Grand Canyon Speaks (U.S. National Park Service)

Episodes

Season 2

Episode 17

Chris Lewis Speaks

Transcript

Chris Lewis Speaks [Chris Lewis] Knowing how deeply rooted it was, and that everyone was turning to imported baskets, my sense and my thing was, we need to bring actual handmade baskets back to the village, the technology behind it, to learn and do all that.

[Meranden] Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Grand Canyon Speaks. This is Meranden.

[Lakin] And this is Lakin.

[Meranden] We would like to take the time to thank you all for listening to Season 2 so far. It has been a lot of fun being able to work on and publish these episodes over the year.

[Lakin] We are also recording and interviewing over the summer for Season 3 at Desert View, so if you're ever in the area, come check it out for our evening sunset talks.

[Meranden] Getting back to the episode, this is about Chris Lewis. He is from the Pueblo of Zuni and shares his studies and passions as a fiber artist.

[Lakin] His basketry has allowed him to learn a lot about ancestral weaving and understand how he can revitalize it in his own work.

[Meranden] He also mentions his participation being on the board of directors for the Bears Ears Partnership and the importance of educating people on ancestral lands.

[Lakin] Once again, thank you for tuning in, and here is Chris Lewis.

[Chris Lewis] ♪♪♪ (Introduces self in Zuni) Hello, my name is Christopher Lewis from Zuni. My clans are Badger, and I'm a child to Corn. My parents are Jocelyn Lewis and the late William Lewis.

I'm honored to be here to speak with you guys.

[Ranger Kelli] Chris, if you could just kind of talk about what you are doing down at the Watchtower with our demonstration program.

[Chris Lewis] I'm here as a fiber artist. Not a lot of people use that term, but I deal with fibers, textiles, strings, then the basketry, getting to plant materials and grasses and feather work, which is all part of the fiber arts. So it's a wide range of things that I work with in that capacity.

[Ranger Kelli] And I was speaking earlier with Chris down at the tower, and, man, I was down there for about three hours, by the way, just talking to him about all the stuff that he does. And I actually watch one of your YouTube videos, and on there it said basketry. I know that you have some baskets here.

I just want to know how long have you been doing basketry, but also textile through weaving as well?

[Chris Lewis] Basketry, I've probably been doing maybe, I would say, about 18 years, physical work of making basketry, but the passion behind basketry, study of basketry, started back in high school. Baskets are deeply rooted in Zuni culture. A lot of things take place with the basket being there.

In Zuni, baskets are called ho'inne. Also in Zuni, a human being is called ho'inne. So the baskets and the human being share the same name.

Until recently, I found out that the baskets, the very, very middle of a basket is called the belly button, and the spiral from the belly button out is called the road that we live on till the end of where the basket terminates. That's the human life and where our roads terminate in that basket. But I assume and think that a lot of those traditions come from when the basket makers, all they made were baskets.

Those traditions and things are yet far deeply rooted in the Pueblo culture. So I would say physically, working with my hands about 18 years, but the study of basketry has been about 40, 45 years.

[Ranger Kelli] And we'll go more deeper into what he meant by, like, studied basketry for 45 years a little bit later because I have so many questions to ask about that. But I just want to know what inspired you to work in baskets and weaving and textiles.

[Chris Lewis] I would say about the time I started learning different styles of basketry, there were maybe three or four people left in Zuni doing any type of basketry. If it was grass or plated pot rest, that was it. Nobody was weaving or making coil baskets, plated ring baskets, any type of basketry at all.

A lot of those completely had died out in the village. So just trying to think of how to revive and bring that back. And yet the wicker work also was.

I think there was only one person left doing wicker work in the village. So knowing how deeply rooted it was and that everyone was turning to imported baskets, my sense and my thing was we need to bring actual handmade baskets back to the village, the technology behind it to learn and do all that.

[Ranger Kelli] I love the language that you said, revive. And I think that's very powerful as into kind of like what we're doing today here at the canyon. You know, I think that your voice here is reviving these like traditional knowledge that needs to be heard out in the public.

And as Grand Canyon, we have about three million visitors that come every year to the South Rim. And these stories are carried down for many generations. And it's just really amazing to see your tools here that are very traditional.

And I'd like for you to kind of, if you want to explain a little bit more of these tools that you have here to our audience and maybe like the meaning of it, what would you use that for?

[Chris Lewis] Before I do that, I'm going to jump back to the first question. You asked about textiles. I said revive.

It's also revive and to revitalize. Those are the two important R words in the basketry and stuff. Revive, revitalize.

Textiles, the reason why I got into textiles was I could not constantly afford to buy my kids belts. All the different dances they do and stuff, I wanted to learn. And then also not only buying for the family, but also buying for paybacks.

We have a lot of godchildren, so when we have godchildren, we have to have traditional clothing, street attire that we put into bundles that we give them after we accept them. The belts are one of the items. Then also mantas, capes.

I weave all in traditional twills that I learned. Very few people nowadays weave in those traditional twills, diamond twill, diagonal twill, herringbone, all of that. A lot of it was declining, but there's a revitalization in that also, in the textiles.

Out of necessity, I learned to provide for my family, my kids, my nieces, nephews, other family members in that way. I always say as a Native artist, I don't think we'll ever become rich because half of what we make, we end up giving to relatives for ceremonies, weddings, birthday, Christmas, things like that. It's not the store-bought gifts, the money, but to get items like that, we say that makes you richer as a human.

A lot of that goes to that. That's where I got into the textiles and textile arts. Now to go to the basketry, the bone tools I use came out of the necessity of when I started working with baskets.

I don't know how far I'm going to go back into the next one, but I work on a project that I get to study artifacts in major museums from the greater southwest area, from around Grand Canyon all the way to Mesa Verde, all the southeast Utah and northern Arizona. Some of the things I look at are archaic basket maker, so you look at a couple thousand-year-old objects, and I replicate. I study them in museums, and I take pictures.

When I look at them, I take pictures to help me remember. Then I go back home, and I try, try, try to replicate that style of basket. Mesa Verde plated ring basket with a false braid rim was made 950 years ago, and then during the pandemic, I replicated one.

Those baskets, I studied those at the Penn Museum. I studied 11 of them, found 9 variations of that braid, and I've replicated 3 of those styles of that braid. In order to replicate them, you have to have the tools that our ancestors used prehistorically.

So a lot of my tools, and my kids love to tease me about it because they call me a Flintstone because I work with bones and stones, rocks. But a lot of my tools, I had to learn how to shape. A lot of my tools are all deer leg bones, so grinding them down, getting the shape, the same way that you see prehistoric awls.

The majority of my awls are all deer with the exception of a few eagle wing bone awls for finer things. Some of the visitors today got a kick because they said, these bones are heavier. I said, yeah, they were dinner.

They're sheep leg bones. So whatever bone, I try and see how they'll work and play around with them. But a lot of my awls, I did have to learn how to make to keep the work similar to what our ancestors prehistorically made.

[Ranger Kelli] I think that's really cool to reconnect with the past of people who have, I guess you can say, in a way have lived in these areas in the southwest region. Mesa Verde, if you all haven't been around to that park, it's actually a national park area that is near the Four Corners region. It's a very amazing human history there of the southwest, especially of the tribes that are still here today that go back to those locations and learn about their ancestors.

And I just want to ask you, Chris, how do you feel reconnecting in that way of the work that you are doing with replicating the tools, but as well as the styles that you are learning from the past? How do you feel about that?

[Chris Lewis] I guess in a way, I feel honored that these objects, I go into collections, first thing I do, stepping in, I acknowledge, I greet, and I feed. When I walk into museum collections, we believe every object we touch and study still has the soul of the plant, the soul of the maker, and still a living entity because of that. So we acknowledge them, we greet them, feed them, and offer our prayers and offerings to them.

So in turn, I think with showing that respect and everything, the makers impart their knowledge and make things clear when we're studying to see what they look like and how they go, how they're assembled. Then for me to see and handle them, my mind goes, just looking at a basket, how intelligent that person was, knowing how baskets are made, but the way they were made. There's one basket that I'm currently trying to replicate.

Today we think the size of the basket is determined by the length of the yucca leaf, how big and how deep you can make it. This basket I had studied at the Penn Museum is 16 1⁄2 inches across by 9 1⁄2 inches deep. So that means you have to be long yucca.

It's made up of three short pieces, and the locks they did are very intricate. Baskets are woven on an eight-sided hexagon shape to fit a ring. This basket is woven on a 16-side.

That's why I'm intrigued to try and figure out how they wove it on 16 sides. It's not a two-strand bind, it's a single loop bind, which I'm really wanting to try my hand at because looking at it, trying to see when I studied it. And if you can believe this basket I'm studying, I have over 300 photos of one basket.

I've counted every strand in it and how many strands before this lock goes this way, how many times this one goes that way. It's ridiculous. I actually made a trip back to the Penn Museum to spend four hours with that basket to get those pictures, to study it, count, do all the counts and everything on it because I just assumed it was made the way we make them nowadays, but getting home and looking at the pictures, there's some really different ways this is done than making that trip all the way back to Philadelphia to study it.

There's another type that's late Pueblo period. They're mostly found in the Kayenta area, but they're woven of three different styles of basketry in one, and the way it's constructed, it's mind-boggling. But how many of you know what a platoon is, like in the Old West saloons?

They're globular with that flared top. This is the exact same shape of the basket. It's globular with a small opening and like a 3- to 4-inch wide collar at the top of it.

Now we're talking maybe 300 years to 400 years before European contact and Pueblo people were weaving that shape. I'm like, okay, what were they used for? How were they used?

But that's the second one I'm looking at. There's another one which we thought was Pueblo period but comes back earlier. Radiocarbon date comes back earlier.

The only way I can term it is not a true basket but a basket bag. When you pull the top, it expands out, and when you pull the yucca cord, it closes back in. But they found that bag about the size of a basketball with 2 pounds of red corn.

Some of those really intrigued me and I sit there and try to figure out how they were constructed just off of the pictures. Some of them I can't empty out the content so I only get exterior photos. But other museums, I might put it out there and other museums say, oh, we have something similar and they'll send me a picture that says that's what I'm looking for and I'll travel up there and look at their baskets to see the insides and stuff and put two and two together.

It's just a lot of that working with the materials and figuring out how they were doing things and just also thinking of where their intelligent level was at to construct some of these baskets and what they were doing.

[Ranger Kelli] And that's why I was like, you're just not a fiber artist. You are a Native researcher. And when I say Native researcher, it's interesting because I think of traditional ecological knowledge versus Western science.

And the stuff that you were telling me today, you actually go to the museums, put on white gloves, and do your own investigation of these baskets. And having these scientists ask you for help, and that's amazing to know that basically I think that it is important to replicate and understand and learn how these baskets are made. And one story that kind of really, I think, touched with me was that you're basically talking about different paints from different plants that actually has been grown around the region, but these scientists can't identify what plant this is to make that paint color.

And you said sunflower. And I was like, this is really cool to know that you can identify these plants around the region to know what specific plant is making that paint. And I don't think you're just a Native researcher, but also, Chris, another work that I think is also very important to talk about is you are on a board with the Bears Ears Partnership.

And if you all don't know, Bears Ears is actually a location, it's a national monument that is in Utah, and it is an amazing cultural and natural resource site that also works with tribes out here in the Southwest. And can you tell a little bit more about that partnership and what that is?

[Chris Lewis] Yeah, I am a board member. I sit on the board of directors. We work a lot with indigenous communities that have ties to the Bears Ears.

When I first was accepted onto the board of directors, I was the first Pueblo representative to sit on the board of directors. So that gave Pueblos a voice over our ancestral sites, our shrines, our cultural areas in the Bears Ears. We do a lot of work.

The biggest one was the litigation over the national monument. I don't know if you guys knew, in Obama's, when he was president, he made that a national monument. And then when Trump went in, he shrunk it down.

Then he went back to almost the size it was designated as, but there was litigation with the state of Utah over some of that, which we played a large part of with other groups to fight them against it, which I'm happy to say that Utah dropped their lawsuit on that and everything's staying. Currently right now, there's some stuff going on with the lands between. Those are not within the designated monument, but the state of Utah has thousands, hundreds of thousands of sites all over the state of Utah that are ancestral Puebloan.

Then you have also, and I believe they're trying to change the name, but there's the Diné, the Navajo Pueblitas, the fortified homesteads, and a lot of other things, also youth sites and things like that. And then we have the ambassador program, the Visit with Respect, teaching visitors how to respectfully visit those areas, meet and greet. Then we have an education center where we educate visitors that come in about not only the Bears Ears and the sites around, but also the indigenous communities around the area that have associations with Bears Ears.

And the only way we do a lot of this stuff is through the donations from the small community of the Bears Ears Partnership.

[Ranger Kelli] Really amazing to hear you not only protecting and preserving ancestral tools that you are trying to revitalize, and also you're trying to create a voice for not only Zuni, but like you said, Pueblos, nations across the Southwest to protect ancestral sites. And that is part of Bears Ears National Monument. And I think you did say that you want to also educate visitors who are visiting these locations to kind of recreate respectfully, but also leave no trace.

I just want to hear from your perspective of why that's important to educate that.

[Chris Lewis] Not only ancestral cultural sites and areas, but overall, even your front yard, back yard. If you throw things on the ground or dump things that can be hazardous, it won't affect you right away, but maybe the next generation of your family, the accumulation on the earth, that a lot of the plastics, things like that, don't degrade right away. I was surprised, even when you're hiking, you think peeling a tangerine, a cutie, and throwing it under a tree, that you're helping the environment to continue by composting, but an orange will not decay for 100 years.

So that orange will just stay on the surface, could harm the wildlife that may try to eat it, the oils and chemicals that oranges naturally produce. So even minor things like that, like cans stay on the surface a long time, rusting and things like that. So it's always in the back of my mind.

If you go somewhere, what you carry in, carry out. Try not to change the environment except for your footsteps. A lot of these things can affect plants, and also in myself, it's really unsightly to come across someone else's garbage that I eventually pick up and carry out, but it's always like completely remote areas coming and finding huge dump sites, everyday garbage.

[Ranger Kelli] It's interesting because I think that people don't realize how much not staying on the trail can damage the environment. It can reduce the vegetation. Also the native plants that you are trying to study to keep those plants going for understanding your history as a pebble.

So I'm just going to ask one more question. What do you want the audience to take away from what we just talked about? What is one thing you want the audience to take away?

[Chris Lewis] It would be that indigenous-made crafts, especially basketry and stuff, the continuality of it goes back thousands of years for us Pueblo people to know that the baskets carry the life of the plant, carry the life of the maker, because when I'm working, the sweat, I guess you could say the sweat, the skin cells, and sometimes my blood ends up in a basket, so my life is going into that basket. Any basket maker, their life is going into that. And then that the name in our language for a basket and a human are the same, representing life.

Just the appreciation of it, because that's one of the main arts that is the hardest to do, and not many people are doing them anymore, are the baskets. So just knowing that all that work, hours, days, months to create one basket, the appreciation of it.

[Ranger Kelli] Thank you so much. I know we had a very short conversation. I'm very sad.

And if you do have any questions, Chris is going to be here. Come up here directly to him. And have a great evening.

[Ranger Jonah] Grand Canyon Speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy. A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music. This recording reflects the personal lived experiences of tribal members and do not encompass the views of their tribal nation or that of the National Park.

To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices, visit www.nps.gov/GRCA. Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon. These being the Havasupai Tribe, the Hualapai Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

On a rainy day, Ranger Kelli got to speak with Chris Lewis about his work as a fiber/textile artist and how he’s incorporated his studies of earlier basketry over the years. He was also able to talk about his position on the board of directors for the Bears Ears Partnership and be one of the voices for Pueblo of Zuni.

Episode 18

Darance Chimerica Speaks

Transcript

Darance Chimerica Speaks

[Makwesa]

I'm going to do this, and in two years, I'm going to be really good. I'm going to go to all these shows. I'm going to, you know, make it big.

Hopefully get a car or something for myself. But that didn't happen. It took a very, very long time for me to accomplish some of the things that I had envisioned.

[Lakin]

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Grand Canyon Speaks. This is Lakin.

[Meranden]

And this is Meranden.

[Lakin]

In this episode, Ranger Dawn spoke with Darance Makwesa Chimerica, who has been a Hopi Kachina carver since 1997.

[Meranden]

He describes how his art allowed him to explore many places around the world with his family and develop as an artist.

[Lakin]

In addition to his carving, he is a dryland farmer and sits on the board for Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture, which is a non-profit based in the village Kykotsmovi.

[Meranden]

Thanks for tuning in, and here is Makwesa.

[Makwesa]

I'm Darance Chimerica. A lot of the people at home on Hopi refer to me by my Hopi name, Makwesa. I live about an hour and a half from here on the Hopi reservation.

And I'm here for three days to show some of Hopi culture, Kachina dolls.

[Ranger Dawn]

I wanted to start off by asking you about your craft and how you got into Kachina doll making and what it means.

[Makwesa]

I started in 1997. I had grandfathers on my mother's and my father's side that both did Kachina dolls. And my mother's father, my grandfather, he was a textile weaver, so he did traditional textile weaving.

And in high school, elementary, you're already starting to prepare for what you want to be. You ask children what they want to be when they grow up. Some want to be doctors, policemen, firemen, astronauts, all of these things.

But me, I really had no clue of what I was going to do after when I graduated high school. So at the time, during my high school years, my aunt's boyfriend at the time introduced me to carving. Kachina doll carving.

And I did some of the basics. And after high school, I did masonry, fence working, and all of that. But it just didn't really fit me.

I didn't really have the desire to continue. So I started looking into Kachina doll carving. You know, being out of high school, being young, 18 years old, thinking I'm going to do this.

And in two years, I'm going to be really good. I'm going to go to all these shows. I'm going to, you know, make it big.

Hopefully get a car or something for myself. But that didn't happen. It took a very, very long time for me to accomplish some of the things that I had envisioned.

Three years after high school, you know, it's still, you know, I was struggling. And in 2003, luckily, you know, I met a gallery owner and he introduced me to other people. And those people were the ones that launched my carving career.

That was my first big show in 2003 when I went to a gallery and I was able to display some of my Kachina doll carvings. And to this day, there's, I'm still, you know, connected to them. And we, there are older men now, they're in their 70s and they're up there in their years.

So after I went through so many trial and errors, failures, and, you know, accomplishments. And, you know, reaching some of my goals and then applying to some of these art shows that I saw advertised. Thinking, you know, it would be easy getting into these shows, but they're very, very, you know, competitive.

And your work, you're competing against some of the high-end artists. So me being, you know, down at the bottom of the ladder, you know, it didn't come. So finally in 2008, I finally got into the big market, the Santa Fe Indian Art Market, which is held in August.

And I think that's when I felt like things started to turn for the good. After that, you know, I just kept going. It's just very competitive in the art world, especially carving amongst hundreds of Hopi carvers.

You know, they look down on you, they look at you, they see who you are and your style of work. So it was pretty hard at the moment to where I almost kind of gave up. But with Hopi dolls, it's just not just an art form, but it's also a traditional practice that is taught to the Hopis.

Kachina dolls are given to young children, females, and they're given to them as teaching tools when they're first born as infants. And then as they grow up to the age of 12, and that's when they start to go into another phase of approaching adulthood. And then after that, you know, the doll grows with them.

They're given simple dolls, and as they grow older, they become more detailed and more elaborate. But there's a lot of history in Kachina doll making and the people that first started carving them. But that's just a little bit of history of how I started and where I came from.

[Ranger Dawn]

Yeah, it sounds like you had a big support system behind you getting started.

[Makwesa]

Yeah, I did. I had family. Well, my mother, my father, they didn't push me to, you know, you got to do something, you know.

They just left it up to me to, you know, figure out what I want to do after I graduated. And I have three children. I have my son, my oldest is 11.

I have a daughter that's nine and I have my youngest is four. Right now, my support is solely my immediate family, my kids and my wife.

[Ranger Dawn]

Yeah, when we were talking earlier, you were describing like your current lifestyle now, like with your children and how school works. So do you want to like kind of talk about that?

[Makwesa]

Yeah, so my kids, they're homeschooled. The benefits of that, you know, being self-employed is I get to wake up to my children every morning. My wife, you know, she's a homemaker.

Plus she has she works with the university with the cancer prevention program. So she's able to work from home. And yet she's able to, you know, when the kids are in school, she tends to them if they need help or if there's a parent that needs to be involved, she's there.

And occasionally I'll be a part of it when I'm not too busy. But I'm the one that, you know, makes the money, pay the bills and, you know, carry all that load. But my children are homeschooled and I do a lot of different shows.

Recently, I just got back from Washington, D.C. And that's the good thing about, you know, homeschooling. I'm able to take my children with me to these shows and they're able to benefit from that. Going to the museums, learning and then seeing the different environments and then the cities and then, you know, just participating in that way.

And I'm thankful for my wife. You know, while I'm doing my art show, she's there to tend to the kids, take them to all the museums. And, you know, they have a blast.

And, you know, I think it's good for everybody, for us, you know, because they're able to. We were in Washington. They went to the Lincoln Memorial.

They went to the Spy Museum. And it's a good thing, you know.

[Ranger Dawn]

Yeah, that's definitely a unique experience growing up with a lot of hands-on learning, which I thought was really cool. Yeah. So when you're taking your kids to your shows and they're watching you make art, how do you want to be a role model to them?

Like, what do you want to impart on them?

[Makwesa]

Well, you know, it's just, you know, some parents are, you know, you got to go to university to succeed. While with me, I don't feel that it's particularly you have to go to a university to succeed. You can go to a trade school or you can go into the art world.

But with my experience with being an artist, you know, I'd rather not have my children go into the art world because it's very, you know, it took me a while. I've been doing this for 25, 26 years. And it took me a while to know, to find my place in the art world where I know I feel like I am succeeding.

And all of the failures and accomplishments, like I explained earlier, you know, those things sometimes can wear you down. But I just tell my children, you know, well, my only daughter, she already has something envisioned that what she wants to be is she wants to be a dentist for kids. Because she really likes, she's really friendly.

She's really outgoing. She's really, you know, when she sees babies, she's like really attentive to them. So that is kind of something that's probably that would fit her.

And then, you know, the Hopi values of where we come from, you know, that's another part of what I try to incorporate with our daily lives. Our culture is still active. We're still trying to preserve it the best way we can.

And I'm heavily active in my culture, tending to Hopi cultural activities. And my son, you know, he's 11 and he's getting to that age to where, you know, I'm going to start to teach him all of what I know. You know, planting, we Hopis are dry farmers.

All we rely on is the elements, the snow and the rain. And those are my goals is to try to be the best parent, you know, raising them in both worlds of the Hopi and the modern society. So, but that's what I want to teach my kids.

You know, and then what I what I'm doing, you know, hard work can get you somewhere. You know, you just got to be good at it and not, you know, go half ass on it.

[Ranger Dawn]

Yeah, so true. Yeah, I feel like when I was talking to you, I got a sense of just like how resilient you were, like doing this for so long. And then all the ups and downs you had to go through.

So I think that's great that you were trying to teach your kids that. So you've been doing this for how many years?

[Makwesa]

26 years. 26 years. Yeah.

[Ranger Dawn]

How do you see yourself growing in your craft?

[Makwesa]

Well, OK, when I first did my first show, one of my first, he was a gallery owner in Santa Fe and he retired and he's almost about 80. But I remember in 2003 when I met him, he said to me that this was just like maybe two, three years ago. He told me that, man, you changed a lot.

And he goes, when I first met you, you never really said anything. You were very quiet and just trying to make you talk, get you to talk was kind of a task. So doing the art and then demonstrating and going to these art shows, I think I've started to develop myself into learning how to speak.

Because when you're on Hopi, we're really secluded. Where Hopi is located, it's about an hour and a half here. And there's three mesas, first, second and third mesa, and there's 12 villages.

And each mesa has different villages. For instance, like the first mesa, there's three villages on top of a plateau. And those villages are called Walpi, Sitsomovi, and Tewa.

Then on the second mesa, you have Musangnuvi, Supawlavi, and Songoopavi. And then on the third mesa, you have Kikotsmovi, Old Orayvi, Paaqavi, and Hotvela. And then 45 miles from all the villages, there is a farming village, and that is called Munqapi.

And just trying to teach my children about Hopi values and the modern society, it's challenging with the distractions. But it's not going anywhere, so you just got to incorporate it and try and live both lives, two worlds.

[Ranger Dawn]

Totally. Yeah, that makes sense. Not only is Darance a kachina doll carver and a very talented one, he's also really into permaculture.

So I don't know if you wanted to talk about that a bit.

[Makwesa]

Yeah, so I'm on the board of the Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture. And what that is, is that it's a local program that is funded by Hopi-owned couple. Their name is Jacobo and Lillian Hill.

And what they do is that, well, when they first started, they were building straw bale homes for Hopi families. And they were using natural resources from around the area, building materials, straw bales, cob, using all the clay. So with that, Jacobo, the organizer, approached me and asked if I would like to be on the board.

I said, sure. So I'm new to the board now. I just recently got on.

I've been on there for now two months. But we actually live in one of those permaculture homes, straw bale homes. And with that, it's a great thing for the environment, using all natural building material.

Nothing chemical. The earth is earthen floor. The walls are straw bale.

The inside of the walls are cob. And it's a really good home for winter insulation. But then city life, building codes, they vary.

It's interesting that we do plants, trees. They do farmer's markets. They try to incorporate Hopi seeds, native seeds.

And they distribute to other families to try and help them build up their seed bank. So that's what permaculture is about.

[Ranger Dawn]

I'm personally a super fan of that. I love that. I think that's so interesting.

And it definitely shows how much you value exposing Hopi culture and teaching others about it, which I think I can definitely tell you value that a lot, which is great. You kind of touched on it earlier. What is your idea of success?

[Makwesa]

My idea of success is the basic things. You're more rich than you think you are. If you have food on the table, a roof over your head, and transportation, and your family's healthy, I think that's more success than anything.

And that's what I have. I have the basic necessities. I have a home.

My kids are healthy. Sometimes just being humble about what you have. Anywhere in any society, movie stars, art world, musicians, artists, all that, you have different personalities.

You have some that like to be out there, are very outspoken. But me, I'm kind of more of the silent person. And just be humble and just let my artwork do the talking.

And with that, I think that's part of my success, is just letting my work do the talking. If you like it, good. If not, then it's OK.

I've gone through a lot. What I do, I'm very fortunate to where I had no idea where I was going to be or where I was going to end up. I went to Japan for 18 days, and I was able to experience the culture there, the foods and all of that, meet the people.

And these dolls took me there. And recently I was in Florida and Washington, D.C., and I still got other events coming up through the year. So it's been a very good journey so far.

So that's what I think is success, with anything, just to go hard at it.

[Ranger Dawn]

Yeah, that's a great sentiment to share. And yeah, Darance is definitely very humble when he's talking about his work. He's very talented and has been all over the place with his work.

I guess I have one last question. What do you want them to take away from this talk, from your work?

[Makwesa]

Well, I can't really tell you what to think or what to say or how to feel. But just the kachina figure did have a real big impact on society. So what I'm trying to incorporate is that I'm trying to revive some of the techniques that were done back in the 1800s, early 1900s.

Being very simple, using natural material, paints. And back then they used vegetable dyes, mineral dyes, and they used yucca plant for a paintbrush. So all of that, they tried to incorporate what they had in their environment into their kachina dolls.

So with that, there's the meaning behind the kachina dolls. And Hopi is katsina. And they represent life, long life.

And not just for the Hopi people, for everybody, for every race. What we do inside the kivas is not just for ourselves or for material things. We do it for the sake of everybody and for every living thing.

We don't do it just to do it. So that's part of what we are, of being Hopi. We're agricultural people.

We are not like some of the tribes up in the north where they're the Sioux, the Crow, the Blackfeet. They're more of a warrior tribe, the Comanche, the Apache. They are the warrior tribe.

But the Hopis are more of a peaceful people, agricultural people. So what I have here is a (Hopi word), which is a clown. And what he does is that during a dance, when there's a kachina dance, a group of these clowns will come off the roof.

And they'll be yelling, and then they'll be screaming and laughing. And they'll be talking in Hopi and talking to each other like, how are we going to get down from this roof? And then we'll be looking down and see.

What they see on the ground is everything is green, everything is nice. And they want to get down to the bottom to see all of that. So they'll maybe get a rope and have a tire.

And then they'll throw each other off the roof like a bungee, like one of those bungee cord things. I don't know what you call them. They'll be getting off, and ladies and people will be yelling and screaming and laughing.

So they'll get to the bottom, and they kind of mimic the bad things of society. And you see, you hear the people laughing at what they're doing. So it's kind of a teaching that you're laughing at some of the things that you guys are doing that is wrong.

They misbehave. They say things that's really not, you know, very nice. But they are the ones that, you know, kind of teach the people how to be and not how to act and, you know, proper behavior.

So then this one, this one's called (Hopi word). He is considered one of the rain kachinas and symbolizes the big cumulus summer dark rain clouds, moisture, and the rain, and all the good things of water. When he appears, he usually carries a boar, and he'll spin that, kind of like making that noise, that vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom.

So what that's, what he's representing is that he's trying to bring all the moisture, all the clouds, all the rain, and everything to him. All of the symbols are all traditional Hopi symbols. So each kachina has a meaning.

So a lot of people wonder, like, you know, did I make up the designs? I said, no, these are, these are all traditional. And these are all painted with natural earth mineral paints that I hand collect, and I hand process myself.

[Ranger Dawn]

So, yeah. No, that was great.

[Makwesa]

Kind of went, went the long route on that one.

[Ranger Dawn]

No, I think it was wonderful. Thank you so much for, for sharing your dolls and for sharing your story.

[Makwesa]

Yeah.

[Ranger Dawn]

I can open it up to questions now, if anyone has any.

[Makwesa]

Yeah, everybody have any questions? You know, yeah. Do I see any changes from the 10 years I've been here?

Well, there's one thing I've been really excited about. So when I first came, when I would do a transaction, I would have to walk to the post, to that, the ice cream store there. And then when they're doing construction, this was last year, I had to walk all the way to the bathroom to get my transaction done.

But this year was the first time I was actually able to do it inside the watchtower. But going to my work from my workspace at home, doing my, my artwork, not knowing where my dolls are going to end up. Who's going to, you know, I can't predict where they're going to be.

So, you know, when I do these shows, people that approach me, the reactions, the feelings, you know, that I get pays off. And plus, you know, it pays bills and daily life, you know, to live in society. But that's the most rewarding thing that I could ask for is, you know, just meeting the people, experiencing the places that I've been, eating the foods.

And, you know, it's just been wonderful. And, you know, I don't I don't want to stop. But with me being a self-employed, you know, you get to manage your own time schedule.

You know, I don't want to work today. I want to spend time with my kids. I want to take them.

I want to take them to the zoo. I'm able to do that. But, you know, at the beginning, you know, it was kind of, you know, unpredictable if you were going to make it through the show, if you were going to have income.

And then when COVID hit, you know, that was a very scary time because being self-employed, I wasn't able to rely on the check coming. It wasn't guaranteed. Then, you know, friendships was the real big thing that really got me out of it.

And I'm really thankful for that, for the people that I've met. I feel like I owe them a lot for helping me and getting me through those hard times. And right now, you know, you still kind of feel the effects of it.

But now I think it's trending to a good, you know, the economy is not very well, but, you know, people are still out there. They're buying and then, you know, things are looking good and I'm happy.

[Ranger Dawn]

That's wonderful. I love that you like grounded yourself in gratitude and that things are looking up for you. Well, it was so wonderful talking to you and getting to know you.

Yeah. Thank you so much. Everyone want to give a hand for this.

[Ranger Jonah]

Grand Canyon Speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy. A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music. This recording reflects the personal lived experiences of tribal members and do not encompass the views of their tribal nation or that of the National Park.

In this episode, Ranger Dawn sat down with Darance “Makwesa” Chimerica about being a kachina doll carver for over 26 years. He provides some insight into how it’s been a journey of challenges but also many accomplishments. He also speaks on his involvement with the Hopitutskwa Permaculture as a board member.

Episode 19

Caroline Wilson Speaks

Transcript

Caroline Wilson Speaks

[Caroline]

I tell my grandkids and my kids, I said, you can't dwell on what things that might have happened to you, what happened to your people a long time ago. It'll just bring you down. So now, you have to look forward.

Look for the good. Only for the good. Yes, remember your history, but look ahead.

That's what I teach the young people and those that I love.

[Meranden]

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Grand Canyon Speaks. This is Meranden.

[Ranger Eliana]

And I'm Ranger Eliana.

[Meranden]

In this episode, Ranger Dan spoke with Grand Canyon Conservancy employee, Caroline Wilson, about what it was like growing up at Grand Canyon with her grandparents.

[Ranger Eliana]

She describes what her childhood was like, from carting wool with her grandma to spending her high school summers working at the hotels in the Grand Canyon village and the town of Tusayan.

[Meranden]

She also talks about some very interesting delicacies you can find on the Navajo reservation.

[Ranger Eliana]

As always, thank you for tuning in to today's episode. Season 2 has been filled with so many amazing episodes, and we're glad to be sharing them with you all.

[Meranden]

And here is Caroline Wilson.

[Caroline]

Hey. Good evening, everybody. My name is Caroline Wilson.

Bighorse is my maiden name. First of all, I'm an elder. I call myself an elder of my people and of my family.

So I'm a grandmother, a mother, and a wife. So it's good to look at people and know who you're talking to. And I figured that's what I would do this evening.

So how many of you know about the Navajo people? Okay. So I want to teach you a word.

Some of my coworkers already know the word. In the South Pacific during World War II, they used our language, the code talker language. And I want to teach you one word, and that way we'll greet one another.

How's that? And so this is not a code word, but it's a greeting word, okay? So I'm going to say it to you, and I want you to say it to me, okay?

Yá'át'ééh. Yá'át'ééh. One more time.

Yá'át'ééh. Yá'át'ééh. Nice to meet all of you also.

And welcome to the Grand Canyon. And I so appreciate Dan for being here. He's kind of a support, and also my coworkers.

Thank you for your support (Speaks Navajo). So it's very nice. The canyon is a blessing to me right now.

I was working at another place, and I was kind of stagnated in my job. I wanted to do something else. And for some reason, I was looking through the newspaper one day, and I saw a conservancy ad in there.

And I didn't know what a conservancy was. I didn't know the meaning. And as I have come to learn what the meaning is about, it's to raise funds for the Grand Canyon.

And in a way that we sell products here at the Watchtower, and 84% of that money goes back into programs that are made available to you that visit us here every day. And I so appreciated that. And I've been here for probably 2 years and 4 months, going on 5 months.

So it's a wonderful place, and I'm sure you agree with me because you're here today to experience this awesome site. And Dan was asking me, what is it that you gained from knowing about the National Park? When I was young, I remember one experience when I was young, maybe around 6 or 7.

My grandfather, he was a medicine man. And he would go out and gather herbs. I didn't know what they were.

So my grandma and him, my grandma and my grandpa, for some reason, I just got in and we came up here. I don't remember which area. And then I followed them.

I guess he was looking for a certain herb. And even though I was really young, I noticed the reverence that he had. And so he went to a certain bush, and then he stood there for a bit and he said a prayer.

And then he finally knelt down on the ground and he reverently took some of those herbs out of the ground. And then he showed me without telling me that this is how you treat plants, especially the ones that you're going to use in ceremonies, and maybe the type that maybe you're going to eat also. And so I remember that to this day.

And then my grandmother, she was a practitioner also. She also gathered herbs. In Navajo, they call her a (Navajo word).

It means to bring children into the world. It wasn't a job because she just knew what to do. And so back in the day, they didn't have hospitals.

And so sometimes a mother would have difficulty giving birth, and then they would send for her. And then she would use these herbs to relieve the pain, and she was able to turn babies also. This was my grandmother Grace.

And so I feel inadequate right now because I didn't learn those things from her. I wasn't able to spend 24 hours with her for the last 67 years, but I was able to appreciate what she did and how I was able to experience her teachings. She was also a weaver also.

And so these are two great people that I've known when I was little. So I'm sharing that with you. It's very personal.

My mother. My mother is Julia Curley, and there's 10 of us that she raised. I'm the second to the oldest.

My brother is the oldest, and then I have siblings. One of them is sitting right here. And so very awesome lady.

When we were little, we didn't have a vehicle to get around, and I didn't know at the time that we were very poor. We didn't know that, or I didn't know that. So the way to get to the hospital, to the grocery stores, we'd go on the road and hitchhike, and then somebody would just pick us up and then take us to the grocery store or to the hospital.

And then that's what I remember. We would either live in a hogan, a tent, or maybe just a shed structure. At that time, we would move with our livestock, my grandparents' livestock.

And Dan was asking me about that. And here, up in the high desert, it doesn't rain constantly, and sometimes you'll have a drought for maybe two years. So you had to move where the water was, where the feed for your animals were.

So we moved great distances, and that's why we lived like a nomadic life. But there was a lot to learn. My grandmother wove, so I must have been about five.

She would say, Here, I want you to card this wool. Here, I'm just a little kid. And the carding things are about this big.

And so you'd be sitting there carding and scratching your arm. But it was something that you'd learn. And you would make a pile of it, and she would look at it.

And she would pick this one out, and then she'd say, Redo these. And you would be sitting there with your arms scratched up. But it was a learning experience.

From carding wool, then you did the spinning. You would sit there, and you would spin the wool. I only got to that point.

I didn't learn to weave. Thank goodness. I mean, there are other people that are really good weavers, but I didn't learn.

So at the age of 10, my mother was introduced to a religion. Missionaries came to see her. I'm not sure why she did it, but I'm sure she probably saw an opportunity where her kids could be educated.

And so we were sent away to school to Southern California, to Los Angeles and San Diego. That's where we learned to speak English fluently. That's how we learned to mingle with everybody.

We lived with different families, but the families that I stayed with, they were my second family. And I appreciate what they did for me, and it made me the person that I am today.

[Ranger Dan]

Thank you for that, Caroline. Those are great words and excellent things for people to understand. Just growing up, you've had so many experiences that you just mentioned.

We could touch upon all of that tonight, and you'd be here until the moon is out and over the horizon. You were talking about how long your family's been in this area earlier. We got back into the 1800s, talking about your great-grandparents.

You're stable today. You're in one location, right? But your great-grandparents, they moved. They moved across this landscape. Can you tell everyone how they moved across this landscape?

[Caroline]

Sure. So the Navajo people, they're a matrilineal society. Everything goes through the ladies, through the women. So our clan system stays with the women.

It goes through the daughters. So they're the ones that are the owners of their land, whatever property that they have. The men, they come in, become part of the family.

And so in the old traditions, the uncles, they're the ones that taught the young ones, the mother's brothers. They're the ones that would teach the offsprings of the mom. The dad was basically there for support and to bring, you know, good things to the family.

And that's what the Navajo people are about. So after the long walk, they were able to go home. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but there was a time that the Navajos were gathered up.

They were incarcerated at a place called Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. And they were there for close to six years. And I think there was possibly maybe around 3,500 left of our people.

And they were finally allowed to go home. And they did a treaty with the United States government. And from there, they were allowed to go home.

And this is our homeland here. But some of our people, they weren't rounded up. Guess where they ended up?

Down here. They hid from the soldiers. And they lived most of their time down here.

And once the treaty was signed, then they were able to come out. And they say, well, we were never caught. But there were a lot that were.

And my grandmother on my grandfather's side, she was 10 years old when she walked all the way to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. That's where it is. And so a lot of our people did that.

And so once they were back at their homeland, I think the government, through the treaties, they were given livestock. And they were given different things. And so from there, they rebuilt themselves.

And at the time of my grandmother, she was my grandmother, Grace's grandmother. They called her a (Navajo word). So she had very light-colored hair.

Anyway, she was the only sister to six brothers. So you can imagine the clanship went through her, and a lot of the things went through her. So she was pretty well off.

And so at the time when she was probably in her prime, she had over 2,400 herds of sheep and horses. At that time, they didn't have cattle. And so you can imagine 2,400 sheep, what they eat, and how much water that they needed.

So the people that had that kind of wealth and livestock, they had to travel great distances to find water and feed. And so they could go as far as San Francisco Peaks, all the way into probably southern Utah, all the way into Farmington. So they were able to roam where they were able to take their sheep.

There was no restriction. It wasn't until later that they had to go be only in their area. And so she was able to do that, and she had family members that would help her with that.

And how they used that. You're considered wealthy when you have that much, you know. And Dan asked me what type of monetary, how did they use that.

Did they use money? Did they use, you know? No, they used what they had.

So yearly, spring lambs were taken to the trading post, and the trading post owner would buy those from them, and then they would cart them off wherever they sell that. Sheep wool was very expensive. They would have hundreds of people go from one sheep camp to the other, just shearing, shearing.

It's hard to do. I've done it. My sister just did that for her sister a while ago.

My back won't allow me, but it is very hard. But they used to fill gunny sacks taller than way up here, and then they would go and take those to market, and they would get money for that. And a lot of them, my people were good silversmiths, and they're still well known for that.

The women, well known for their weaving. And all the women that I knew in my family, the older ones, they all wove, and so they would get money from that. And so they were very industrious people when they were at that time.

And I think we still are, even though I don't weave, even though I don't have silversmithing, even though I don't have sheep. I made it my goal to work, and I feel that that's part of the continuing self-sufficiency. Do it for your family.

I have four daughters, my husband Albert. I have ten grandkids. My husband worked for Peabody Coal Company.

They had a coal mine over here at Black Mesa. He worked there for close to 40 years. And so my daughters, they would say, I want to be a welder like my dad.

And then my dad goes, no, that's not a good place for a woman. And guess what they did? They're welders.

And so, yeah, that's what they do, and that's how they support themselves and their families. And so there's not, jobs are not available. As you can see, we have to come all the way out here.

So my son-in-laws, they're also welders or iron workers. So they go as far as Phoenix. It's Utah, sometimes as far as Wyoming, Montana, where jobs, good jobs are available.

So that's why they do it. So that's where we learn to be self-sufficient.

[Ranger Dan]

So you're talking about self-sufficiency, industrialization, being industrious and taking things into your own hands and making something out of it. I mean, like, you were handed wool at five years old and told to cart it, and you're making a product at that point. But you told me earlier that in order to kind of get an escape, but it also was on that self-sufficiency side that the kids from Cameron would come up to the canyon here, work in the hotels or the restaurants, and do some part-time jobs like flipping beds and doing whatever else.

What was that time like to come up here?

[Caroline]

That was high school years. When you want to be away from your parents and get into things you're not supposed to get into. So I think I started around my junior year, and I had a bunch of friends at Cameron.

I said, let's go do something. And so we hitchhiked to the village and then to Tusayan, and we were hired right away to be bussers. And they gave us a room there, and we stayed in a dorm.

And that's what we did all summer long. We probably made about $500. But hey, that's money.

So you buy maybe a pair of pants or a shirt or something nice. And we did that every summer when we were free. It was a way to get away from our parents and just have fun.

And so a lot of us were bussers. Some of them helped the maids take the sheets off the beds. And then in the evening we would take off, and we knew young people would be at the movies or they would have that in the village there.

And that was a fun time.

[Ranger Dan]

Yeah, it's part of the community at that point. It's the community of Cameron. It's the community up here as well.

And yeah, there are great ties for everyone to come up here. So out of curiosity, did you work at the El Tovar ever, the Bright Angel, the hotels on the rim of the canyon?

[Caroline]

We did one stint at the El Tovar. They had a dorm right there behind the El Tovar where they would house the kids. And then one of my friends says, let's go to Tusayan.

Let's go over there and do some bussing. They give good tips over there. And guess where we went?

We went over there. Yeah, cool.

[Ranger Dan]

Yeah, I hope the people at the El Tovar are getting good tips now. It's the swanky hotel up here on the rim of the canyon. So your time frame here has changed as it's gone on.

You've become stationary. You've had the family. You've grown in this space here, but also traveled at the same time, like going out to California, being educated.

Do you feel your views on this area, your perspective has changed as time has gone on?

[Caroline]

Oh, yes, uh-huh. I believe it has. So when you're young, when you're really young, you have the influence of your grandparents and your parents, and they teach you up to a certain point.

But as you get a little bit older and you're a teenager, then you have another perspective, and then you learn things, maybe things that you shouldn't learn, you know. But that's a great lesson too, you know. And you say, well, I'm not going to do that again, you know, those type of things.

And then now, I've been working for quite a few years, and I do have a different perspective. I may not be as traditional as most Navajos because I have teachings that were given to me from a lot of people, not just my own family. And you choose your path.

It's not bad, you know. You choose what people have taught you. And I try to teach my daughters and my grandkids, but they're still going to make that choice, whether they want to be traditional or nontraditional or maybe semi, you know, whatever they want to do.

Maybe they'll carry both traditions. And so I have grandkids that are, their ancestry, they're part German. And a lot of the Navajo people, the world has opened up to them.

And what we've been taught as kids, the kids, you know, they don't take that and use it. They go their own way. That's why we have a lot of in-laws from all over the world.

And they live on our land, and our people have moved to New York City. They live in the Caribbean. They live in Hawaii.

Some of them even, my granddaughter, she's in the Navy right now. She's somewhere in France. So she goes, I can't tell you, it's a secret.

[Ranger Dan]

And the postcard's redacted.

[Caroline]

But her name is Caitlin, and now she's traveling the world, things that I didn't do. I don't like airplanes. So my kids wanted to take me to Hawaii.

I said, you're going to have to put me to sleep to go over there. But anyway, that's how it is nowadays. And my grandparents used to say, you marry your own kind.

Don't marry outside your tribe. And it didn't work. And that's why we have so many people that we live with here in this area, people of other nations.

And I'm sure at one time we were enemies. We didn't like each other. We killed each other, you know.

There was a time that that's how it was. And all over the world, that's like that. There's a time you become who you are, and through your teachings, you look at people a different way.

And it's good that you're able to do that. And that's why I love being here. I get to meet people from all over the world.

Your humanity starts showing, you know. Because when you're a minority like I am, I've experienced a lot of racism. It's a hard thing to deal with.

But you also meet a lot of good people out there. And I tell my grandkids and my kids, I said, you can't dwell on what things that might have happened to you, what happened to your people a long time ago. It'll just bring you down.

So now you have to look forward, look for the good, only for the good. Yes, remember your history, but look ahead. That's what I teach the young people and those that I love.

[Ranger Dan]

I think, yeah. (Applause) Thank you. I think your teachings go beyond your family.

I like to say we've got the Grand Canyon family up here as well. And so learning from you and from Marian, I learn something every day. And so those teachings go beyond just your family.

It might not be said outright, but with the staff here at the park, yeah, we learn a lot from both of you every day up here at the canyon. And we're very proud to call you all family and friends. Awesome.

Thank you. And some of these lessons, we talk a lot about food. If you hang out with me, you'll learn that I like to talk about food.

So if you spend time out here, you get to know that there are certain things that are like delicacies in the area. And we brought one up today. I have not had it yet, but I think people need to learn about Piccadilly a little bit here just to get a little flavor of what a treat this is in the surrounding communities.

[Caroline]

Anybody know about Piccadilly? How many of you like pickles? How many of you like Kool-Aid?

How many of you like snow cones? All right. So they combine all that into a treat, plus the pickles.

And that's a Piccadilly of the Navajo Nation. And gummy candy. And when I first tasted it, I wasn't too sure.

And I'm like, oh, gosh. And after a while, it tasted okay. And then now I'll have it every other week.

So see this tree right here? This is a juniper tree. So some of them already have the berries on there.

They're edible when they turn purple. So it's a native food. So what we do with that is you can crush it, dry it, and use it in a porridge.

Or you can just plop it in your mouth and eat it if you want to. And so you can take the little nubs, like the leaves, you burn that into an ash. And then you put it in your cereal with corn.

Or you can take coffee. You can do that with cornmeal, too. And it's a type of delicacy that we have that we use in our foods.

So if you look up here, up here, this is a pinyon pine tree. Do you see the little nubs on there? That's going to produce the pinyon pine nuts.

And we're going to have a good crop this fall. It's very hard on the knees because you have to get down on your knees and pick up the pine nuts. That's another storage food.

You would gather those in the fall and store it. And that was another way to survive the winter. So just a few of the foods that Dan is talking about.

There are so many. So I want to share one experience that I had while I was out pinyon picking. Oh, I love to pick pinyons.

I'm one of the first ones there. So one morning I called my mother. I said, Mom, can you go pinyon picking with me?

And she goes, No, I'm busy. So I'm calling around to people, and then I found my uncle's wife. Her name is Eileen.

She goes, Yeah, yeah, yeah. She talks really fast. She goes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go.

So it took us like 30 minutes to get everything together, and we took off. There's a place right over here. There's big pinyon trees.

So we went over there. We got there around 8.30, and we just immediately just started picking pinyons. Then around 1 o'clock, let's take a break.

Let's eat some lunch. So we took out our Vienna sausage and crackers, and we had that for lunch. As we were finishing up, I said, Eileen, let's move the truck over here, maybe 200 yards.

So she said okay, so she took off again. So I got in my vehicle, and I moved the truck away. I was getting out of my vehicle, and I heard 2 girls talking.

It was coming from the east, and there's a road that goes along the side of the forest. I thought, I wonder who's parked over there. When they were talking, I couldn't make out the language.

I said, I wonder who is that? I stood there waiting for them to come out of the woods. Then curiosity got the best of me, so I went out there, and I started walking up a little ways.

Then I kind of had this tingling on my back. I said, oh my gosh, what is that? Then they never came out.

Then I looked around. Before I started picking pinons, I walked maybe a half a mile around radius to see where I could find the big ones. So I looked around where I walked.

I didn't see anything. I said, I wonder if they came before we came. Then I'm standing there, and then again I heard the two girls talking, two young girls.

They were laughing. I thought, who are they? I said, hello, and there was no answer.

Then I just thought, wow. While I was doing the check in the morning, I came upon some ruins. They look like this, but a smaller version, just to the east.

They were the old ruins that you see out in the forest. So I said, Eileen, come back, because I kind of got, it got a little bit eerie after that. So the only thing that I could come to about that experience was they were people that lived there before.

They were laughing and talking and walking and talking with each other. I didn't meet them, but I heard them. So that was my experience I wanted to share with you.

So you are in their land. They used to live here, and now we do.

[Ranger Dan]

. This place is home to the people now, and also before, but also for the people in the future.

[Caroline]

Exactly.

[Ranger Dan]

This is a place to be preserved and cared about, and it's wonderful to see that come through with you every single day, working here at the Watchtower and for the Conservancy, because as you've expressed here, working with them is doing the good things that you like to see preserved here and help to protect this place altogether. Completely agree with you. So for a final question here for you, when they come here, and this is also to park staff, anybody who comes here, one thing they should remember about this landscape?

[Caroline]

Just what you're talking about. Don't litter. My grandfather used to say the high places are sacred places.

And I think every place is, when you really think about it, but they would go up into high places and say their prayers. That's what I consider here. This is sacred ground to me, and anywhere on the rez when I go, I envision that.

So I want my great-great-grandchildren to come here and see what you see. And so let us all take care of the National Parks. What a great legacy we're going to have when we do that.

That's my takeaway from that.

[Ranger Dan]

Thank you very much, Caroline. Thank you.

[Ranger Jonah]

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Grand Canyon Speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy. A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music. This recording reflects the personal, lived experiences of tribal members and do not encompass the views of their tribal nation or that of the National Park.

In this episode, Ranger Dan spoke with GCC employee Caroline Wilson about her experiences growing up at Grand Canyon with her grandparents. She shares how her Diné culture has played an important role throughout her life and even mentioned some tasty snacks you can find around the Navajo reservation.

Episode 20

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd Speaks

Transcript

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd Speaks

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: We are probably, probably like the very least important thing in this life. The very, and, and we think that we humans, we think that we're important.

Ranger Dan: Yeah.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: We think that we're above the four-legged and the winged ones and the plant life and all that. We're not. We're not.

Ranger Mark: Hello and welcome back to Grand Canyon Speaks. This is Ranger Mark.

Ranger Grace: And I'm Ranger Grace.

Ranger Mark: This episode is with Rosabelle Shepard. She is a fifth generation Diné silversmith and in this episode, she talks to Ranger Dan about her relationship to her craft.

Ranger Grace: They had to record this episode inside the Desert View Watchtower because several thunderstorms were rolling through the area. Rosabelle shares how her silversmithing work pulls from important elements like clouds, rain, thunder, and lightning.

Ranger Mark: She also talks about her family. She grew up watching her father silversmith, and now her grandson is learning the practice. So, enjoy listening to Rosabelle in this episode and thanks for tuning in.

[Music]

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: (Speaks Diné). Normally, that's how Navajo people introduce themselves. We would say, we would give our greeting of yá'at'ééh. And some people say that means hello. I guess it could, but in our language, yá' is the universe, e'éh is ourself, and t'ééh is Mother Earth.

So when we use that greeting, we are acknowledging the universe, our father, ourselves, and Mother Earth. So it's kind of like, maybe like a blessing. So that's what yá'at'ééh means.

And then we say our name and always we introduce our clan. We introduce our mother's clan first, our father's clan, our maternal grandparents, and then paternal. So those four, we actually recite.

And then that's really our way of like building kinship among, you know, other Diné people. And then I just said that I'm originally from a place called (speaks Diné). And really, that's my middle name.

And (speaks Diné) is really from my grandfather, a place that he brought the family to during the summer for their livestock. It's actually a canyon, the Blue Canyon. And he brought the family there. And in the canyon, there were cottonwood trees. And they're still there. And he knew that there was water there.

And so he started digging around underneath the cottonwood, and he actually came upon a spring. And so when he found that spring, later on, the government came in and they built a well, a pump well. So we would go down there in the summer, and we would, you know, pump water for our sheep and our horses and our cattle.

And it had, like, a cement trough. And so, when he did that, and they named that place (speaks Diné) is actually cottonwood trees, and (speaks Diné) means underneath, and then tó is water.

And so they named my grandfather Isi'at'óni. So from that name is how, you know, when the census people came in, and they would ask the Navajo people, you know, what is your name? What is your last name? And we don't have any of that. And so they went and gave my mother's last name is (speaks Diné).

And so that's where that name comes from, (speaks Diné). And I use it in my signature. So my signature will be Teesyatoh Shepherd.

And then my silversmithing actually came from my father. So I always, you know, honor him by using my last name Shepherd. But that's, that's where I come from and that's who I am.

Ranger Dan: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Rosabell Teesyatoh Shepherd: Lengthy, huh?

Ranger Dan: It's good. It's a good intro. I wish I had kind of like a, an intro like that. I'm Dan from Minnesota. The land of many lakes. Like, that's about it kind of right there. We really like ranch dressing and casseroles and hot dish. But you already touched upon a little bit of like what your father used to do for silversmithing.

And as a cultural demonstrator for eight years here, you have been demonstrating your skill as a silversmith and you told me today that you kind of picked it up a little bit later in life, right?

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: I did. I waited till I was 40. Being stubborn.

Ranger Dan: Yeah. Yeah. But it doesn't show that like, it shows that you have been doing this longer than since you've been 40. Like, it's very polished. It's very clean. And it holds true. It really does as an art form.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: Yeah. I, I had been around silversmithing really all my life. I remember about four years old, I would sit and watch my father silversmith. And I would watch my father, I would be playing outside and I would watch my father going back and forth to the Hogan.

And I would look up every now and then, and I'd see him, you know, come out, take something in. And then about 30 minutes later, he'd come over to where I was playing and he would say, ‘come and watch me silversmith’. And so I would go into the Hogan with him and he had an open fire going.

And he had a little blanket over here on the side and that was for me to sit. So I was like four years old and I would sit there and I don't, I don't remember like being bored or wanting to, you know, leave. And he would explain his process of what he was doing. And in that time, you know, our men were really silversmithing the old way where they would actually melt silver coins.

They would actually melt it and then they would pour it. And then they would take that and they would be hammering on it. And my father had a railroad tie and it was probably about that long because it's nice and polished.

And then the open fire was used for that melted silver strip that he, you know, melted. And he would take prongs and he would stick it in the open fire to reheat it up. And then I remember that metal being like pinkish and he'd bring it out and he'd pound, pound, pound, turn it around, pound, stick it back in, in the open flame.

So he was explaining to me what he was doing. So I actually watched him, you know, work like that.

I'm like right in the middle of five brothers, two older brothers and three younger brothers. And I was the only girl in the middle. So my brothers were actually silversmithing when they were teenagers. My older brothers were silversmithing by the time they were like 13 and 14.

And then my younger brothers, they were, I remember my youngest brother being like nine years old and he was like using a buffer. I mean, that thing is like, that thing's like dangerous!

Ranger Dan: You're talking the buffing wheel? On a motor?

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: Yeah, that, you know, spinning, yeah.

And the last, and he was -- the last two were buffers and I remember watching them work like that. So I was, you know, around silversmithing throughout my life. And I didn't, I didn't even touch it till I was like 40.

My brothers were the ones that, you know, kept, you know, telling me, you know, ‘you need to do what we're doing’. You know, I was working, you know, a regular job and, and they would always, you know, comment to me, you know, ‘why are you like running your life down for the government? You know, you need to do what we're doing’. I got so tired of hearing that because I'd be like so tired from work and, and then they would start, you know, and so one day I just like stood up and I just said, you know, I can't do that.

And my older brother, you know, grabbed me by my shoulder and he kind of like shook me. And he said, ‘what do you mean you don't know how to do this? You grew up with it!’ And that's what made me start thinking.

I started thinking about it. And within like six months, I actually, like, made, you know, made a decision that I was going to do it. And I like actually changed my life around and I actually left the public health and, and I started, I started.

And when I started, it was, it was just like so easy. I knew what to do. I knew what process to do.

And I didn't even have to like go to them and say, you know, well, what do I do now? You know. I knew the process. I seen the process. My thinking, my, you know, like the designs that I wanted to do, you know, were like constantly in my head. And even now after, after 20, I, I'm going to be starting my 26th year in silversmithing.

And even now my mind is still like that. I still want to create. I still, you know, can see, can look at something and, and I have another idea that I could like add on to it. I'm still good.

Ranger Dan: Yeah! Excellent! Yeah!

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: At Jewelry making.

Do you, do you fall asleep silversmithing? Do you just like hear the pounding of the hammer on the stump and like shaping the silver, creating rounds?

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: I know Ariel sometimes will say, ‘I just love that sound of when you're cutting’, you know, and most people, when you're cutting, it makes that like screeching noise and it can make you like kind of shiver.

Ranger Dan: Yeah.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: And she always says, ‘I love that cutting noise that goes on, you know, all day long’.

Ranger Dan: Yeah. She would like that noise. Yeah.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: And then the stamping noise, you know, boom, boom! My family's used to it. I've never heard any of my family complain.

They did say, ‘take your worktable, can you put your worktable in your room?’ I was like, no, I'm going to keep it here in the dining room and kitchen area.

And it's still there.

Ranger Dan: Yeah. Nice.

That's good. So you talk about, you're still thinking about new ways to create pieces, to add in different patterns or try something brand new. Where do you find inspiration for your work and what do you normally incorporate into it?

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: My work is really based on, you know, all the designs that I do really are based on elements. Elements that are very important to, you know, the Diné people, the Navajo people. The majority of my designs are going to be rain clouds, rain, plant life, lightning. Those really are the designs that I use and it's my way of acknowledging the elements.

You know, my parents, my grandparents, my ancestors, they lived a life where they gave offerings and did their prayers three times a day: early in the morning, midday, and sunset. Those three times of the day were when they made their offerings and their prayers and these prayers and offerings were made to the elements. And sometimes I think, man, you know, that's a lot.

You know, I fall short on that. You know, I'm not able, you know, to keep that, what do you, ritual or --

Ranger Dan: Devotion?

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: you know, I fall short on it. So, I figured that, you know what, when I'm working is going to be my time of giving acknowledgement.

Ranger Dan: Yeah.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: And so, when I'm working, I, you know, in my way, you know, I'm giving acknowledgement to the elements. I feel better about that because I think a lot of the, you know, like my generation and younger, we've lost that regiment of, you know, the praying three times a day.

Ranger Dan: Yeah. Yeah. But it's also comforting to know that your work for 26 years now is being worn all around the world. I mean, you're here at the canyon, people from all over, our folks from Germany here. I mean, like, if you want to buy something, it'd be tomorrow. But it's, I mean, there's folks that are wearing your work and it's that acknowledgement that is then going around the world too. To different places, to different countries, to different cultures. And so, it's there.

It might not be three times a day, but it's every day. It's constantly, which is really cool to think about because before people were just here. Now we're really expanding and going all over.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: That’s true.

Ranger Dan: So, I think you're doing a fantastic job.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: Thank you. Thank you, Dan.

Ranger Dan: Yeah. And so, with the elements too, I think they really came through today because we've had two massive thunderstorms come through Desert View. And when we were talking today earlier, you were mentioning what you grew up with for having to acknowledge these storms with your family.

Can you tell us what that was like?

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: So, how I grew up, I was telling Dan today, you know, like when it started to rain and people, you know, ended up being stuck in here, you know, everybody sat down. And I mentioned to my grandson, I said, you know, this is what we're supposed to do when it rains. We're supposed to actually sit down.

The way I grew up was anytime it was, you know, it would start to rain, you know, my brothers and I wanted to like run around in the rain. And my father would always, you know, ‘come in, come in right now, right now!’ And we'd have to go into the hogan and we would have to sit.

I mean, we had to sit. And we'd sit around, you know, in a circle. And my father would always say, ‘you are not supposed to be running around’.

You're not supposed to be, you know, even, we couldn't even like drink water or eat. We would just sit there and we would revere the rain. So, we would all get herded in and we'd sit there, you know, 30 minutes, 40 minutes.

And after it would stop raining, then my father would say, okay, you can go out and play in the water. And I remember during the summers, my brothers and I would herd sheep all day. We'd come home and my mother would have, you know, dinner for us.

We'd eat and we'd, you know, maybe stay up for an hour or so. And then we would be so tired that, you know, we were ready to, you know, go to sleep. And we would fall asleep.

And then in the middle of the night, like midnight, one o'clock, two o'clock, it would start raining. And my father would ‘wake up, wake up. You're not supposed to be laying down when it's raining’.

So, rain is actually sacred. It's a sacred movement and we're supposed to acknowledge it and revere it. And so, in the middle of the night, you know, we would all have to wake up and we would have to sit, sit and just, you know, we could talk a little bit, you know, but, you know, we couldn't like go back to sleep or lay back down.

And I would think, man, I am so tired. And we kind of drift off and my father would, you know, ‘don't sleep. You're not supposed to sleep’.

So, it was actually our way of revering it, revering the element of rain. I was telling Dan that anything of the cosmic nature too is actually a sacred movement. We cannot be in like the eclipse.

We can't be in it. We can't view it. We have to go inside our homes and, you know, close our curtain.

We can't see that darkness because it's sacred. So, things like that, you know, I still observe and I want my children to observe it and I want my grandchildren to observe it. And I hope that, you know, they, you know, with their own children and grandchildren, they'll, you know, keep, you know, observing it because it's really important.

It's very important. These elements are actually, they have so much power that we cannot acknowledge, you know, we can't turn away from it. They have so much power, you know, that without these elements, you know, we wouldn't even be living.

We wouldn't even be living. So, that's how important elements are to the Navajo people.

Ranger Dan: Yeah, they're integral.

And I remember you saying that you can't say a bad thing about them as well.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: Yeah, you know, like, ‘ah’, you know, ‘I hate that wind’ and stuff like that. I always tell my kids, don't, you know, you're not supposed to say that.

‘Oh man, the rain's coming down again. I hate it when it’, no, no, don't say that. Don't say that.

Don't, you know, you don't talk ill of the elements.

Ranger Dan: It's all interconnected in some, in some fashion.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: It is. We are probably, probably like the very least important thing in this life. The very, and, and we think that we humans, we think that we're important.

Ranger Dan: Yeah.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: We think that we're above the four-legged and the winged ones and the plant life and all that. We're not. We're not.

Ranger Dan: We all coexist.

Yeah. And so like your, your work, it reflects what your upbringings have been. It might not be as stringent as like your family observed growing up, but it's in your work and it has a place for sure.

And now when you're demonstrating here, you have Sage with you as well.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: My, my oldest grandson.

Ranger Dan: Yeah.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: My oldest grandson is now 29 and at 20, he wanted to learn what I was doing. And immediately we sat down and started and I started teaching him, you know, everything that I know, everything that I know, you know. I, I, I've been teaching him and I'm waiting for, I want all my grandchildren to know. I want, I want them to at least try it once or twice. If they can just do that, you know, I would, I would be okay with it.

Ranger Dan: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's really cool to know as well that you are a fifth generation silversmith and now Sage is the seventh generation silversmith as well.

But you also mentioned that, are you the only...?

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: I, I might be the only female in, in my family that is a female silversmith. Because I never heard my father speak of, you know, any like, my grandmother, you know, none of them, you know, silversmith.

And so I might be. And if I am, I'm, I, I'm, I'm like, ‘cool, Rosabelle’.

Ranger Dan: It's pretty neat. It's awesome.

It's your work. It's your standalone. It's your mark and your family.

It holds, which is really, really cool to think about. But what does it, what does it mean for you to be here with Sage, seeing him be the seventh generation silversmith?

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: I, I feel complete. I really do because I have at least one grandson who is interested and who has the ability and the capability to do it because he has that creative bug in him.

Ranger Dan: Yeah.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: In my old age, I'm happy with that. That I know that at least I have one grandson who is going to carry it on. And, and even now when he talks, he'll, when we have, you know, like our little conversations, you know, ‘I, I want my son, Zayden and Ry-Ry to, you know, learn silversmithing’. I said, ‘don't forget about your daughter too’.

So he already has in his mind that he wants them to learn that trade.

Ranger Dan: Oh, that's neat.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: Yeah.

Ranger Dan: That's great.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: Yeah.

Ranger Dan: It lives on.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: Yeah.

Ranger Dan: That's, that's beautiful. We know, we know you still got some years ahead, right? For the silversmith in here.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: I hope so. Some day I'll be hammering and I'm thinking, how much longer do you think I'm going to be hammering like this? I mean, a three pound hammer?

Ranger Dan: It's a lot to swing repeatedly. Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole lot.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: It's not just like tapping. It's like, boom, you know, and I'm, and then I'm at the buffing machine too. And I'm hanging on to my jewelry while I'm polishing it.

And then I think, dang, you know, I wonder how much longer I'm going to be doing this.

Ranger Dan: Yeah.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: Because I'm beginning to feel the aches.

Ranger Dan: Okay.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: Yeah. The muscles after working. Yeah. Before, you know, I hardly felt it, but now even from sitting, when I get up, you know, I'm like creaking. I'm stooped over until I straighten up.

Ranger Dan: and everything just pop, pop, pops right into place.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: And I think, man, I wonder how much, do you think I'm going to be silversmithing at 70? But I met one of my, um, old, old friends that I know. He silversmiths and he's like 85. And so I greeted him and I, and clan wise, he's my father. And I said, [speaks Diné].

‘Hey father, you know, what are you doing?’ He goes, ‘oh, I'm just out and about today trying to sell my work’. And I'm like, ‘are you still silversmithing?’ He goes, ‘yeah, yeah. I'm still silversmithing’.

And he told me, he goes, ‘when I first started and I was silversmithing’, he goes, ‘daughter, I've even been to Japan’.

Ranger Dan: Oh, cool.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: This is like 1950, 1960!

Ranger Dan: Yeah.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: Yeah. ‘I've been to Japan. I sold my work out there’.

Ranger Dan: That's cool.

Rosabelle Shepherd: Holy cow.

Ranger Dan: Yeah. I think, I definitely think you’ve got some demonstrations ahead of you for sure. More time to be back here at the Canyon and yeah.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: I'll see.

Ranger Dan: Well, whenever you do come back in the future, bring the rain again, because we will, uh, we will gladly welcome it. Yeah.

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: Yeah. It's good. The rain is good.

Ranger Dan: Absolutely. Well, thank you very much, Rosabelle, for participating tonight. And it's always a pleasure to have you out here. It's great to see Sage as well.

When, uh, he's demonstrating and seeing his work come so far by spending time with you and seeing his work just get polished up and yeah. So I can see the aspect of you feeling complete in, in all of this being passed on. I think that's really neat to see.

Thank you very much. Yeah. And have a wonderful safe evening tonight, folks, and watch out for storms while you're here at Grand Canyon.

So thank you.

[Applause]

Rosabelle Teesyatoh Shepherd: I had, I had a customer one time I was, um, I was swinging my, um, hammer and he walks by and he says, a woman with that, a woman with a big hammer like that scares me.

[Laughter]

Outro: Grand Canyon Speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy.

A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music. This recording reflects the personal lived experiences of tribal members and do not encompass the views of their tribal nation or that of the national park. To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices, visit www.nps.gov/GRCA.

Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon. These being the Havasupai tribe, the Hualapai tribe, the Navajo nation, the Hopi tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache nation, the Kaibab band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute tribe, the Moapa band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute tribe.

In this episode, listen to Rosabelle Shepherd speak with Ranger Dan about her experience as a Diné silversmith. She shares stories from her childhood, the inspiration for her work, and how she hopes the younger members of her family will give silversmithing a try.

Episode 21

April Unkestine Speaks

Transcript

April Unkestine: Whenever you see an artist, remember that, you know, it wasn't machine-made. It was something that they made from their heart, something that, you know, they put a lot of effort in working on and be appreciative.

Ranger Annie: Yeah, appreciative.

Lakin: Hello and welcome back to Grand Canyon Speaks. This is Lakin. Meranden: And this is Meranden. Lakin: In this episode, Ranger Annie interviewed a multi-talented artist from the Zuni Pueblo.

Meranden: April Unkestine is best known for her inlay jewelry and traditional designs such as the sun face.

Lakin: She shares her experience as a demonstrator and the symbolism behind her work.

Meranden: Take a listen to April's story and we hope you enjoy.

April Unkestine: My name is April Unkestine. I am from the Pueblo of Zuni, New Mexico. They asked me to talk with you guys about my jewelry and our connection with the Grand Canyon.

Ranger Annie: Yeah. And so, when did you start making jewelry?

April Ukestine: I started making jewelry when I was 15 years old. I grew up with my grandma. My grandma was diabetic and, you know, couldn't really support me. So, I ended up, you know, working on jewelry. And my aunt was the one who taught me how to make jewelry.

Ranger Annie: Nice. And so, who were kind of your biggest inspirations? Your aunt and...

April Unkestine: Well, most of my family were silversmiths. My grandma and my grandpa did silversmithing, just like my husband and I. He does his own thing and I do my own thing. My grandma and grandpa did their own things. My grandma did a lot of, like, inlay, similar to the famous Dishta work.

April Unkestine: And then my grandpa did his own petite point work. So, I used to watch them and sometimes I would help my grandma, but I never got to help my grandpa because even when he tried to teach me, I couldn't pick up that. I couldn't do his work. It seems simple, but I can't do his work.

Ranger Annie: So, can you kind of describe the process of, like, inlay and stuff like that?

April Unkestine: Actually, the inlay is, like, stone to stone. You make the bezel and then you do stone to stone, depending on what stones you use. Like, for me, I use a lot of mother-of-pearl, pin shell. I use turquoise, coral, you know, whatever's available to me. Sometimes I like to go and use a lot of different other materials, like I use gabasite. Gabasite is a stone with black lines and white spots on it.

April Unkestine: And it comes out pretty nice. It looks like it's cracked when you polish it, but it's pretty nice. I've also used what they call Newland. There is, like, a new turquoise, which is from Nevada. It's almost like the gabasite, but it's pretty neat, too. So, I use a lot of different variations in my stones and channel inlays, like, just stone to stone.

Ranger Annie: Yeah, and has your process kind of changed over time or...?

April Ukestine: No, not that much.

Ranger Annie: What are some of the...I was looking at a lot of your work earlier, and there were a lot of really intricate, cool symbols. Can you kind of tell us a bit about, like, the symbols in your artwork?

April Unkestine: The symbols in my artwork are symbols of the sun face. So, in our culture, we pray to the sun, which is our father sun. We ask for blessings, you know, and also the sun gives life, so we ask for a longevity of life. So, it's basically, you know, something that I picked up from my aunt, and that's how she explained it to me, so.

Ranger Annie: Nice. Yeah. So, and you had said, when we talked earlier, you had mentioned or you were describing the style that you had, and you said that it's not your style. But that it's more of, like, a shared style. Did you want to talk more about that?

April Unkestine: Yeah. The sun face is widely used in my village. Like, there's a lot of people that make sun face jewelry similar to mine, but theirs' are a lot different. A lot of this jewelry that all of us make in the Pueblo was, like, it's almost, like, shared. Like, so, my uncle, I mean, my grandmother's brother married into this family who made the sun faces, and then that lady used to be married to somebody else that made sun faces. So, it just, you know, carries on, like, I don't say this piece, this sun face is mine.

April Unkestine: Like, it's not my design. You know, I attribute a lot of my work to people that passed on that have made the sun face. They're not like mine, but they're similar to mine. So, it's a lot of the jewelry in Zuni are, like, shared. Like, a certain family member made this, but married into another family, and that family makes the jewelry now. And so, when a lot of people say, you know, that was my work, you know, it's been shared.

April Unkestine: People pick it up, you know, they share it with this person, that person. So, a lot of the jewelry making is, like, shared.

Ranger Annie: Yeah. And in the context of sharing, too, when did you kind of get started with the cultural demonstration program?

April Unkestine: The cultural demonstration, I started about three years ago. I've been wanting to, like, do shows and art shows and stuff like that. And one of my artist friends, we were working together. Well, I work with a group of artists in Zuni where we were helping build a park for our youth. And so, I got to working with these artists who go out and do shows. Like, they do big shows in bigger cities and stuff like that. So, you know, I told them, I've never done shows. And they're like, well, you need to try it.

April Unkestine: So, they mentioned this program to me about the Grand Canyon [cultural] Demonstration program. So, I was like, so how do I get started? So, it goes, oh, contact this person and this person. And so, that's what I did. And then when they called me, when the first time we came, me and my husband, we were like, what do we do? You know, how are we going to do this?

April Unkestine: But, you know, it kind of got a lot easier later on, you know, just, you know, calm down. Yeah. So, that's how we started doing demonstration. And we do do little shows. We haven't gotten into the big shows, which I'm trying to do. But, you know, there's a lot of process in it. You do applications and also you need to do, like, professional photographs of your work. And sometimes when I have jewelry, it goes out the door and I can't take pictures of it. The only pictures I have are on my phone.

Ranger Annie: But I know that your work got a lot of notability somewhat recently with the band Queen. Yeah. Do you want to talk about that?

April Unkestine: Well, I usually sell my jewelry to a store in Santa Fe. That store is called Keshi, called the Keshi Connection. It's run by, it was put up by a teacher that used to work in Zuni that bought fetishes from Zuni people. When she retired, she went to Santa Fe and opened this store. So she started buying jewelry and stuff. Anyways, going forward, she buys a lot of my jewelry. So she bought my bolos, my sun-faced bolos. \

April Unkestine: And one day she said, this guy came in. “I didn't know who he was. He was laid back. You know, he walked in and was walking around.” And he said, he got to your bolo. And he says, "I want that." So she sold the bolo, not knowing who he was. And then about two weeks later, a week or two later, it showed up on the red carpet.

April Unkestine: And it was Brian May that had gone into the store, bought the bolo. This was the time when they made the movie Bohemian Rhapsody. So he bought the bolo. And so that's how my fame started. And I don't like, you know, a lot of attention. It was so stressful for me because I would go to, even in my own town, I would go to a store. People would come up to me and say, hey, you're so-and-so. I saw you on the news. I heard you on the radio. Now you're on the magazine and all this other stuff. And it was just crazy. And I was like, no, I can't do that.

Ranger Annie: Did that, how did that kind of affect your work and life after that?

April Unkestine: I actually had a career working as a nurse assistant. I was working with disabled individuals at the time that that happened. So with a lot of demand in my work and my jewelry, I was like, I can't, you know, juggle my work and then, you know, do jewelry. So I had to quit working on, you know, working with disabled individuals, and I ended up working just on my jewelry.

Ranger Annie: That's incredible. So to bring it back to the canyon, I know you had mentioned that this was like your first time coming to Grand Canyon, for the first time you did the cultural demonstration program. But you have a larger like cultural connection to the canyon. Would you like to talk about that?

April Unkestine: Yes. It is said that our, when we came into the world, we came in from the Ribbon Falls. We came out from the Ribbon Falls, and then we made our journey through Zuni Pueblo, where we're currently at. And I had also explained to you about, you know, how we're told that certain times of the year, we're not supposed to talk about our migration story. And this is the time of the year, we don't talk about our migration story. So we talk about it in the wintertime.

April Unkestine: So in wintertime, we will sit around and our ancestors would, you know, our elders would tell us the story about, you know, how we migrated from the Grand Canyon. And then we went to Zuni Pueblo.

Ranger Annie: Yeah. How does it feel to return here to the canyon? Like, you know, for the demonstration program?

April Unkestine: It's really nice. I like that, you know, we have this program, where we're able to show our work and, you know, let people know what process it takes to make a lot of the jewelry that we make, or a lot of the carvings and the pottery, the paintings. There's a lot of artistic talent in our Pueblos, with the Native Americans, they have weaving baskets, whatever. And it's good to show, you know, the people, you know, like, the process of from starting to end, where, you know, you go into a shop, and there's no demonstrator there, you look at the piece, and you're like, Oh, I'll take this.

April Unkestine: But a lot of people don't know what the process is in making the jewelry or the whatever the art that they have. Or how, like, like you asked me, what the significance is in the piece, you know, so they don't know a lot of that, a lot of that stuff. So it's good to have demonstration where people actually see how it's done and how it's made.

Ranger Annie: Have you ever done any art like outside of jewelry?

April Unkestine: Yeah, I actually did a little bit of carving. I did a little bit of carving. I did other types of work. Oh, and I did a little bit of pottery. Sometimes I like to sew. I know they say that sewing isn't art, but it is. Anything is art, even music, dance, anything is art. So I did a lot of that. So I did a variety of stuff.

Ranger Annie: So how did you kind of settle on like jewelry is what you were wanting to do?

April Unkestine: I think jewelry is like my strength. Like when I'm so stressed out, like, everything's falling. And I feel like everything's falling. You know, I sit down and I start working. And it releases a lot of that stress. Like, I'm just sitting there doing my own thing. It keeps me calm. I'm working with my hands. I like working with my hands mostly.You know, I, you know, there's other things I did. But you know, I think jewelry is my strength.

Ranger Annie: Yeah. So you had said that your granddaughter actually said that you should be called an inspirational teacher. How do you see yourself filling that role with your jewelry and your art?

April Unkestine: I, you know, I try to teach younger kids like my granddaughter, other people, I try to teach them, you know, like, do something that makes you happy. You know, like, we have jobs like we have professional jobs, you could be most miserable there. But when we find something, you know, we're more at ease like my jewelry, you know, I'm more at ease doing a lot of that. And whereas when I was working as a nurse assistant, it was like chaos to me.

April Unkestine: I was like, some mornings I didn't want to go. I don't want to go there. So I tell people, you know, do what you like, you know, it's not, it's not the money that counts. It's how you feel, you know, how it makes you feel, you know, how good it makes you feel to do the things you want to do. You know, you know, that's that's how I, you And I've been doing programs in school where I talked to kids about, you know, how doing jewelry, but also remember that, you know, stay in school, have a professional career. Because sometimes in in professional careers, you know, there's setbacks where you're let go or something happens and you don't have a job and you can have like jewelry or some kind of art to fall back on just like in college where you have a major, have a minor.

April Unkestine: So, you know, have art as a minor or, you know, whatever makes you happy, you know, that's what I tell them. Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

Ranger Annie: So when you were growing up, how did you kind of think of the Grand Canyon?

And has that changed since you've been doing this program?

April Unkestine: I've just heard a lot of stories about the Grand Canyon, how we were connected, you know, a lot of stories about, you know, the migration, but I've never really been here before the demonstration. And when I came here, it was like, it's just a certain type of feeling that I felt when I got here. I'm just like an emotional person. So when I came here, I was so emotional. I was like, oh, so this is where it all started, you know, to be here and to actually see a lot of things around here. It was pretty nice.

Ranger Annie: Yeah. And you brought your granddaughter. Not to shout you out.

Ranger Annie: Yeah. So and how many times have you been here with the demonstration?

April Unkestine: I think about three times. Three times. Yeah.

Ranger Annie: How do you feel that, like, this style, how is it kind of different from like what your mentors and influencers sort of design?

April Unkestine: They had their own kind of style when they started working, like a lot of their work was similar, but you had to see the pieces to compare different styles to what mine are. I think theirs were like older style. And then mine was like the newer, like the now style.

April Unkestine: So and they had like more different, I guess, different stones, different, you know, supplies that they use. Like they, a lot of people use turtle shell back then. And now it's outlawed that you can't use turtle shell in jewelry. A lot of different stones that they use we don't use them anymore. So the basic stones that I use are a lot different from what they use back then. And plus, like, it's not really available anymore.

April Unkestine: Like when I started working and when I was 15 years old, we could buy turquoise like just anywhere. Now you have to go and search for turquoise. And like I was explaining to some of the people that came to my stand is that they're starting to make stabilized turquoise, which is not really, you know, like the natural turquoise.

April Unkestine: It's made with a lot of chemicals to keep them together because they're so brittle. But now they smell like plastic. They've made it to where before you can't tell the difference with a hot pin.

Now you can't tell any difference with it because they made it to where it's almost like the natural turquoise. So a lot of our supplies have gone down and I've noticed that a lot of coral is getting, like, hard to find too because we used to find, like, bright red, maroon color coral. Now we're finding, like, orange, some stuff that we really can't use and we'll have to pick through.

And it's a lot of things that have changed over the years. So many changes. Ranger Annie: Yeah, and I know COVID had a large impact too.

April Unkestine: Yeah, during COVID it was like we couldn't go get our supplies. We had to, like, if we went to a trading post, we had to wait in line. Like, they'll send, like, one person in or, like, they'll just bring it to you or whatever.

And we didn't have much people to sell to or we couldn't go out in public and sell like this. And it had a huge impact on our economy and our work. So we had to find ways to, you know, work with getting that money and selling our products.

So we would go online or, like, Facebook was great because people would look you up on Facebook and they say, hey, I see you make this. So we started selling to public. But that's also what I try to help a lot of people in my community.

It's like, you know, you'll be the first person to sell because when we sell to stores, I tell them we're the third person because, you know, a lot of the stores, they'll sell retail and we're, like, the way down there. So I try to tell them, you know, go out and sell, you know, be the first person, you know, do it yourself.

Ranger Annie: Yeah. Having more, like, kind of control over the process.

April Unkestine: Yeah.

Ranger Annie: And so you sell to stores and then I know you're talking about, like, shows and stuff. And what are some of the differences between, like, doing the shows versus the cultural demonstration program?

April Unkestine: During the shows, you don't really have to show them, you your product. You just, you know, put them up there. They come by and they buy, especially if they know you, like, you know, from the stores, they'll come by and they'll buy. And then also doing the shows is a lot more challenging because some shows are juried, meaning that you have to send a professional photo in and people look at it, the jurors look at it and they say, oh, we can bring her in or bring him in. And then then if you're accepted, you get in. But then you also pay a fee, a booth fee.

April Unkestine: And you and the shows, you have to pay your own way to get there. You have to get a motel or wherever you're going to stay. But with the demonstration, I'm glad that, you know, you have, you know, have a place to stay so we don't have to go find a place to stay. Or, you know, a lot of other things are so different from the show to demonstrating.

Ranger Annie: Do you have, like, maybe a favorite memory from demonstrating here?

April Unkestine: That's a tough question.

Ranger Annie: Maybe a good memory.

April Unkestine: Just the first time we came, we didn't know what we were doing. But the second day, it was pretty easy. First day we came, it was chaos. We didn't know what we were doing. We didn't know how we were going to sell or, you know, how we were going to price things or we didn't have that little square where people can swipe their cards to pay us. So it was all cash. And then we started learning all these different ways that they can pay. So we finally got up.

Ranger Annie: Now you're pros.

April Unkestine: Not really.

Ranger Annie: I don't know. Everyone should definitely stop by. Y'all will be here until Thursday.

Ranger Annie: Yeah. So, yeah. And I just kind of want to ask you, like, what would you like for the audience to sort of take away from this discussion and kind of, like, experience here?

April Unkestine: Just like, you know, whenever you see an artist, remember that, you know, it wasn't machine made. It was something that they made from their heart. Something that, you know, they put a lot of effort in working on and, you know, be appreciative.

Ranger Annie: Yeah. Appreciative. Great. And on that note of being appreciative and stuff, I do want to open the floor up to any questions if anybody has any questions for April.

Ranger Annie: So, yeah, the question is, we had a previous demonstrator who encouraged, like, going to reservations to buy directly there. Would that be appropriate, too, for you?

April Unkestine: Yeah, we actually have a little store down there that's owned by artists that they opened up not too long ago. I think it was before, right before the pandemic, they opened up the store for artists to bring their artwork in and for people to come in and buy directly from the artists.

April Unkestine: So we actually have that store. And then we also have one that recently came in Gallup. It's called the ZART. It's Z-Art. But they call it ZART. So there's another store in Gallup and then one in Zuni that, you know, they buy directly from the artists.

April Unkestine: And sometimes in our community, we have that art walk where they open their houses and people come in and they welcome them into their houses and they watch them work and buy their art there, too. I'm not a part of that, but there are a lot of artists that do that in Zuni. But even though I'm not a part of that art walk, you know, when people come in and they ask for me, they tell me and I say, oh, well, send them up.

April Unkestine: So they'll come to our house and, you know, they'll buy directly from us, which is a lot better than buying from the store because then that helps them, that helps the artists.

Ranger Annie: When is the art walk?

April Unkestine: It's just any, you can go down there any day and say, you know, go to the art center and they'll let you know who's all on the art walk.

Ranger Annie: Oh, cool.

April Unkestine: And you'll know who's on the art walk. They have like colorful rocks piled up on their driveway. So that's how they tell them that, you know, this is the art walk.

Ranger Annie: Oh, cool. Yeah, Zuni Pueblo.

April Unkestine: Yeah, you can come down there. Yeah, just any time of the year. But oh, we have certain time of the year where all the stores are closed is when we're fasting. Usually it's one time in the wintertime, usually December, like maybe the second or the third week of December, and then the summertime. Well, the summertime isn't closed, huh? No, summertime isn't closed, just the wintertime.

April Unkestine: But some of us do have fasting where we can't sell, buy, you know, spend money, so.

Audience Member: And then you said your jewelry was in the movie, Bohemian Rhapsody? It was in the movie?

April Unkestine: No, it was on the red carpet on Brian May when he went to go receive the award for it.

Audience Member: Oh, he wore it?

April Unkestine: Yeah, he wore it on the red carpet, yeah.

April Unkestine: There was one other time on Dumb and Dumber, the first movie, Dumb and Dumber. The pretty part where he's on the toilet. Oh, man.

Ranger Annie: Yeah, so you said Brian May is also a royal astronomer for UK. Incredible.

April Unkestine: Yeah, I tried getting a hold of him, he won't respond back to me. He's laid back, friendly, and whatever, and so I emailed him and nothing.

Ranger Annie: There's still time.

Audience Member: Your name again is?

April Unkestine: Aprilene Unkestine is my full name, I just go by April.

Audience Member: And the last name was?

April Unkestine: Unkestine.

Audience Member: Okay, I remember seeing it, yeah.

April Unkestine: Everybody asks me if I'm from Europe because it sounds European.

Ranger Annie: Yeah, so she was saying that a lot of the jewelry, you have the four colors for Zuni jewelry. Do you use any colors outside of those?

April Unkestine: I use a lot of different colors. I know that a lot of our colors represent different directions, so I use a lot of colors and also outside of the colors that we use. So I just use a variety of colors, like I had showed the pink mussel, what are the others? Abalone. So it's just a variety of colors that I use.

April Unkestine: There's still traders that sell abalone shells, just like the turtle shell, it's been outlawed. You can't use the turtle shells, but it was used a long time ago. I still see some of the jewelry in museums that have the turtle shells, but we can't use those anymore.

April Unkestine: My older son is making fetishes. My younger daughter is starting to make jewelry. My older daughter, she makes jewelry, but not like mine. Hers are, she makes little turtle earrings. And my granddaughter, she does butterfly earrings, yeah. So she's starting to make jewelry, too. But all in all, my family, my kids, they have their own careers, but they still work on jewelry. My older son is basically just working on fetishes. His name should also be in one of the fetish books, too.

April Unkestine: Oh, and I have an 11-year-old grandson who started working on fetishes, too. So he's done some, so his grandpa's, you know, I guess their inspiration.

Ranger Annie: Cool. Nice.

April Unkestine: Any other questions?

Ranger Annie: Well, thank you so much, April, for coming out and doing this program, and thank you all for staying.

Ranger Jonah: Grand Canyon Speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy. A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music. This recording reflects the personal lived experiences of tribal members and do not encompass the views of their tribal nation or that of the National Park.

To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices, visit www.nps.gov/GRCA. Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon, these being the Havasupai Tribe, the Hualapai Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

In this episode, Ranger Annie sat down with Zuni jeweler, April Unkestine. Her work has been made popular by collectors and celebrities such as Brian May. Like many Zuni jewelers, April incorporates the Zuni sun face design into her channel inlay work but with her own twist. She also shares the cultural significance of the Grand Canyon in relation to Zuni and its history. Take a listen to this episode and enjoy!

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