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Canku Ota

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(Many Paths)

An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America

 

November 29, 2003 - Issue 101

 
 

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Carving a place for tradition

 
   
 
credits: Galen Schwartzberg, center, watches intently as Alex McCarty works a piece of old-growth cedar into a totem. A Makah teacher and carver, McCarty works to preserve cultural traditions from his heritage. Conor Haggerty / The Daily
 

Galen Schwartzberg, center, watches intently as Alex McCarty works a piece of old-growth cedar into a totem. A Makah teacher and carver, McCarty works to preserve cultural traditions from his heritage. Conor Haggerty / The DailyThe Burke Museum was alive with the sights and sounds of American heritage over the weekend as the museum hosted the Native American Arts Celebration. The event featured the traditions of tribes from the Puget Sound region as well as Ecuador.

Usually this annual event is built exclusively around the cultures of Northwest American Indians, but in accordance with the museum's new exhibit, Reverent Remembrance, directors decided to also host the Ecuadorian culture this year, since the exhibit focuses on the ways that tribes of both North and South America honor the dead.

"We wanted to include the cultures that we included in our new exhibit," said Martha Adler, public services supervisor for the museum.

The musical group of Luis Gramal and his family played songs from the Andean Day of the Dead celebration during which the Quichua tribe of Ecuador would bid farewell to those who had passed on. The Gramal family performed near its traditional altar.

The cultures of the Puget Sound tribes were represented over the weekend as well. Tsimshian singers and dancers Mique'l Askren and Michael Dangeli incorporated traditional instruments and costumes in their performances of songs that had been in Dangeli's family for as long as six generations.

"We ask what we are going to do now that we have lost ourselves as a people," said Dangeli of one of the songs.

Demonstrations were set up throughout the museum to showcase the work of several artists. The event emphasized weaving, so the basement gallery of the Burke featured several weavers working at their looms, available for answering museum patrons' questions about the art.

Among the exhibitioners were Coast Salish weaver Susan Pavel, who gave a lecture on the art of weaving Sunday, and Carlos Teran, who demonstrated Ecuadorian weaving on a large, free-standing, wooden loom.

"I have been weaving my whole life," said Teran.

The work of Makah carver Alex McCarty was also displayed in the lobby of the museum. McCarty, like many other artists at the celebration, said that cultural traditions must be preserved and nurtured, that understanding is a vital part of this preservation.

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  Canku Ota is a free Newsletter celebrating Native America, its traditions and accomplishments . We do not provide subscriber or visitor names to anyone. Some articles presented in Canku Ota may contain copyright material. We have received appropriate permissions for republishing any articles. Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monetary gain to those who have expressed an interest. This is in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.  
 

Canku Ota is a copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 of Vicki Lockard and Paul Barry.

 
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