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Guatemala indians

Highland Maya of Guatemala have one of the most colorfully dresses in the Americas. While traditional native dress has disappeared in many parts of the world, Guatemala remains a place where a high percentage of the indigenous people still proudly wear their traditional dress.

Moreover, in Guatemala, Maya dresses is village-specific or language-group related. Thus, with dozens of Indian towns and villages, and 21 different Mayan ethnolinguistic groups represented, the variety of indigenous costume is truly dazzling.

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People ask us ‘When did the Indians all die?’ They don’t realize they’re still around. The importance of Keeping the Tradition is that it lets people know Native Americans are still here, that they have a lively culture and that they have many traditions still going strong.

Andy Sawyer, site manager of the Sun Watch Indian Village in Dayton Ohio, explaining why they have a yearly powwow at the archeological park.

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Annie Pootoogook’s Drawings of contemporary Inuit life - Boing Boing

Boing Boing:

The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is exhibiting 39 drawings “that chronicle the realities of contemporary Inuit life by renowned artist Annie Pootoogook.” It open on June 13.

Pootoogook’s detailed work describes everyday life in her home community of Cape Dorset, Nunavut. Her scenes of Inuit traditions include the less romantic but real integration of modern technologies such as video games and televisions as well as domestic abuse and tragedy. Her method, carefully outlined shapes in black filled with blocks of solid color, recalls traditional Inuit drawing while the subject matter reflects the unvarnished viewpoint of her generation. Other drawings are more personal and abstract, illustrating an emotional landscape of mental anguish, such as “Sadness and Relief for My Brother,” and the austere but compelling, still life of the artist’s prescription- medicine bottle, cup and a single dangling key in “Composition (Annie’s Tylenol).” Cheerful domestic scenes such as a family opening Christmas presents (“Christmas”) are depicted with the same precision and calm attention to detail as the emotion-laden composition “Memory of My Life: Breaking Bottles.”

Annie Pootoogook’s Drawings of contemporary Inuit life

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http://intercontinentalcry.org/indigenous-leaders-issue-ultimatum-to-farc/

Indigenous authorities in Colombia and Ecuador have issued an “ultimatum” to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), demanding they return the bodies of the indigenous Awa who were brutally massacred this month, so they can be buried according to Awa tradition.

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http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/yourict/39787982.html#ynext

deltafoxtrot:

By Kerry Davis

The sound of mosquitoes filled the air in Indianapolis recently when Charlotte Qamaniq and Kendra Tagoona (Inuit) visited the Eiteljorg Museum and demonstrated the traditional art of throat singing.

Also known as katajjaq, throat singing is a musical performance found only among the Inuit (though similar overtone singing can be found in Tibet, Mongolia and other places). Performers are generally women who sing duets as they stand facing each other. One singer develops a short rhythmic pattern with brief intervals and the other fills the silence with another rhythmic pattern. The sounds produced by singers can be actual words or merely syllables created during exhalation. When done years ago, the lips of the two singers almost touched, allowing once singer to use the other’s mouth cavity as a sound resonator. Inuit throat singing is sometimes accompanied by a rhythmic shuffling of feet. Historically, throat singing was done by women while the men were gone hunting for periods of time. Each song has a story behind it and many include sounds that imitate wildlife or other aspects of nature such as the wind.

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deltafoxtrot:

Inuit Throat Singing: Kathy Keknek and Janet Aglukkaq (long) (via FrancesWindward)

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A group of North American tribal grandmothers failed in their quest to get Pope Benedict XVI to rescind three Christian doctrines of “discovery” and “conquest” that gave sanction to colonizing and destroying indigenous peoples and their cultures. One bull issued in 1455 authorized Portugal “to invade,
search out, capture, vanquish and subdue all Saracens and pagans” in North America. Even though they had a permit, the 13 grandmothers were nearly expelled from the Vatican as they prayed, sang and burned incense. The Vatican police called the actions “idolatrous”, but on appeal, a Vatican law official heard the songs and gave his stamp of approval. The Pope left for his summer home before the grandmothers could obtain an audience to ask him to rescind the doctrines.

Indigenous Grandmas Nearly Kicked out of Vatican - NAM (via curate)

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The oral tradition gave me the rhythm, the repetition and even the music that shaped my writing

N. Scott Momaday

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