First-of-its-kind Exhibit Honors Indian Communities

Paths of Life

Text by Tom Dollar

Photographs by Peter Noebels

The Modern Navajo Home display at the Arizona State Museum “Paths of Life” exhibit commingles such ancient traditions as weaving with contemporary interests, like the Phoenix Suns basketball team. The exhibit’s logo, above right, features 10 human figures representing the 10 cultural groups included. The footprints symbolize the migrations of the Hopi clans.

The naked brown torsos of the White Mountain Apache Spirit Dancers glistened with sweat under the midday sun. Masked and wearing skirts, moccasins, and ceremonial headdresses - sometimes called crowns the dancers whirled inside a small roped-off arena on a grassy berm outside the Arizona State Museum. To one side, a singer, accompanying himself on a small handheld drum, chanted into a microphone.

The story of the Gaan, the mountain spirits, who came down from sacred caves high in the mountains to instruct the people how to live right, is at the heart and soul of what it means to be Apache, Perry said. But not so long ago, photographs in popular magazines of Apache Mountain Spirit Dancers were sometimes captioned "Apache Devil Dancers." The "Paths of Life" exhibit took almost 10 years to plan and build, mostly because money for construction, $1.7 million in all, had to be solicited from donors, a task that fell to curator Hilpert, whose prior experience in fund-raising was nil. But the money was raised, and, with the help of tribal consultants, the first half of the exhibit was ready for public viewing in November, 1993. Early in 1995, the full exhibit, filling more than 10,000 square feet of gallery space, opened. Take it a little bit at a time, that's my advice. On three occasions over a year, I toured the first half of the exhibit, twice with an out-of-town visitor in tow. Each time my curiosity was aroused by sounds coming from behind the paper covered plate glass in what were to become the Apache, Navajo, and Hopi sections. I even tried to get a sneak preview by peeking through cracks where the paper hung loosely taped. Each of 23 Indian communities all from Arizona save two from northern Mexico: Seri and Tarahumara are presented in three phases: origin stories, history, and contemporary life. The major Arizona groups represented, including subdivisions, are Yaqui, O'odham, Colorado River Yuman, Southern Paiute, Pai, Western Apache, Navajo, and Hopi. For the most part, the displays are in traditional formats: photographs, old and new; artifacts, including weapons, tools, baskets, pots, ceremonial dress, shelter, food, and clothing; and text, both narrative and expository. In a small entryway theater, a 15-minute video provides an overview of the Indian cultures that constitute "Paths of Life." And video presentations also serve to enhance the more static offerings in some displays. In the completed Hopi section, for example, footage shows artist Clark Tenakhongva and UofA research anthropologist Emory Sekaquaptewa talking about Hopi culture while Tenakhongva carves a kachina doll. As they talk, video scenes highlight various features of life on the Hopi mesas in northern Arizona.

Nicole Horseherder, Felipe Molina, Dr. Jennie Joe, Enrique Salmon, Joe Hoffman, Glafiro Peres, Ofelia Zepeda, Clarenda Begay, Steve Armadillo, Al Blackhorse, Daniel Leon, Amelia Flores, Blythe Suetopka. Without contributions and advice from these and other Native Americans, "Paths of Life" would be less dynamic, less true, and, as a result, far less interesting. During the planning stages of the Yaqui diorama, for example, Felipe Molina, a Yaqui, suggested a realistic depiction of the Hiak Pahko, or "Deer Dance Ceremony."

"We would never have considered doing a religious ceremony," says the museum's Hilpert, knowing that for some Indian groups even permitting outsiders to attend a religious ritual is a desecration, and cameras or recording devices are almost always forbidden.

Paths of Life

Hilpert recalls Molina's advice: "Felipe said, 'If you want to talk about what's important to the Yaqui people, you have to talk about their spiritual life. The Deer Dance is the focus of our community, of our spiritual views and traditions. You can't talk about being Yaqui without showing it.'" I remember my first visit to "Paths of Life." Rounding a corner into the Yaqui section, I came face to face with the diorama of the Deer Dance Ceremony. "I know these people," I thought. I didn't mean by name, but having seen the Deer Dance a number of times, I had become familiar with its principals, tribal elders, and younger men alike, all keepers of the flame. Later I learned that the figures in the diorama were indeed lifecast from 10 Yaqui men who actually perform the ceremony. Each brought an instrument played during the Deer Dance harp, violin, flute, rattle, drum and donned the clothing worn during the ceremony. As I stood before the diorama that first time, I listened to a video narration about how traditions of the Deer Dance are passed from elder to younger. In Yaqui cosmology, Little Brother Deer comes from the world beneath the dawn, the Flower World, the origin of all that is good in life.

Museum exhibits depicting living cultures are often dated, misrepresenting the contemporary lives of the people they document. "Paths of Life" helps correct some worn-out impressions of Arizona's Indians. The hogan diorama in the Navajo section shows us that in many ways the lives of Navajo people, isolated though they may be on their vast reservation, are similar to the lives of other Americans. Navajo families watch TV sitcoms and Phoenix Suns basketball games, for example, and the kids read comic books and ride skateboards. On the other hand, because older ways are cherished and preserved, life in a hogan also is different. Navajo respect for the art of weaving illustrates this. Learned by the Navajo people from Changing Woman, who was herself taught by Spider Woman important figures in Navajo origin stories weaving is still an integral part of Navajo life. Thus, a loom with a young woman and her grandmother working on opposite sides is central to the hogan diorama.

One afternoon, at the Western Apache diorama where the Mountain Spirit Dancers emerge from a darkened cave, I meet Katherine Key, a White Mountain Apache and UofA student majoring in speech pathology. "I'll be the only speech therapist on the reservation who knows both English and Apache," she says, grin-ning. "Everyone will want me." We stand side by side listening to Edgar Perry's recorded voice narrating the story of the mountain spirits. Long ago, he says, the Apache people had lost touch with the land. One day a boy went out hunting with his spotted dog. Drawn along by sounds of dancing, they stumbled into a remote mountain cave. The little dog, crying, returned to the village alone. Led to the cave by the dog, the boy's grandmother heard the sounds of the Gaan within. Instructed to do so by Medicine Man, Grandmother waited outside the cave, but after three nights she got scared and ran away. Then Medicine Man told the Apache people to put on their ceremonial dress and dance for 12 nights to see if the boy would come back. After a while, the mountain spirits came out of the cave wearing black, blue, yellow, and white the colors of the four cardinal directions and joined the dance to show the people how to do it correctly. The little spotted dog began to whimper and jump up on one of the Gaan. When the dancer reached down to pet the dog, the people knew it was the missing boy. He had joined the mountain spirits. He is still with them today. I look over at Katherine Key. She smiles. "I get a lump in my throat every time I hear that story," she says.

WHEN YOU GO

The Arizona State Museum is at the University of Arizona, Tucson, just inside the main gate at Park Avenue and University Boulevard; (520) 621-6302. Hours for the "Paths of Life" exhibit are 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Monday through Saturday; noon to 5 P.M. Sunday. Admission is free. Parking is available in nearby pay lots or at metered spaces on the street.