rancid butter

the best class I ever took in college was called "The Cultural History of Medicinal Plants." I learned more in that over-filled auditorium than in any other classroom I have ever been in. Perhaps it was because it was almost entirely NEW information, and in so learning, I was stretched beyond my normal capacities. I remember several times noting to myself that I could actually feel myself learning. Or perhaps it was because I love the earth and things that grow from it (so many garden anecdotes could fit in here, but won't because writing is unnatural to me lately).
Occasionally information which I learned in that class reappears and makes an important streak across the sky, reminding me of what it means to know things and be educated in practical and practicable things. It's like cooking. Do you know how to cook? The question always baffles me, and a person responding "no" to that question is unfathomable to me sometimes. But I know that there are things which I don't yet (or maybe ever will) know. Anyways.
Today, I was brought back to the Widtsoe Building on BYU campus when I stepped onto a group of fruits lying in the grass. If there is one crucial element to this story, it is this: Nebraska is infiltrated by Squirrels. The concept of piles of fruits or nuts just lying around without a horde of squirrels rummaging through them is unheard of in these parts.  I was weirded out, and, retrospectively, I understand why.

These fruits, and now my boots, smelled acutely and precisely of pungent rancid butter. 

As the smell punched me in the nose, the image of my professor telling me about the scent of rancid butter couldn't be ignored. what was it? I remembered the image of a tree on the screen behind him, and I seemed to remember scribbling something down in my notebook about it. A tree... I prided myself on knowing the trees. My parents were "Master Tree Stewards", and the title was one that I decided I wanted to inherit. I had to know!
And then, I looked closer and remembered the bipedal leaves of the ancient Ginko. Ah yes, the oldest deciduous tree in the world. This old friend of mine. The fruit looks like this:

Sincerely, and with all of the pleading in my nostrils, PLEASE, avoid stepping on these babies. Rancid butter boots are not something that I would wish upon anyone, and as soon as I finish this, I will run to my car and take mine off so that they don't contaminate my car, and I will not wear them for a few weeks. So foul. So. So. So. Foul.

I am thankful for memory and the capacities for remembrance of knowledge. Knowing things is a miracle and a blessing.

Along those lines, I presented this today. It's a for chapter of my thesis.

In semi-related news, if you are looking for something to listen to, and you want to think more about memory and the implications of memory and its erasure from popular culture, you should listen to this. It might make you feel bad, as a warning, but I think it's maybe time for us to start being grown-ups about feeling bad.

today i hung

about 40 works in my museum. I am co-curating a show about the wars fought by Native Americans from the 1850's-1890's. You know: Custer and Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and all of those guys. It's a really hard show to do, and the content weighs heavy on me most of the time. It felt good to see my work being actualized and my ideas hung on walls. I am getting better at maths because of the practice of hanging stuff up. Eye level is 59 inches.

Sometimes my boss and I get into conversations that are pretty intense and she cries. Other times we talk about Wonder Woman and her kids. I like both of these types of conversations for different reasons. Sometimes I want to cry with her (only once, I did). I told her about that time that my mom made a Wonder Woman Halloween costume for me as an adult (I think I was 23...), and she looked like she was going to pass out with joy at the prospect of an adult person (me) seriously wearing such a getup, not to mention the fact that it was made by my mom. I felt sheepish, but also awesome. I like that she indulges and maybe even exacerbates my utter nerdiness. She is a good and curious person to me.

My head feels like it was dipped in a vat of suck and that then coagulated into more suck that is now stuck inside my sinuses. I never get sick. I need someone to take care of me.

I need to read a book for tomorrow, but on the other hand, I would rather just go to bed (blogging as a happy medium?). I cannot seem to be interested in a book about colonial African birthing practices; there is a lot that I don't know, and a lot that I don't really have entrance points to. I hope seminar tomorrow will be okay and not-overwhelming. That class makes me so vomit-y-nervous.

 I really enjoyed listening  to this today. It fit into a lot of the things I have been thinking about lately. Someone submitted an artwork to me (for this, my baby), that was called something like "Indian on a Bike". I really liked it, more than almost any other work I have yet seen for that contest. I mostly liked the artist's statement, which was simple: "Indians ride bikes too".

 (via)

(This was NOT the image, simply an amusing/amazing image that shows up when one searches "Indian on a Bicycle" via Google Image. I like it.)

Don't forget that. Indians ride bikes too.

There is just so much

I frequently feel that my brain will explode with the extremely large amount of items that swirl around therein.

The biggest things on my mind lately (not surprisingly, or infrequently the case) is Native American history. In particular, the poem by e.e. cummings:

Buffalo Bill's

defunct

        who used to

        ride a watersmooth-silver

                                  stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

                                                  Jesus



he was a handsome man

                      and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

I love this poem. I have been thinking a lot about the appropriation of Native American culture and traditional practice in mainstream culture. 

I am going to ride this wave and see where it takes me. In the meantime, here are some images to tide you over til I decide I can write about this.

Images are the most important thing. 

no...

nooo...

Please, no...

Seriously? NOOOO!

Now I am depressed.

THIS: not cool.

I get it: you don't realize that you are racist. 

 And just a little education so that you don't close this tab feeling completely racist, and so that you can know

 some things for future use:

1. Women do not wear war bonnets. 

2. War bonnets are sacred.

3. Many feathers have traditional uses (not to mention the impact the trend is having on other industries...)

4. Racism is still alive and well. 

5. The term "buckskin" and calling a US Dollar a "buck" are racist. Historical background: 

When colonists were settling, particularly around Virginia, they invested in the fur trade, particularly the fur of the deer,

a native animal to the North American continent. For the hide of one male deer (a buck), a person was paid one US dollar. 

Thus, the dollar took on the nickname, "buck". As wars with native peoples began, the derogatory idea was to 

refer to dead Indian men as "bucks", as they were piled in heaps like the dead deer whose hides would be traded.

So... the point in telling you this? I'm not trying to make you feel terrible for telling me how many bucks you just 

scored while big pimpin, I just want us all to be a bit more aware of the etymology of the stuff we say.

My dear sweet sister-cousin sent me a really lovely book about the history of Indian trade blankets. 

I was so excited to get some good history on them!

Here is a fun little article talking about how they have been appropriated by hipster culture. With slideshow!!

 Hippies were always trying to be Indians. As we can see, this is not a new trend.

 (PLEASE click this. This is the best scene.) 

This is from artist Arthur Amiote. He is great. Maybe I will write more about him someday.
 

Lakota Girl: Or How I Taught the Cornhusker Football Team to Talk About Menstruation

I am enrolled in a History course at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where about half the students in the class are on the UNL Football team. They are in the Big 10 this year, which, I guess, is a big deal.

I was so excited when my professor asked us to bring in a discussion topic about a traditional Native American mode of teaching/learning. I used the opportunity to present the Lakota practice of Puberty Ceremonies for girls at the onset of first menstruation. 

In this tradition, girls are removed from society and taken to live with a female elder from the tribe for a week. The elder instructs the girl in the way of female wisdom, socially appropriate methods of dealing with her menstrual flow, the goodness of being a woman, her connectedness to all of life through it's existence, and the beauty that can dwell with her in this state. Furthermore, the elder teaches the girl a few games that the girl will then come back to the tribe to play, further teaching them symbolically about the flow of life itself. The process is complete when the tribe holds a giveaway and has a feast to celebrate the girl's transition.

Tradition dictates that people learn through a combination of examples being given, stories being told, and the availability of advice and counsel, culminating in application of practice. This program is a fine example of these ideas, and I was excited to talk about the implications of this.

I find it useful to talk about my own experience (... and since this is my blog, i do what I want!). It is an interesting contrast to the awkward moment where all third graders are herded into the library of the elementary school to watch a severely outdated filmstrip about "becoming a woman", regardless of individual maturity and readiness.
There were a few squirms when I began, but I was surprised and elated at student responsiveness. We talked about the strangeness of dominant (European modeled) society's removal of elements of life, which elements are essential to human existence, from educational practice.  Even the football players had something to say! They commented about how it was interesting how we are taught to be separate from our bodies in the educational system of dominant society. There are two women in the class, sisters, who are Lakota themselves. It was very insightful to learn further, that this practice is still in use today.

May this people never "vanish" as Curtis so  unabashedly claimed they would.