catching up. Whew!

I have been pretty busy, Graduate Student at University of idaho.  Took a new job as Department head at Salish Kootenai College, in Native American Studies.  Completing my degree in May, I think.  I have been working with some interesting things, Epistemology, and i will write and publish soon about my Native "String" Theory.  I got married to Laurie Holton Finley in November.  My father left us and the world a week before Thanksgiving.  I'm still plugging along, and will keep on going, just eb patient and I will return to writing.

New look, New material coming soon!

I am working on my Master's degree in Education, and just wanted you to know that I am going to start posting again, trying for once a week. I will put it on my calendar. Right now i am reading "Indigenous Methodologies" by Kovach. I just finished, a week ago "Research is Ceremony" by Wilson, so expect to see Axiology, Epistemology, Methodology and Ontology. Cosmology may be tossed here and there as well. I will add Wikipedia/Wiktionary definitions soon. Have a great day, Salish Silver signing off from Moscow, ID, Home of the Vandals!

I have been working at flintknapping for the last couple weeks. It is pretty challenging, and not as hard as it seems it could be. I have a few things to figure out, and I will be able to teach this a whole lot better. Sorry for the lack of posts over the last couple years, lots of things going on to take up my time. Back to blogging here and there. The science behind all of this knapping technology would encompass geology of the area, knowing where to get the best rock available for this type of work (making arrowheads), and then the break characteristics of the stone itself. Physics, i guess, in the way silica based rock breaks in a conchoidal (looks like a shell) fracture. I will put up some pics of my notcher/pressure flaker and the billets i have made. Some copied, but all made by myself.

Another Book for the list

I am just about through reading Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong. This is a great book about grassland ecology and the role wolves should play in it, as well as the consequences of removing them. I think this is very important information in light of recent developments in Montana. Wyoming and Idaho concerning wolves. If the wolves are hunting and thinning the elk herds, doesn't that mean that the elk left will be better? Or are the elk hunters getting too lazy to really go after the animals? I was under the impression that hunting elk was sort of a right of passage. Not everyone I know that hunts goes elk hunting. I am too lazy to go hunting for elk. I don't want to get up at 3 in the morning and drive an hour and a half, and then walk for three miles to put an animal down in God knows what country, and then try and get all of the meat and animal back before it spoils, or have to fight off a grizzly bear, or twenty other things. I have been elk hunting, for sure, and seen elk. But not anywhere I would take one. I am all for healthy, strong animals. I am all for a healthy ecosystem here in the mountains. I am going to go out on a limb here. Sheep are like a fast food for wolves. Probably not the best diet. And to use an anthropomorphism: Just like us, an easy meal is too great an opportunity to pass up. After a few Big Macs (or lambs or calves) it is just too much work to go home and cook. Maybe there is something in that stuff that makes us complacent. I don't think wolves should eat domestic livestock. But I do think that they play a key role in the future of the forest and grasslands of Montana.

Information about my tribe

I am very proud of my tribe, and the fact that I a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. That being said, I just received a link to a website that helps talk about some of the myths associated with tribes and tribal people. Click on the video tab and watch the seven little movies. I think it is very informative, and well worth your time if you live near a reservation, need more information about indians, or if you are unsure of just what is what in regards to tribal people.
Here is the link:
http://therezweliveon.com

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Blending of Art and Science.

I have an interesting blend of art and science to report this time. On March 29, I will be having an exhibit of my art work at the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, MT. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by in the evening and meet me. My art will be displayed until May 10, so there will still be time to go and see what's going on. I have some of my jewelry on display/sale, as well as cultural items made from bison horn. Where does science com into all this? Well, I like to use acrylic pains, which as far as paint goes is pretty new, in use only since the early 60's. In my jewelry I use my knowledge of chemicals to make things easier & faster. I have some experience in metal finishing from a previous job, and that help me make shiny things, as well as make good decisions on what types of abrasive to use. When I paint in watercolours, the interaction of light, paint and paper always is interesting, as well as wet-in-wet and wet-on-dry looks and the technical aspects of paint in those instances. The ability to use technology to send out this message is also a great benefit, as well as interesting that different batches of electrons can be pushed anywhere in the world and made to fit a computer screen of almost any ilk and be comprehensible to the many. I have likewise drawn pictures of my lab experiments, and sometimes taking several renederings to make them just so, a point where I like them, or at least live with them. This sort of encoding of information is processed deep in our psyche. Man (and his counterpart) have for a long, long time recreated some version of natural and other events in the form of art. The cave paintings and petroglyphs of both the new and old worlds show a reverence that is unquestionably linked to nature, and all its myriad forms.
I have a quote sent to me by a good friend, who in his wisdom was able to make sense out of my ramblings and found a written western example where all spirits are sort of reconciled, and I think it's pretty gran, so I'll add it here. One note, though, I am sort of non-denominational, call myself a catholic because of cultural reasons (ask me) and I actually have quite a number of Bahai's as friends. This is a tribute to their ideals, morals and just plain good-peopleness. They know who they are!

Non-existence therefore is an expression applied to change of form, but this transformation can never be rightly considered annihilation, for the elements of composition are ever present and existent as we have seen in the journey of the atom through successive kingdoms, unimpaired; hence there is no death; life is everlasting. So to speak, when the atom entered into the composition of the tree, it died to the mineral kingdom, and when consumed by the animal, it died to the vegetable kingdom, and so on until its transference or transmutation into the kingdom of man; but throughout its traversing it was subject to transformation and not annihilation. Death therefore is applicable to a change or transference from one degree or condition to another. In the mineral realm there was a spirit of existence; in the world of plant life and organisms it reappeared as the vegetative spirit; thence it attained the animal spirit and finally aspired to the human spirit. These are degrees and changes but not obliteration; and this is a rational proof that man is everlasting, everliving. Therefore death is only a relative term implying change. For example, we will say that this light before me, having reappeared in another incandescent lamp, has died in the one and lives in the other. This is not death in reality. The perfections of the mineral are translated into the vegetable and from thence into the animal, the virtue always attaining a plus or superlative degree in the upward change. In each kingdom we find the same virtues manifesting themselves more fully, proving that the reality has been transferred from a lower to a higher form and kingdom of being. Therefore non-existence is only relative and absolute non-existence inconceivable. This rose in my hand will become disintegrated and its symmetry destroyed, but the elements of its composition remain changeless; nothing affects their elemental integrity. They cannot become non-existent; they are simply transferred from one state to another.

Through his ignorance, man fears death; but the death he shrinks from is imaginary and absolutely unreal; it is only human imagination.

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As to the existence of spirit in the mineral: it is indubitable that minerals are endowed with a spirit and life according to the requirements of that stage. This unknown secret, too, hath become known unto the materialists who now maintain that all beings are endowed with life, even as He saith in the Qur'án, "All things are living."

-- Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahá'í World Faith

Shey Hoy
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Movies

A while back I saw Gran Torino. As a movie it was OK, but some of the underlying material was quite intriguing to me. (may contain spoilers) The main character makes some decisions that shape the path that he takes. There are outside forces that make him change his viewpoint on many things including his new neighbors, who at one time he feels he may have been shooting at instead of helping or interacting with. One incident changes what he feels he must do to protect his "family" of sorts. the gritty texture of this film makes you identify with the main character, and maybe I'm the same sort of guy. I would have done exactly what Clint did in this flick. It was a small price to pay for the knowledge that people would be safe and protected. I think that if the circumstances are right, we are all heroes, given the chance. A hero may not always be doing what is right, but he/she knows what has to be done and then does it. How many times has a instance come up where you could be a hero and didn't take it? Maybe to some, buying a meal or coat is heroic. How about giving up your place in line to an elderly person? How many material decisions can you make that will make you a hero? Is the recycler a hero? The people that sell fair trade goods? Is the farmer in the rainforest who cuts two acres of forest to palnt his crops a villain because he knows no different life? Do you live a sustainance lifestyle, or even try? Maybe all americans should start, so we can again be heroes to the world.
Shey hoy.

St Louis Arch

I went to St Louis two weeks ago and my hotel was very close to the Arch. A pretty interesting piece of engineering, all stainless steel and concrete construction. I paid and went up in the pods that are part Ferris wheel, elevator and classified as a tram. At the top (630 m) I looked around and saw the curvature of the Earth, barges and miles and miles of development. As the Gateway to the West, it is impressive and awe-inspiring. But after I returned to the ground level, I thought about what it could really represent to natives. This was a memento to the history of the opening of the Indian lands and the forced removal of natives from their respective ORIGINAL homelands.
It also starts to beg the question of why there are no national monuments to NATIVE AMERICAN heroes and feats. Why not a monument to Chief Joseph, Geronimo, or Black Elk? Is there a library dedicated to Vine Deloria or N. Scott Momaday? Does the philosophy department on any campus have a room or building named for V.F. Cordova? Are native artists like Terry Gardipee or DG House asked to be faculty or invited to shows just like the non-native artists? Is there a research plot named for the advances in plant genetics that gave us corn, squash, potatoes and beans? None of these things (which by the way feed many of the people on this ol' rock currently) has ever been given adequate praise and recognition.
Native peoples have had more done to them in the name of both good and bad and survived all of them, and still maintain our core beliefs. Bioterrism, genocide, warfare of all kinds we have suffered, yet the bones of our ancestors still support and guide us through our lives.
I'm not saying today, or tomorrow, but sooner or later the principles which native peoples use to better and maintain their lives will parrallel what the mainstream believes.

Enough for today, Shey Hoy

Strawberry Corn/

I was in a local store sometime in December, and picked up some dried strawberry corn ears. They are red and shaped sort of like strawberries, and were right next to the Indian corn. What exactly the heck is "Indian" corn, as opposed to sweet corn or field corn? I suppose that the tricolor ears of dried corn were all that the poor natives could grow, having no giant factory farms to do all of the work of sorting all of the colors out in each ear. (You may detect a small amount of facetiousness here) Hybrid corn is one thing, but to call a particular strain of mutt corn Indian corn is a bit misleading. All corn started out as Indian corn. Native American corn. Actually, and most probably South American Indian corn. There is evidence that corn was adapted to almost every environment on both Americas. There are heritage varieties that have more protein and less sugar than current corns, whose genetics are owned by Monsanto or ADM or some other world farming and seed conglomerate. These older and less manipulated corns may be better food stock than the newer ones, but aren't they grown commercially? Too much manual labor. Not easy to convert to harvest by machine. Too short. Not enough product per plant.

Back in Business

Sorry for the extended delay in posting. I've had some issues with different things, but am now back at the keyboard. I have several interesting stories to relate, and some new topics to bring to you. I post again later this week.

Until then, be indigenous to where you are.

We are not Immigrants!!!

We are not a nation of entirely immigrants. Some of our ancestors were here before wholesale immgration to the western hemisphere began. If my ancestors crossed the "Ice Bridge" then they were the ORIGINAL settlers of this continent. Meaning in the usual eurocentric traditions the newer mmigrants moved onto land owned and deeded to people ALREADY living there. Furthermore, because my forebears couldn't lay hand to their copy of the deed (which incedentally, I'm sure was under a pile of hides in the corner of the wigwam, tipi or longhouse at the time) we have beenconstantly losing ground to a culture that has overwhelmed us by sheer numbers. If the hispanic population continues as projected, newer immigrants will outstrip the "grand old families" of immigrants. What will the "grand old families" have to say when someone moves into theri old digs? Oh, I just remembered the "right to bear arms clause! How convenient.
Once the vast resources of this continent are depleted, where will these guys emigrate to? South America? What about after the planet's eventual depletion at the current rate? Then the moon? Mars? Maybe there is OIL there, or some other easily exploited power source.
I realize I give no answers to all of this. I think the answer has to start with all of us, rich, poor, middle class, Foreign and Domestic, weird and plain to start putting our resources to the most important of our current and pressing needs as stated by a native long ago: Let us prepare for the Seventh Generation unborn.

'nuff for today
Shey Hoy

Tiny Houses. A great Concept!

I was surfing the other day, and you know how serendipitous things can be, this popper up and I thought it was something worth comment. Have you heard about tiny houses? Check out this link Tiny House and see what I'm talking about. It's pretty interesting to see how people are living in a minimum of space. Pretty radical thought in America, land of the 250,000 sq ft home. Very needed in the battle we need to realistically start on sustainability. What is the minimum space you could live in? I think with the right setup, I could live in about 140 to 150 square feet. My family would not be as happy in such a small space. Currently we have about 1200 square feet and it seems no one has any space. In the Orient, people are used to living in small spaces, and do just fine. Probably what you get used to. I was listening to Montana Public Radio the other day, and this man was trying to get people to believe that we need to quit building on farmland and create communities that are more densely populated and utilizing what we have more efficiently. Allowing people (all people, especially poor ones) access to land that they can use to farm and produce their own foods. Bring back the craftsman, and small farmers and becoming locavores. Teaching people to can and put up their own foods, and thus stopping hunger. Putting people back to work doing all sorts of work that was taken away by machines. Paying people a fair price for their goods, and receiving fair value for our own labors. Pretty much the opposite of what we have now. I have come across this thinking before, here at Dave Pollard's site. This particular blog helps to understand why things are the way they are, and although it will be a tough road to change that, we will start having to move in the direction these people are moving. Poor people eat junk food because it's cheap and bad for you. Hence, they are more likely to have serious health problems. Health problems shorten and decrease quality of life, as well as cost extra at health insurance time, causing less money to be available for nutritious food, so you can only buy cheap, bad food, and then if that's not enough, it is perpetuated in the next generation because they know nothing else. An unsustainable cycle. sooner or later there will not be enough workers to do the labor required to keep the bourgeoisie in the manner in which they have become accustomed to. A veritable house of cards with lives as the supports. Insanity.
Done ranting for today, Shey Hoy

Painting Part 2

I said earlier I was painting, and this is the
series from the last week. i am using a watercolor notebook made by Moleskine. the first two look pretty bad, as far as I'm concerned. the clouds are lackluster and boring. The clouds in the second look like a crippled plesiosaur.




The First one is a hazy day here in the valley, the second is after I watched an eight minute You Tube video, and got some good ideas and came up with something pretty good, by my standards.















I have one last picture to show off, and that is the sort of southwest thing I managed to paint while my son was swimming for an hour at home. I did watch him swim, and paid attention to him, I was within 16 feet from him at all times. And the pool is only 2 1/2 feet deep.

I think it is a good thing to look at the way light works in watercolor paintings, because most of the paint is transparent, a great discussion of Lambert-Beers law and the interaction of light and matter can take place. One other thing I will mention is that I watched a video from Micheal Wilcox about mixing blue and yellow not making green and recieved some of the best scientific and artistic information on color theory ever. After looking at that and changing my paints somewht, I now usually can mix exactly what I want. It really is a pretty good system. And one of these days, I will break down and buy a set of those paints, instead of havng to make do with others. Who says Art and Science don't make a good pair? Shey Hoy. (by the way, I had a few formatting problems, so I hope this get out OK.)

Painting

I'm painting again, which is to say I've picked up and dusted off my paintbrush again in artistic endeavor. As I mentioned last week, I have picked up a new notebook, and found my watercolors (field set and crayons) and set my hand to page. Such as it is. I have always wanted to be able to draw and paint lifelike portraits and deeper than deep realistic landscapes. So far, that sort of thing is beyond me, but I keep trying. Maybe when I'm 80 or so I'll get good at that sort of thing. I paint some abstract and symbolic things now, and people tell me they like them, but you can never tell. Maybe I need to actually buy frames for the art so it looks like I'm a real artist. My art friends tell me that I really should paint more, I guess because they think I might have some talent. I have listened to them, because they would know, and they tell me the truth for the most part. Things like I'm good looking and make beautiful jewelry. I love to paint with acrylics, I like the ability to add texture and wild colors like the photo below.
I call this "Formed v. Unformed" and there are a lot of details involved that I won't go into here, just take a look and tell me your opinion, should I keep on painting or hang it up? ;)

Curriculum Development, Pt 1

I have been away working on a curriculum project I'm on in Fort Collins, Colorado. With all of the other things I do, this has been pushed to the back burner for the last couple of months. To all of the people I work with on that project, I apologize. Making new things and trying to not use old things is a difficult task at best. Original thinking is a a premium these days, and highly underrated. In the political arena, the scientific area, education, agriculture, automobile, all are suffering from the "in a rut" syndrome. Any new thinking is maybe being held off until after the Presidential elections, or the New Year or some other regime change. My new thinking has been held off due to family matters, but at least I have a weak excuse. Native science has been in full force with me, and writing has been cast aside. I really don't enjoy writing sometimes, but I also feel that if I totally stop, my ideas will languish and die. The thought itself will continue, but the record of it's progress will stop. As a constantly evolving entity, the knowledge section always is past explanation here, and I hope the crumbs and fragments of the basic ideas get through.
This is also a curriculum development activity. A written document chronicling the thought patterns of someone who walks in at least two different neighborhoods in the same city. Many natives call it living in two worlds, but as I see it, there is only one world, one place humans can call the communal home. If I went to China, or France, I would still be in this one world, but the perceptions around me would change of the same place, would they not? Do we all see the same world? I have asked this before, I think, but it is worth revisiting. Would you want to see the world through my eyes and I out of yours? Some days I think the world has gone into the proverbial hand-basket. Other days are much better. Especially days without television.

More on that later.

My newest thing are my Moleskine sketchbook and watercolor notebook. These are the best thing to come along for a while for the writer and artist. Nice lined, unlined and sized pages, great paper, variety of styles, all good stuff. Check them out.

Folk Festival in Butte, MT

etozI was in Butte, MT this weekend as a vendor for the festival, and it was pretty interesting. There were about 60-70 thousand people that attended. I was there with my business, Salish Silver, selling silver handmade jewelry. Part of being a Renaissance Indian is keeping up with multiple arts and cultural events. I have several very good friends that are excellent artists, Valentina La Pier, a Blackfeet Indian from Browning (living in Arlee, MT) whose paintings are too great to ever pass up if you have the funds, and DG House, a Cherokee living in Bozeman, MT who has animal and native paintings and prints that are distinctly different from others. Both of these ladies I count among some of the best people I know. I also was able to talk to Leroy Whiteman, an antler carver who makes the best antler carvings I have ever seen. Merle and Nicole Big Bow from Ronan were there with their beadwork, paintings and crafts, all beautiful things. It was like old home week visiting with all of these talented artists. I'm glad that my son is able to meet and get to know these prople as well, because it shows him the value of making friends with good people. Of all the artists, DH is like a sister to me, we can see each other once a year or month or whatever, and we're always just glad to see each other. I call her about once a month to keep up with her, she travels to shows all over the western US and meets some pretty interesting people. I think we probably have 30 DG House prints at my home, and always looking for a place to cram another three or four in. It's the most awesome wallpaper you have ever seen anywhere. My artist friends always tell me to paint more, and I should, but I need to sleep sometime as well.

Weeks of travel

I have been a traveling man the past several weeks, I was in Challis, ID during the second week of June presenting and participating in a "Pathways to Mars" workshop. NASA and NSF provided funding for this, (I think) and there were a variety of activities. For my part I made an atlatl (AT latl) to show how it was used. People love to throw things, don't they? Projectiles are an important part of all cultures, whether or not you want to believe it or not. Hunting and protecting your family are pretty good reasons to have some sort of projectile around. The Maya used them to puncture the armor of invading Spaniards before disease weakened them to a point where it made no difference. Atlatls have been found on every continent except Antarctica.

Symbols of the present.

Symbols seem to surround us, from traffic signs to restroom and directional arrows. We have chemical symbols, warning symbols, the hazard diamond just in my field of chemistry. What about numbers? They are symbols as well based on an Arabic decimal system from the ninth century. Think about the symbols 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0. (remember that zero is a fairly new idea in numbers) What exactly do they mean? The first numeral system was probably tally marks. Marking one line for each counted item would have become unruly after the first hundred or so, at least very monotonous. Somewhere along the line, somebody made the decision to make another kind of mark mean some number of other marks. Revolutionary. World changing thought occurred in that instant. Something to think about. Around the same time, addition and subtraction must have been born, giving rise to mathematics. Mathematics is rife with symbols, all with their own life and system of operation. The next time you dial your cell phone, think about the symbol you have just used, as well as the status symbol you hold to make the call. Humans use symbols for many things, the list is constantly changing as well, evolving as we speak. The letters you are reading are symbols of the language that is fast becoming world-wide.
Something to think about...

Shey hoy

Check out salishworld.com

I try to put in something in Salish, the language of my ancestors, and I have been amiss in not getting this out sooner. Try out Salishworld and get the Salish online dictionary and the Salish font. You can contact NKwusm, the Salish language immersion school in Arlee, MT (sorry for the lack of fonts here, hard to get it online.) and get assistance in pronunciation of the letters and words of the Salish language. You can also contact the Salish Kootenai College Bookstore at (406)275-4722 and order language materials from my friends there. They can even e-mail you a list of current Salish books available from SKC press. I hope this will pique the interest of some in my language. Remember that the people's worldview is rooted in the speech and metaphor of the individual placed-based groups.

Shey hoy

Medicine Men of Today

Where are the great medicine men of the twenty-first century? Have they been born? Or will our traditions be diluted further by the west? I start the blog this week with a rant about medicine because my life the past couple of weeks has revolved around the hospital. Not the place for a nature-lovin' action-based thinker to hang out and get much done. My father has cancer, and it was caught by the coyote effect. He had a TB Tine test that came back positive, and the X-ray showed a mass in his lung. After some pretty extensive testing, it was determined that he had 2 sites, his left lung and just because we are a weird and difficult bunch, a totally different type of cancer in his bile duct. Atypical as all get-out. Usually the cancers are a primary site that metastasizes and then moves to other places. So I spent the night with my mother on watch at the ICU at St. Pat's in Missoula. Not a very comfortable place, the waiting room. I had to come home and teach, then back to the hospital to watch my father. He doesn't do well with many pain meds, and had a hard time getting rest for the first 4-5 days out of ICU. He only spent about 18 hours there, pretty robust for a 79 year old man, wouldn't you say? But he was pretty glassy-eyed from something in his epidural, and they finally changed that, and then the morphine. He is like me, and we pretty much had to take him off the pain meds to bring him back to us. He was loopy as hell for a week. slowed his recovery, I think because we couldn't walk him around too much, he was too unstable, and might have fallen. And then the leak in his lung kept going on, and this and that. Finally after 18 days in the place we finally got to bring him home. He had potato chips on the way home because he wasn't allowed salt. He had sausage and fried fish within a day, and I brought him dried meat as well. He had lost over 20 pounds. He asked for sausage and eggs as soon as he was able to eat, and the hospital denied him that because of his "heart-healthy" diet he was supposed to be on. He eats sausage or bacon for breakfast about once or twice a week, and has oatmeal the rest of the time. He's in better shape than I am. The man should have been allowed a decent breakfast for Pete's sake. And a little salt. Not a whole shaker a day, but maybe one little packet a day, just to make the food taste like something. Just for fun sometime, order a diabetic or heart healthy lunch at a hospital and see what it is like, and if you would make it a regular part of your daily regimen willingly. I realize that in some situations, those things are necessary, but not always. Especially if you are elderly and are losing weight by not eating because you food tastes and has a texture like sawdust. Some people try and get this part right, and it can be done fairly easily, but it is probably hard to do on the scale of a hospital.
I feel some outrage because it was my father, but I have also worked in a similar setting.
But because some folks don't seem to care much is not an excuse. When I worked as a nursing assistant in California, I tried to put as much care into what I did as humanly possible, mostly because I saw the patients as people, fathers and mothers and aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. I worked damned hard for the money I earned then, and was pretty well worn out at the end of the day, and then came home and cared for my own children. And then got up the next day and did it again. I work now just as hard in science and trying to preserve my culture because I see the value of it all. I think western medicine could learn something for the native, primarily in patient care. It should never be about the money. Always about the person. Not about the insurance or who pays what. Insurance and the like eats away at a person, and the costs are always too high. If you have a good paying job, you will live longer in this country. Is this because you can buy a few more days from the creator? Is that what we are doing when we use all of the tricks in a doctor's or specialist's bag to stay alive? I really don't know, but I need to end this, I'm running out of page. Let me know what you thing about my blog, leave comments and I'll give feedback wherever I can. Ask questions, suggest topics, I'm always thinking and wondering what people want to know.
For now, Shey Hoy.