It is Thanksgiving weekend here at Red Willow, the outside world’s official launch of the winter holiday season. Here, the holidays often mean something very different, especially for traditionals, but people also celebrate the more mainstream versions marked by Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.
Such a melding of cultural lifeways means that winter holiday events here incorporate both traditional indigenous practices and the religious services of Catholicism, housed here in the small mission church of San Geronimo, appointed by Spanish colonial invaders as the Pueblo’s “patron saint.”
It’s an interesting choice, one I’ve written about here before . . . and one that I am convinced was entirely purposeful. As I wrote here more than two years ago:
Most people probably don’t really grasp the particular significance of Saint Jerome, nor of the underlying reason that Spanish priests would have chosen him as the patron saint for this village. Jerome, or, as the Spanish called him, San Geronimo, was the patron saint of librarians, encyclopedists, and, perhaps most significantly, translators.
It didn’t help the Spanish much. Like another Native icon upon whom the same name was bestowed by colonizers, the language here has remained steadfastly impervious to all real attempts at compilation and translation. More than a half-millennium later, it is still defiantly unwritten, even in the face of new attempts at linguistic incursion by new[er] evangelists bent on conversion of multiple kinds, including those who wish to impose their own religious and cultural practices from without, and those who wish to steal those of the people for themselves.
Words hold power; our peoples all across this continent have always known this. Here, those words are not for anyone but the people themselves.
Authoritarians have always known that to control the people, one must first control the words. It’s a dynamic on sobering display today. And for colonizing forces, one of the most effective ways to control the people they seek to dominate and exterminate and replace is to coopt their language and alter its essential nature, the fundamental meanings of words.
But first, the invading force must be able to translate it.
And this is where the people of this place so effectively and thoroughly defied and denied their would-be oppressors.
At Red Willow, the indigenous language remains unwritten. It’s hard to translate a language dependent so much on intonation and inflection for meaning when one cannot even envision its form and shape. Oh, there are words from Latinate roots that have been adopted and put into use, often with alteration and variation. But the local tongue itself is still sacrosanct, with all that that word implies — and both culture and language survive and thrive. They are existence, untranslated, and they are the more powerful for it.
What’s also of interest to me is the fact that the subject of today’s featured work should, to the outside world, share the name of the same patron saint. It seems odd, to say the least, that an indigenous historical figure known as one of history’s fiercest warriors should be known by the same name as an ancient Catholic doctor and theologian from half a world away. But there is an explanation, and we’ll get to it in a moment. For now, from its description in the Other Artists: Wall Art gallery here on the site:
Goyathlay (“One Who Yawns”) is perhaps the archetypal Indian warrior, a man of both great military acumen and great spiritual power and wholly devoted to his people. The rest of the world knows him as “Geronimo,” and his name has become cross-cultural shorthand for courage and heart. Here, he looks out quizzically from the frame, perhaps ready to yawn once more at yet another in the long string of deceptions and lies for which he ultimately gave his life, far from his people’s sacred lands.The texture and depth are astounding; each line in his aging, weathered face tells a story and evokes this famed warrior’s bravery and leadership. By Pemwah (Isleta Pueblo). The visible image is 14.5″ high by 22.25″ wide; the entire piece, including frame, is 22.25″ high by 30.25″ wide (dimensions approximate).
Pastel on Japanese kaba paper; rugged barn-wood frame
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply
As I said the very first time I wrote, at length, about the famed warrior here:
Oh, and about that name: It was during this period that he became known by his modern appellation. But how did Goyathlay get transformed into “Geronimo?”
Goyathlay and his warriors were famous among both Spanish (Mexican) and U.S. soldiers for their courage, daring, and strategic aggression. Word of his exploits traveled fast and far, as did word of his purported supernatural powers. As an enemy, he was respected, but also feared outright. During clashes in Mexico, where he and his warriors raided and harried the Mexican forces mercilessly, word of his arrival — or even of the possibility that he might be in the area — instilled such fear into the soldiers’ hearts that they invoked the name of their patron saint, Jerome — in Spanish, Geronimo (pronounced Hay-ROE-nee-moe, but with short, sharp vowels, unlike those found in English). It became a cry of terror, so the story goes, and it stuck: The Spanish evermore thought of him as Geronimo; the U.S. soldiers picked up the name, but, as was their wont, predictably mispronounced it Jer-AH-nih-moe; and Goyathlay himself no doubt both laughed and yawned at the thought that he was capable of striking such terror into the hearts of the invaders that they would accidentally reward him with the name of their patron saint. Today, it’s appropriated for everything from military actions to charging cries in children’s games.
Today is also a day, at least in the dominant culture, of diametrically opposing principles: It is what has become known as “Black Friday,” an overt dedication to the acquisition of colonial wealth in the form of capitalist and commercial profit. It is also the day the government has deigned to denominate “Native American Heritage Day,” a day ostensibly to observe and learn about and from the cultures and values and histories of our peoples, but one that is inevitably wholly eclipsed by the pursuit of money.
In other words, for the dominant culture, it’s absolutely perfect.
For us, it’s an impossible divide to navigate, but it doesn’t really matter. We exist outside of its lines, both those written over us and those that attempt to erase us. On this day, as on every day, we go about our daily lives adhering, to varying degrees, to our traditional ways.
In the simplest terms, we are.
And we are existence, untranslated.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
