Government Approach to Serving Indian Country.”
The White House Tribal Nations Conference is the result of the promise President Barack Obama made during a visit to the Crow Nation in May 2008 to host an annual summit with tribal leaders to ensure tribal leaders a seat at the proverbial governmental table…
Troy Williams via Flickr.
Fossil Fuels Investment Takes Nosedive:
A revolution is taking place in the global energy sector, with investments in oil and gas declining by 25 percent in 2015 while energy produced from renewables rose by more than 30 percent.
“We have never seen such a decline [in oil and gas investment],” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), at the London launch of its first ever report into world energy investment.
“Our findings carry a very important message for climate change and for the Paris agreement. Anyone who does not understand what is going on—governments, companies, markets—is not in the right place.”…
Trahant Photo.
Make No Mistake: Standing Rock Is On the Ballot:
TRAHANT REPORTS—On social media and in real life we hear this often: “What can I do to help Standing Rock?” Some answer the question by donating money, many send supplies, and hundreds of people jump in their car and travel to the camps near Cannonball, North Dakota. Once there folks pray, some engage in direct action, and all of us learn more about the challenges facing humanity.
There is something else that can be done: Vote.
Chase Iron Eyes, who is running for Congress from North Dakota, made that point on his web page this week. “I don’t believe North Dakota is racist, a certain percentage of the ReTrumplicans are—but we can vote them out—if you would only vote,” he wrote. “The majority of us are evolving in mutual respect. That’s our North Dakota.”
The congressional race is a stark example of these various differences: The incumbent, Rep. Kevin Cramer, wrote a position paper for Donald Trump that says any new climate policy should not “punish coal” or other fossil fuels. The Republican considers himself a climate change skeptic dismissing both international commitments made by the United States and the mountain of scientific evidence. …
‘Short! Winning Side’ What It Will Take to Capture an Election:
TRAHANT REPORTS—It’s time.
It’s time for politicians to treat American Indians and Alaska Natives as an important constituency, not an outside group living in our own homeland.
The words of North Dakota’s representative in Congress, Kevin Cramer, capture the old thinking perfectly. He told Oil and Gas 360 that the Dakota Access Pipeline will be built no matter what. “I think DAPL will be finished due to the investment and amount of construction already completed. Regardless of short-term decisions, I don’t see how you can’t eventually finish the pipeline. In the short-run, the question is whether the three agencies’ review will further delay the project by implementing a full-blown EIS or whether the review will approve of the process and apply any changes prospectively rather than retrospectively. I’m optimistic that [the work] will be up and running in a few weeks.”
And what about his constituents, the people of Standing Rock, who object? “I think the appropriate people at the tribe didn’t pay enough attention to the proceedings, but I don’t have any insight as to why they chose not to meet with the Corps of Engineers. I will say that the government to government expectations of tribal governments can sometimes get in the way of participation in more mundane, routine aspects of the regulatory process, which is unfortunate because they miss the opportunity to have their say in the matter.”
Geesh. No additional comments are needed. Add this quote to the dictionary as an example for “condescending.”
The “72 horas con Rodin” edit-a-thon in Mexico City was the longest ever completed and is recognized by Guinness World Records. There will be one in October focusing on Indigenous Peoples. Courtesy Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Wants Improved Content on Indigenous Peoples, Needs Your Help:
Wikipedia volunteers and the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that oversees the free encyclopedia, recognize and want to close content gaps that exist in race and gender topics on the site. One of those gaps includes coverage of all things having to do with Indigenous Peoples.
The goal, as Kelly Doyle, Wikipedian in Residence for Gender Equity at West Virginia University Libraries, told ICTMN is to make “Wikipedia more accurate, more diverse, and to fully represent the world around us… a lot of the articles about Indigenous Peoples are short and we want those be fleshed out.”
They are looking for anything and everything having to do with Indigenous Peoples, from articles about tribes to movements, and historical figures, or even Native American political figures, past and present.
“Any issue that has to do with Indigenous people, even creating new articles, as long as they are notable enough,” Doyle told ICTMN. “Anything that would be included in a regular encyclopedia.”
The upcoming WikiConference North America 2016 will include an edit-a-thon that will focus on those content gaps. …
A Kermode or Spirit Bear from the Great Bear Rainforest. The Kermode is a rare subspecies of the American black bear that holds a prominent place in oral traditions of many First Nations peoples in the British Columbia area. (Wikipedia)
Inclement Weather Doesn’t Stop William and Kate’s Bella Bella Visit:
Even though the visit didn’t go quite as planned, the coastal community of Bella Bella in the Great Bear Rainforest, welcomed Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge on September 26.
The royal couple took a bumpy flight into Bella Bella, but had to cancel boat-related tours of the Great Bear Rainforest because of heavy rains and gusting winds.
Bella Bella is home to the Heiltsuk Community of about 1,600 people, reports Metro News, and they gave the royal couple quite the welcome. Telegraph Video called the welcome they received “rapturous,” and Global News reported a “rousing cheer” as the couple arrived at Wawiskas Community Hall. …
As President Barack Obama took the stage at the 8th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference (WHTNC) National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby broke the age-old rule from Politico that presidents should never wear a hat. Alex Hamer.
A Cedar Hat for Obama! At His Final Tribal Nations Conference:
As President Barack Obama took the stage at the 8th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference (WHTNC) National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby broke the age-old rule from Politico that presidents should never wear a hat. Moments after the President took the stage, Cladoosby wrapped the President in a traditional blanket, then took off his own traditional cedar hat and placed it on Obama’s head.
With a huge smile, Obama tipped the cedar hat to the crowd while continuing to wear the blanket.
“What an amazing honor, and what a kind gesture for the honor song and the blanket and the hat,” said Obama. “I’m also very glad that you also have a blanket for Michelle so she doesn’t steal mine. She would, too. I’m just saying.”
Obama told the crowd of hundreds of tribal leaders and Native youth he mostly wanted to say thank you. …
Via ICTMN.
Heading back to camp, just for the day, we’re trucking wood in. I wish we could stay again, I know Rick feels the same. Every day, it feels so wrong to be away, and it’s been particularly difficult on Rick, given the sheer amount of bigots he works with, and the constant sussuration of damn Injuns…
I’ll try to come away with more photos, but mostly, I just want to sink back in, even if only for a while. I have things scheduled to post, so do some reading and looking, have fun, and don’t burn the blog down.
whitehouse.gov
James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr., made no public mention of American Indians during his entire first year in office.
The 39th president of the United States, Carter only briefly mentioned Indians in his first State of the Union Address, a 12,000-word speech delivered to Congress in January 1978. Even then, Carter’s remarks were vague.
“The Administration has acted consistently to uphold its trusteeship responsibility to Native Americans,” he told Congress. “In 1978, the Administration will review Federal Native American policy and will step up efforts to help Indian tribes assess and manage their natural resources.”
The reference, likely the work of Carter’s speechwriter, Chris Matthews, set the tone for an administration that—in the beginning—largely ignored Indians. In fact, by the end of 1978, the Carter administration had decided not to announce any formal presidential Indian policy at all, historian George Pierre Castile wrote in his 2006 book Taking Charge: Native American Self-Determination and Federal Indian Policy, 1975-1993.
“Absent a presidential message, the policy of self-determination remained in place by default, but never seems to have gotten a clear endorsement by the Carter domestic policy staff,” Castile wrote. “Indian matters were dealt with piecemeal.”
Carter, who took office in January 1977, followed Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford—two presidents who championed for the end of Indian termination and ushered in an era of self-determination. Yet Carter, who inherited the new approach to Indian Affairs, maintained minimal involvement and thrust primary responsibility for Indians on the Interior Department.
MAD (taken from the Danish word for “food”) is a not-for-profit organization that works to expand knowledge of food to make every meal a better meal; not just at restaurants, but every meal cooked and served. Good cooking and a healthy environment can and should go hand-in-hand, and the quest for a better meal can leave the world a better place than we found it. MAD is committed to producing and sharing this knowledge and to taking promising ideas from theory to practice.
MAD is a great place to lose yourself for ages on end. Food, food, food, but not all the regular ways food is addressed. Here, there is the breathtaking culture of food, from all over the world, the history of food, the art of food, traditions of food, innovations and artistry of food. Any curiosity you may have about food, you can find satisfaction at MAD. I’ve been trying to catch up, reading at the site for the past month or so, and I’ve barely made a dent. Two articles in particular got my attention in recent days: Turning Trash Into Delicious Things: a Brief Guide by Arielle Johnson, and A People’s History of Carolina Rice, by Michael Twitty.
The first article grabbed my attention because it addresses the waste of craft brewers, and that particular waste happens in my household, as Rick is a home brewer:
On an artisanal-industrial scale, spent grains—the malted barley that is steeped in water to make beer—is a major source of waste for craft brewers, with (roughly) 8 kilos of leftover barley for every 50 liters of finished beer. It can be used as animal fodder, but you can go beyond that, since it also presents creative flavor opportunities.
That waste, it turns out, can be used to make koji, which in turn can be used to make a form of miso. Click on over to the article for details, and recipes! The article on Carolina rice was eye-opening, and details the history of this rice from 3500 B.C.E. to 2013. There’s personal history in this overview of one food:
1770s: My great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother is captured in a war in Sierra Leone and brought to Charleston, without a doubt to grow and mill rice on a Lowcountry plantation. She is a member of the Mende people, who would later lead the Amistad slave ship revolt in 1839.
[…]
1835: My great-great-great grandmother, Hettie Esther Haynes, is born and is later sold out of South Carolina, away from her mother Nora, into the cotton country of Alabama during the largest forced migration in American history—the domestic slave trade. Thousands of Gullah-Geechee will know this fate as rice cultivation faces competition from other countries and slaveholders are forced to reduce the number of bondspeople.
Now I’m going to read about The Carbon Footprint of Eating Out, A War Zone Cuisine, and Culture of the Kitchen: Cooks Weigh In.
Have a wondrous wander through the fields of MAD, it’s a journey you won’t regret.
Last year we wrote an article about Oei Katsushika, the daughter of the famed Ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai. What we didn’t know at the time was that a Japanese film on that exact subject was just getting ready to be released. Directed by Keiichi Hara (Colorful) and Production I.G (creators of Ghost in the Shell), “Miss Hokusai” is coming to theaters in the U.S. this fall and the trailer was just released.
As we wrote last year, only about 10 actual works have been attributed to Oei, but considering Katsushika Hokusai created some of his most famous and brilliant works towards the end of his life it seems reasonable to wonder just how much of the work was created by Oei. And the film appears to tree in similar waters:
As all of Edo flocks to see the work of the revered painter Hokusai, his daughter O-Ei toils diligently inside his studio. Her masterful portraits, dragons and erotic sketches – sold under the name of her father – are coveted by upper crust Lords and journeyman print makers alike. Shy and reserved in public, in the studio O-Ei is as brash and uninhibited as her father, smoking a pipe while sketching drawings that would make contemporary Japanese ladies blush. But despite this fiercely independent spirit, O-Ei struggles under the domineering influence of her father and is ridiculed for lacking the life experience that she is attempting to portray in her art. Miss Hokusai‘s bustling Edo (present day Tokyo) is filled with yokai spirits, dragons, and conniving tradesmen, while O-Ei’s relationships with her demanding father and blind younger sister provide a powerful emotional underpinning to this sumptuously-animated coming-of-age tale.
Looking forward to this very much! Via Spoon & Tamago.
Courtesy Lauren A. Badams.
A team of scientists from the U.S., Belgium, Portugal, and the U.K. have pushed back the first use of Indigofera tinctoria as blue fabric dye in the world to South America 6,200 years ago. The previous oldest physical specimen was from Egypt 4,400 years ago, although there were written references to blue dye going back 5,000 years. The blue dyed cotton fabric was discovered in an archaeological site that has been studied for many years, Huaco Prieta, located in the northern coastal region of modern Peru.
Publication of the study by Jeffrey C. Splitstoser and his colleagues in Science Advances this month has set off wisecracks in popular science publications about Andean Indians inventing blue jeans, but it is a much bigger deal than that. Besides, what was new about blue jeans was the rivets, not the color.
[…]
Indigo blue was highly prized long before the Americas were “discovered.” The ancient Greeks understood India to be the source of the dye and indigo—along with spices and silk—made up the trade goods the Europeans were seeking when they got sidetracked by Aztec and Incan gold.
Why is it a big deal that indigo appears in South America long before Asia or Africa? If the dye required nothing but mashing up something blue, then it might be found everywhere the plant grew, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.
Most ancient dyes were fairly simple. Flower petals were boiled to make them yield up their color. Ochre yielded reds and yellows, depending on the exact iron content. A bright white dye can be extracted from milkweed.
The first difference indigo presents is that the dye is not in the flowers. It’s in the leaves. To make the leaves yield the color, they first have to be fermented. The fermented solids are then dried. The fermented and dried indigo is light and easy to ship.
The indigo solids must then be treated with an alkaline substance, commonly urine, to produce a dye that is apparently white. Yarn treated with the reconstituted indigo comes out white but then turns to yellow, to green, and finally to the deep blue that makes the dye so valuable.
In an interview with Live Science, Splitstoser speculated, “This was probably a technology that was invented by women.” He noted that women were typically in charge of weaving and dying in Andean cultures.
The discovery at Huaco Prieta adds another example of cultural knowledge either purposely destroyed or ignored out of arrogance by conquistadors who believed they were doing God’s work in destroying non-Christian cultures. That destruction fed the myth that Europe represented science when the Americas represented superstition.
These people who were burning Mayan writings and destroying works of astronomy and mathematics and chemistry were burning human beings for heresy at the same time. Indians had science and Europeans had superstition. It ought to be possible to compare cultures in a more objective manner than the settlers have chosen when they wrote all the histories.
Full article here.
