ANNA MAE AQUASH 18/THE CONROYS/THE NATIVE AMERICAN EMBASSY
Monica
All excerpts are in italics and are from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve
Hendricks.
I just got off the phone with a friend of mine and I really do need to
put up that page about Indians and racism. I keep rewriting it. I have
a lot to say as I travel a lot and meet people from from all
socioeconomic backgrounds. I don’t stay in my circle of five friends
that all think the way I do!
On another note I put up this funny thing about the Hopi word
Koyaanisqatsi on my Anna Mae 17 post and one of my friends sent me an
e-mail that there is a movie by the same name. She says she watches it
occasionally to remind herself what we can so easily become. My
friends are afraid to post on the blog so they either call me up or e-
mail me with comments.
Here is the movie I have not watched it yet but will when I am done
with this post!
Tom Conroy was a BIA realty officer on Pine Ridge who was underpaying
for land that he purchased in one instance there was a discrepancy of
almost 26,000 dollars (170,000 today!) The GAO investigated him but of
course he got away it. Here is the GAO report. Why bother spending the
tax payers money for these investigations if they are going to ignore
the wrong doing?
I wish Monica Charles had written something about what it was like
being on the Trail of Broken Treaties….instead I will do a brief
summary.
They expected their influence would be greatest on the eve of the
election, but in fact the nation’s reporters and politicians were
strewn about the country on campaigns and the Trailers only guaranteed
themselves obscurity.
When Indian delegations came to Washington, the BIA exted them small
courtesies, like helping find lodging and schedule meetings.
…Harrison Loesch forbade the BIA from helping them.
…just before their arrival the…National Park Service denied the
Trailers a permit to hold religious services at the Iwo Jima memorial
in Arlington National Cemetery. One of the flag bearers depicted in
the iconic memorial was a Pima Indian named Ira Hayes.
The mood worsened when the first of the trailers arrived in Washington
on November 1 and found they were to lodge in the cold basement of a
ghetto church occupied by rats….After a miserable night, Trailers by
the hundred decamped form the church to the BIA headquarters in Foggy
Bottom and squatted there in the understandable theory that the
building belonged to them.
Indians continued to arrive from around the country, and by day’s end,
with the crowd in the BIA’s auditorium numbering a thousand, Loesch
arranged for them to move temporarily to a roomier hall in the nearby
Department of Labor. But the Trail’s leaders sensed that they had the
BIA in a bind and agreed to go only if Loesch set up a meeting for
them with the White House, which till then had snubbed the Trail.
The government would later say the Indians started the riot, which is
how the story played in the news media, but the claim was not true.
Earlier in the day the Depart of the Interior had asked the D.C.
police to clear the building at five o’clock. when the de’tente was
reached, nobody thought to tell the police that the eviction was
off…..
the would-be evictors were evicted in a few minutes. Several
combatants on both sides were bloodied.
The Trailers, unjustly attacked and afraid of a second charge, heaped
office furniture in front of every exit and fashioned weapons from
broken-off table legs and envelope openers…
A deal was struck….and next morning would move to the Labor
auditorium, where food and cots would await them.
…the door at Labor had been locked. The Indians feared a setup-maybe
the labor auditorium was a decoy just to get them out of the BIA. They
quickly reoccupied their bastion and strunga banner across the front
that read NATIVE AMERICAN EMBASSY.
They were there to stay.
…”Perhaps only the BIA could have managed successive failures of this
magnitude, ” historians Paul Smith and Robert Warrior wrote. ” The
locked door was the result of a decision by a minor functionary who
believed that only after everyone had left the BIA building could
anyone enter the Labor Department.”
So there were negotations….didn’t work. the government cut the phone
lines…ultimatums were issued…the Indians vandalized the
building….pissed off the white folks…Finally…
…the White House promised to make a formal relpy to the Twenty Points
and paid for the Trailers’ trip home, they would go. Nixons aides
agreed and handed over $66,500 in small bills.
With the Indians out of the Native American Embassy, the reelected
Nixonians gave the Twenty Points due consideration, duly declared them
fanciful…..
Damn good thing whites are’nt racist…..something like this just might
raise ones suspicions! Or apparently not.
Before vacating the BIA, the natives had backed a U-Haul to the
building’s loading dock and packed it with ten tons of documents.
( Way to go!)
The stolen papers showed how the BIA was bamboozling Indians of their
land and of royalties from land leases.
How shocking!
It turns out that the FBI had a mexican disguised as a Pueblo Indian
spying on the Trailers.
…on Columbus Day, and anniversary Indians have long associated with
infiltrationof their ranks, the D.C. police gave Arellano a medal for
his outstanding covert work.
Dave
> ANNA MAE AQUASH 18/THE CONROYS/THE NATIVE AMERICAN EMBASSY
> All excerpts are in italics and are from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve
> Hendricks.
>
> I just got off the phone with a friend of mine and I really do need to
> put up that page about Indians and racism. I keep rewriting it. I have
> a lot to say as I travel a lot and meet people from from all
> socioeconomic backgrounds. I don’t stay in my circle of five friends
> that all think the way I do!
>
> On another note I put up this funny thing about the Hopi word
> Koyaanisqatsi on my Anna Mae 17 post and one of my friends sent me an
> e-mail that there is a movie by the same name. She says she watches it
> occasionally to remind herself what we can so easily become. My
> friends are afraid to post on the blog so they either call me up or e-
> mail me with comments.
'Koyaanisqatsi' is indeed a good film, which I helped work on in Santa
Fe, with the Institute of American Indian Arts gang, back in the 70s.
Lots of good folks came out of there, including my old buddy, the late
great T.C. Cannon from Kiowa Country in Oklahoma.
Monica
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I talked with Billy WS a few weeks ago. Really good people. That's my
old school. Arlo went there too btw.
Dave
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Yeah, we did a couple of great plays at the outdoor Paolo Soleri
Theatre (of Arcosanti fame). I think Kevin Red Star also went there.
We helped bring in Teatro Campesino a few times too, when they did 'El
Fin del Mundo'. The best! play and theatre. (I'm getting around to
reading your play too, Monica, finally. Sorry it's taken so long.
We've been kinda busy getting ready for a Trial around here on May
12!!!)
Monica
Monica
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Oops! Hit the wrong button. I'm glad you're busy. I have another play
and I'm working on another. Yes Kevin is alumni. So is Alfie Youngman,
and Billy War Soldier, Danny Long Soldier and Don Montileaux. Billy
did a painting that was five sided. You had to crawl inside, the
painting surrounded you. It was amazing. I love my home but I miss the
old Santa Fe days. I miss being around and talking with other artists.
We were very young but it was exciting times and deep conversations.
Bob Robideau is alumni too although he went much later. The only
theatre there was a small one. You need to get your Peltier play on
the road. People need to see it.
Dave
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Everyone but Peltier and his 'defense committee' are interested in
seeing it, that is.
Canuck Girl
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Monica, good to hear you are in touch with Billy Warsoldier. Spoke to
him last week while we were in Cali.
I showed Billy's five sided painting in the IAIA Rocks the Sixites
ehibit at the IAIA Museum in 2001. It is a great piece.
We recreated Billy and TC's easels and drafting table in the old IAIA
painting studio in the museum. Woody (Linda) Cywink was my exhibition
designer and she, Marita Hinds and I scoured through the storage sheds
at the SF Indian School to retrieve desks, furniture and other props
to recreate the ambiance of those early days at IA.
When curating that exhibit in 2000 and 2001, I spoke nearly daily with
Billy, Alfred Youngman and BJ Goodluck and interviewed Kevin Red Star,
Don Montileaux and many other students and teachers at IA back in the
early and late sixties who originated the ndn painting
revolution. Though I'd known many of the artists since the mid-
seventies, it was great to reconnect with them and hear first hand
their recollections and stories from those exciting days.
The museum director at the time promised to bring the IAIA Alum from
the Sixties back to Santa Fe to speak at a seminar and to have a
reunion, but she renegged and instead honored Fritz Scholder by naming
a gallery after him and featuring him at the IAIA Annual Indian Market
Banquet. The artists were furious since they believe that Fritz stole
credit for the new ndn painting style generated at IAIA, when it was
their ideas he stole, even stealing an actual painting Billy WS did,
finishing it and claiming it for his own.
My exhibit "IAIA Rocks the Sixties" documented that it was the
students, particularly, Billy Warsoldier Soza, T.C. Cannon, Alfred
Youngman and Kevin Red Star who began the contemporary painting
movement that revolutionalized ndn painting. But the IAIA Museum
director refused to print a catalog and denied a request from Alfred
Youngman and George Longfish to travel the exhibit at no cost to IAIA
for exhibition at the CN Gorman Museum in Davis, California. The
museum director also refused to consider a request to facilitate the
exhibition being shown at the Tate Contemporary in London. It was
unfortunate because I designed the exhibit to give IAIA a platform to
recognize the importance of this art to raise money to restore the
historic paintings. If IAIA Rocks the Sixties had toured as a
traveling exhibit it could have done much to increase awareness and
respect for American Indian Art worldwide.
Although the important contributions to ndn art by IAIA students of
the late sixties and early seventies is a well-known fact in our
community, there is a continued effort to obscure the truth and to
continue to credit Fritz Scholder for the innovations and ideas he
stole from his students. One student from the Northwest Coast told me
that whenever Fritz would go through the studios, she and other
students would rush to hide their paintings so he couldn't steal their
ideas. She regretted that one day she missed hiding her painting of a
dog and saw the image show up in Scholder's paintings soon afterward.
In his essay in Creativity is our Tradition for the opening of the
IAIA Museum at the former federal building at Cathedral Place, Rick
Hill, then IAIA Museum Director, credited the innovative ideas of the
Contemporary Indian Art Movement to the students. In the interim, the
money Scholder and his estate have donated to IAIA influenced the
institute to obscure the truth.
Last December, we were driving back from Window Rock past the Rte 66
Casino and I got a call from Billy Warsoldier. Good news, Billy told
us, NMAI has acknowledged in the exhibit text for the Fritz Scholder
exhibit that it was the students Billy Warsoldier Soza, T.C. Cannon
and Alfred Youngman who inspired the revolutionary painting style of
the Contemporary Indian Art Movement. Hopefully, Billy and Alfred and
the other IAIA students will finally get the credit and interest in
their art they have so long deserved.
I kept the exhibit catalog text I wrote for IAIA Rocks the Sixties and
plan on publishing it online soon. It tells the real story of the ndn
painting revolution at IA in the words of the students who were there.
Look for it on my One Earth Blog in the next few months.
www.OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com
Have a great day Monica. Thanks for all the good work you do to get
our people's issues out to the world.
Peace,
Charleen Touchette
PS The destruction of the Santa Fe Indian School campus and former
IAIA campus is now complete. I was shocked when I returned from Cali
to see that after razing most of the buildings and leveling the earth
with bulldozers, they chopped down all the huge cottonwoods and other
trees. The bare earth is now strewn with tree stumps and the chopped
bodies of the once majestic shade trees. The view of the Sangres de
Cristos is spectacular, surely designed to attract buyers to whatever
the Pueblos plan to do with the land. But the devastation of the land
and trees and plants makes one ask, at what price? Aren't we told ndns
don't rape the earth? I'll take photos of the tree carcasses this
week and post on fb and on my blog.
Billy WS was one of the ndns at the AIM occupation of the BIA building
in DC during Nixon's administration. He has some great
stories about that action and others during that time.
Billy was in LA getting ready for a painting exhibit. You can check
out his art at www.billywarsoldier.com
Monica
> On Apr 21, 4:42 am, Monica <yano...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
with TC's paintings. He did ride the backs of TC, Alfie and Billy. It
is a well known fact among artists that Scholder learned to paint from
his students. Billy and Don's studio was in the same building as the
theatre. When I would get bored or mad at the drama teacher I would go
visit the painters. They had a big sign above the door that said
"Prepare to meet your maker." It was funny. I saw his five sided
painting when he finished it. He invited me to take a look. Man, it
was like entering another dimension. You were surrounded on four sides
and above by the painting. You were literally, figuratively,
spiritually inside the painting. I have seen other paintings that
impacted me. I appreciate the beauty and message. Nothing has made me
feel the way I did sitting inside Billy's five sided painting. I
opened my first play when I was still in high school. My English
teacher thought I was going to get a big head from all the hype. The
mayor and governor, the senators, the heads of Interior and Bia and
various politicos came to the openings. Plus rich white theatre buffs
from NYC. What she didn't know was I didn't care about them. What was
important was the opinion of my fellow students. They were all
supportive and proud. Rosalie Jones was our choreographer and dance
teacher. She did a dance that was a moving painting. The dancers
carried symbols from PNW art. She also did a dance based on the
Blackfeet Sundance. Jane Lind and Cordelle Morsette were the lead
dancers. I sure miss those days. Billy tracked me down a few weeks
ago. He called our Tribal Health Clinic. I don't know how he
remembered my Tribes name. He talked to a cousin that works there. She
called my sister. The message I got was someone called Billy needed to
talk to me. It was urgent and important. I recognized his voice when
he answered. We talked for over two hours and maxed out the time on my
cell phone. He inspired me to get back to work on a play I've been
working on for years. I attended a Returning the Gift meeting in
Seattle. One of their people asked me what kind of writer I wanted to
be. I was offended and laughed later. I have been out of things so
long I have been completely forgotten. Debbie Finley, another former
student, has asked me to write a one woman play for her. That would be
fun. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I always enjoy that. As I
told Billy the years at IAIA were the best of my life. We were a
FAMILY.
Monica
Oh Charleen, I am always excited and happy when you post. You always
bring back such good memories. I have the flu and didn't intend to
post. I was just going to glance at alt.native. I wanted to ask about
Keith Conway. Billy said he was teaching writing at IAIA or whatever
the college version is called. I would like to suggest a writers and
performing arts workshops. Rolland Meinholtz our original drama
teacher is now retired from the University of Montana. I think he is
itching to get his hands back on a show. I haven't heard about Rosalie
Jones. Keith may know They are both Blackfeet. I'm going to have to go
get something to eat. Hello to Keith if you see him. If there is ever
money to do a writers workshop or readings from the old days let me
know.
Monica
Dave
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Yes, T.C. told me he was very upset with Fritz, and that it took him,
T.C. months sometimes to do a painting, whereas Fritz could do one in
a few minutes! Years later I was at a conference at Sundance and
Scholder was there, and I told him what T.C. said.
also, did you read that book about T.C. that came out a few years ago?
I forget the name of the woman who wrote it, but she made the false
charge that Irene Handren was at fault for T.C.'s death in 1978, in
his pickup on the old road south of town. Nope. I was there. We all
knew T.C. drove 80 mph like a drunken maniac, and for that person to
blame Irene was cruel. She was in the wreck, yeah, and trapped upside
down all night with him, dead. Horrible. She was his friend, and mine.
I went with her to Gracemont in Oklahoma to visit his family, and we
stayed the night, very gracious folks, Kiowa, and his mother was
fullblood Caddo. They didn't blame Irene at all.
Monica
I love TC's work too. He did one for the Santa Fe opera. He used his
grandparents a lot in his paintings. His grandpa (dressed in southern
plains fashion) was sitting in a chair with his hand cupped around his
ear listening to a gramophone (sp?) in the middle of the room was
grandma in full dress with her fists clenched singing with the
gramophone. On the floor was the cover of the album. It was an Italian
opera. He did another one called "The Collector." His grandpa was
again sitting in his chair in full southern plains dress. On the wall
was a Rembrandt or other famous European master. It was funny. TC had
a real Indian sense of humor. He did another one of his grandparents
sitting on a bench waiting for the bus. They were in full southern
plains dress. He was a genius. Did you know Ron Rogers David? He was
friends with Earl BIss and Dominick LaDucer.