In collaboration with Seeding Sovereignty in their efforts to support Indigenous communities I am offering a strand of 4 Rainbow Shells
Made of stoneware and assembled on waxed twine, polished hemp rope and ships with nail
Measures approximately 20" total, including rope
40% of purchase price will be donated to support the Elders of the Navajo, Apache, and Pueblo communities in New Mexico. The Elders sustain the communities, ways of knowing and provide grandparent medicine.
*Please do not apply discounts codes towards the purchase of this piece
Painted with indigo representing the night sky in its deepest moment, red for the energy and heat of fire, orange of turning & transformation and golden yellow the rebirth of the emerging sun.
Dana Claxton, a Hunkpapa Lakota filmmaker, photographer & performance artist in my hometown of Vancouver BC purchased one of my first garlands in 2010 painted with clouds of the night sky clouds and said, ‘Everything we need to know is in the sky’. I have always remembered that.
In researching imagery and info for this, I came across this 1700 Skidi Pawnee Star Chart in this article byAstro Bobthat is located in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
‘The chart includes many aspects of the sky. At either end are the warm orange tones of twilight that may indicate the east and west directions. The tiny stars running down the middle represent the band of the Milky Way which the Skidi saw as the Pathway of the Departed Spirits, the road walked by the souls of the dead. It divided the sky into two halves.
At the center of the chart to the left of the Milky Way is a large semi-circle of 11 stars called the Council of the Chiefs. The chiefs watched over the people from the sky. The North Star, depicted directly above the semi-circle, watched over them both in turn.
From the North Star, you can follow the outline of the Little Dipper and below it, the Big Dipper. The North Star’s importance in Skidi religion is reflected in its bigger size despite being the same brightness as the stars of the Big Dipper.
They called it The Star That Does Not Walk Around, one of the best names for this special star I’ve ever come across and a reference to its stationary position in the sky at the end of Earth’s imaginary north polar axis.
The bowls of the two Dippers were stretchers carrying gods who took sick during the ordering of the heavens and Earth at the beginning of time. Each is trailed by made a Medicine Man, his wife and an Errand Man – what we see as the Dippers’ handles.’
