Deer Medicine.
In this corner of the world, it’s a powerful thing.
Where I’m from, deer are a staple — plentiful, no risk of endangerment, flesh and hide alike a source of sustenance and warmth for the long winters.
Here, they are something more.
The hides are prized, both whole and parted for use in clothing, cultural and spiritual needs, art. Robes. Moccasins. Drums. Quivers. Medicine bags. Thongs for uses practical and decorative. More.
The Pueblo holds Deer Dances, sometimes on Christmas Day, sometimes on the date that coincides with Epiphany. It’s a great honor for the dancers who are appointed to serve as personifiers.
At Picuris, the “sister” pueblo an hour or so south of here, the people have taken Deer as a symbol — a marker, and identifier. Picuris Pueblo owns a controlling interest in the Hotel Santa Fe, and the hotel’s very logo is of Deer at rest. The image appears throughout the hotel complex, in a variety of forms and media in the guest rooms, the conference center, the spa, on the letterhead and signage. The basic image is very simple, very spare, a line drawing created with a few flowing strokes. It’s surprisingly affecting (and effective).
At home, here on this land, the deer don’t often venture down to us; they prefer the safety and anonymity the mountain provides. Their cousins, the elk, are more brave, or perhaps more foolhardy, or perhaps just more hungry: Every winter, the herd comes down the mountain, within sight of humans. At least a few times a season, they come right up to our fenceline, and sometimes cross it. About four years ago, the elk faced a sufficiently lean winter to come right up by the house one night and enter the hay barn. The dogs seemed to understand, leaving them to feed entirely unmolested. By dawn they had vanished again, leaving only their telltale tracks behind.
But the deer keep a cautious distance.
As far as I can remember, Wings has only once created a deer in his chosen medium. That’s probably by design; powerful symbols are not to be invoked casually. It was this pin, a small silver buck with four points on each antler of his magnificent rack and a bold heartline across his body:
I believe he made it some eight or nine years ago; I think it sold in 2007.
Most of the art in our inventory that bears any connection to Deer involves only hide and sinew and the occasional antler: the hand-tanned white buckskin quiver featured in yesterday’s post; the hides stretched across drum frames; the sinew that holds points to shafts and bundles to carvings; the thongs that bear pendants; the handle of a traditional knife.
We have one exception.
It’s the little vintage-style carving at the top of this post, the animal’s spirit coaxed gently from a chunk of ore-like material until its spirit comes clear, resting quietly but proudly. The back side of the sculpture is equally simple, yet equally clear. From its description in the Other Artists: Sculpture Gallery here on the site:
Carver Randy Roughface (Ponca) normally specializes in vintage-style horses. For the first time, he’s carved a deer for us, a being that represents powerful Medicine. This beautiful spirit animal is carved from a solid block of brown slate, changeable in the light from golden bronze to deep ombre, with an almost ore-like texture and finish. About 4″ long by about 4.5″ high. Back view shown below.
Brown slate
$125 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s done in Randy’s inimitable style, presuming to limn only the roughest outlines of the animal and leaving the details to its spirit to present as much or as little as it wishes. In this case, Deer makes his presence known, quietly but unmistakably.
The stone itself was a perfect choice. It appears to be a form of slate, coarser-grained than the charcoal-hued Pilar slate found just south of here, and so likely mixed with other minerals, perhaps some siltstone in the mix. It’s a deep, rich brown, but with a distinct metallic sheen that changes in color and intensity in the light, giving it a slight bronzed effect evocative of the changeable color of Deer himself in the slanting autumn sun.
And on a morning like this, when the clouds hang heavy and dark, fog shrouding the peaks, he brings a little of the very sun itself indoors, balanced carefully on his antlers.
Powerful Medicine.
~ Aji
A Note: Non-Indians who consider themselves conversant with [an outsider’s perspective on] Taos Pueblo will notice what they may regard as an omission on the subject of “deer.” That is by design, and it is not an “omission,” since it has no actual relevance. I’m not even going to use the name; it was such a terrible, inexcuseable example of appropriation, so flatly (and entirely characteristically) wrong, that it doesn’t deserve mention.
