Bodewadmin Longhouse Message

Good morning ... mno waben aanii ... good day friends ...
I am expanding this mailing in order to initiate important plant talk into our fall and winter gestational honor seasons, whereby we recognize and honor those seeds with which we sat and prayed last winter in the Bodewadmin Longhouse. As with the natural world or a tended, intentional garden, part of the growth can be predicted or shaped and part cannot. At this time we all, here on Turtle Island, find ourselves coming into new awareness and balance with the Great Mystery. The inner and outer landscapes are shifting. This offers so much opportunity for not only sacred choice to the exercised but also a vastly expanded view of Medicine Wheel teachings and disciplines by which to institute these choices ... then bringing these ones into the inner longhouse for growth and endurance prayers. 

This time of harvest is when the serious work of the next year's harvest begins ... praying over the seeds of this year. 

Now, some of this year's harvest produced undeniably questionable yields. To these things we might ask, who are you and what do you want? We always have the right to ask these questions ... and should ... in the interests of connection, honoring, knowledge, life, right livelihood and growth. The question is: do we want to know? Whether we do or we don’t is okay ... that’s the way it is with us ... however, these are our growth points or seeds, if you will. Harvest is the time to select the strongest and most desirable seeds to BEGIN bringing forward for the new season.

With these things in mind, a plant TEACHER AND HELPER  will be offered to assist renewed, or initiated, unity in our Earth Walk as we approach  a very important new vision quest season. The opportunity and indeed necessity to make and renew authentic approaches to our Earth Walk as Two-Leggeds is apparent to each of us.  Let us endeavor to make these Walks in harmony and balance with the Creator and Creator’s first, most beautiful and enduring gifts to us of our Mother Earth and our Father Sky-Sun.

Here is a great healing herb to become aware of that also happens to grow abundantly in our Oklahoma area ... Prunella Vulgaris. This program comes to us highly recommended, on YouTube from the Herbal Jedi. I invite you to visit and surf his site for many other important winter study considerations. 

Personally, I find that a tea of this plant journeys immediately to calm not only the solar plexus but the entire system ... especially the mind. Balance is felt in the liver and kidneys ... seats of anger and fear by the system of Chinese Medicine. These are two emotions that can be ‘doctored’ by self heal or Prunella vulgaris. Each person will have a personal experience to sensitize, honor and remain aware of its effect, should you feel guided to ‘make medicine’ with this or any plant being. When the mind is then calmed, endeavor to notice and remain fused with this plant blessing, as long as possible ... it will not last long ... but long enough to give us a ‘leg up’ toward reaching and maintaining a higher quality of life, a measure of equanimity ... and TIME  by which to ‘seat’ these ephemeral blessings. Do not expect this period to last longer than 20 minutes or so ... hold the focus and make the most of the gift.

In support of these new ‘relations’ a good WAY to pick will be offered as part of the fall (dwaget) and winter (pon) studies. For now, begin thinking of making an approach to this being and leaning into ‘coming to know’ this beautiful being.

The picking season is actually mostly past but this gives us the opportunity to Begin - coming into balance - with this little, mighty self healing plant for the coming gathering season, next  May-June.

Now, if you live in this Oklahoma temperate zone and have a full sun growing spot, this third week of August is the final planting window for seeding a winter garden. The autumn sun soon softens its vigor so planting any time after this does not support a completion growth cycle ... the plant can make a strong start but cannot grow strongly into November or in the case of some greens like collard greens, all winter. This can be one of the driest months so keep the ground well watered and do not allow the seeds or small plants to dry out until the rains begin.

Bama mine.
Be well.

Much love,
Minisa
Dawn Woman
CPN

Conversation with Minisa Crumbo Halsey, Director of 'Woody Crumbo: Spirit Talk' (YouTube)

Conversation with Minisa Crumbo Halsey, Director of 'Woody Crumbo: Spirit Talk'

From: October 29, 2020

Sponsored by: Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art

Voices of the West Online Exhibition

Join artist and filmmaker Minisa Crumbo Halsey as she responds to questions about her efforts to document the career of her father, Woodrow (Woody) Crumbo (1912-1989), a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Crumbo’s career included contributions as an artist, dancer, concert musician, arts educator, and museum administrator. During the late 1940s, he was hired to assemble the American Indian art collection for the Thomas Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa. He later became director of the El Paso Museum of Arts in Texas.

Getegemen - Garden

Potawatomi ‘Garden’ Vocabulary:

Basket = gokbenaben
Bees = amoyuk

Beans = koje'suk

Bloom = jijen

Butterfly = memiki

Cabbage = e'shobuk

Cherries = siwswe'mnen

Circle = waye'yak

Cloud = ngwankot

Corn = ndamen

Cucumber = kokobe'

Dance = nimedi

Drum = de'we'gIn

Earth = sugmuk

Feast = wewesnakewin

Fire = shkote'

Flint Hill Grounds = shokinkik

Flower = washkone'to

Food = wisnawen

Fruit = washkbak
Full Moon = nibakises

Garden = Getegemen

Good Rain = mnogmowIn

Gourd = shishigwIn

Grapes = siwnwen

Grass = mIshkos

Honey = amo

Hot Peppers = wasgagIn

Indian Tobacco = nInse’ma

July/Month of Young Corn = We'shkitdaminkesis

Lightning = sawasmo

Milkweed = nInwezhe’k

Moon = tpukises

Mother Earth = Kumde’kwe’

Muddy = winkiwIn

Onion = shakwesh

Outside = sagec

Peace = e’tokmite’k

Plenty Potatoes = topeka

Plum = pokma

Potatoes = pInyak

Prairie = mskoda

Pumpkin = wapkon

Purple = we'je'pwate'k

Rain = kmowen

Sage = wabshkukbyag

Spider = aspeke' e'e'buk

Stars = nagosuk

Strawberries = demen

Summer = E'mnokmuk

Sun = kises

Sunset = e'pkishmok
Sweat Lodge = mdodmogumuk

Sweet Corn = wishpumnuk

Sweetgrass = wiingaashk

Sweet Potato = wishpupnyak

Thunderbirds = cigwe’k

Toad = mamkeci

Tobacco = se’ma

Trees = mtugwe'nIn

Turtle = mshike’

Very Dark (Outside) = gispuknya

Very Light (Bright Sunshine) = waseya

Warm Wind = shawnash

Water = mbish

Watermelon = ashktamo

Well-Being = matsowIn

Whole Kernel Cooked Corn = pakswayuk

Wild = pkoc

Wild Rice = pkocnomin

Wind = notin

World = otake’

Worm = mose

Excerpt from 'Spirit Talk':

This day we will consider visiting the natural world of the Mother Earth and the Father Sky-Sun … we 2-leggeds are walking erect color-beings … In the old honoring language … it is good to make an honoring prayer from the ‘grateful place’ … blow into an offering of tobacco 4 times, and then ‘put down’ the gift of the tobacco being, Se’-Ma’, onto the Mother Earth. Now offer honoring tobacco to the Father Sky-Sun in the same way … if it rains, consider collecting some of the ‘new water’, dip a finger into it and touch the top of your head 4 times, as the personal unification Water Beings blessing … If there is enough water, many things may be done with it, like ritually bathing the head, hair, face, body, eyes, wrists … If the wild green onions are up, make a tobacco offering from the grateful place: say your name and ask permission, and then you may take up a sharp stone for cutting or use your fingernail for gathering. Use no metal. Both the top and root bulb may be cleaned and eaten. 

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: A Conversation (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)

Buffalo Hunt by Woodrow Crumbo (SAAM)

'Hunting the Spirit Buffalo' by Woody Crumbo (1930s)   

Woodrow Crumbo

Crumbo was born in Lexington, Oklahoma, the son of an Indian mother and a French father. He attended government schools as a child and showed such promise that he received a scholarship to the American Indian Institute in Wichita for his last two years of high school. While at the Institute, he became interested in expressing Indian tradition and culture through his art. After three years at the University of Wichita he transferred to the University of Oklahoma where he studied with Oscar B. Jacobson. At the early age of 21, Crumbo was appointed Director of Indian Art at Bacone College, the only institute of higher learning exclusively for Indians. Bacone offered Crumbo the unique opportunity to familiarize himself with his heritage and to instill in him cultural pride. At that time he conducted research into Indian design and revived ancient techniques of silverwork, vegetable dying, and weaving.

Crumbo’s career has been diverse; known also as a musician and Indian ceremonial dancer, Crumbo played the cedar wood flute and danced with Thurlow Lieurance’s symphony in Wichita. He also worked as a designer with the Douglas Corporation, with the Gilcrease Collection in Tulsa, and from 1960 to 1968 as curator of the El Paso Museum of Art.

A Pottawatomie Indian, Crumbo explores in his art the traditions and ceremonies of his own tribe as well as those of the Creek, Sioux, and Kiowa nations, and says of his work, ​“I have always painted with the desire of developing Indian art so that it may be judged on art standards rather on its value as a curio—I am attempting to record Indian customs and legends now, while they are alive, to make them a part of the great American culture before these, too, become lost, only to be fragmentarily pieced together by fact and supposition.

Crumbo works in oil and egg tempera, as well as in watercolor, sculpture, stained glass, and silkscreen. Under the guidance of Olle Nordmark, he also learned etching. The largest collection of Crumbo’s work, about 175 paintings, is owned by the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, although his work has been exhibited in many museums throughout the United States.

Virginia Mecklenburg The Public as Patron: A History of the Treasury Department Mural Program (College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, n.d.)

Panel: Native American Perspectives (YouTube)

Panel: Native American Perspectives (YouTube)

Sponsored by: Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art

From: February 27, 2020

Online Exhibition: Voices of the West

 

 

 

 

A closer look at historic and contemporary Native American imagery in the museum's Voices of the West exhibition (2020). Guest speakers are Norman Akers (Osage), Lauren Ritterbush, and Minisa Crumbo Halsey (Citizen Potawatomi Nation and Muscogee).

Kansas art museum screens Citizen Potawatomi Nation member’s historical documentary

CPN artist Minisa Crumbo Halsey’s work covers

many genres and forms, including documentary film.

Published by CPN Public Information Office at January 14, 2021

The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, located on the Kansas State University campus in Manhattan, decided to take its annual Art in Motion series virtual in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. In November, museum curator Elizabeth Seaton organized a digital screening of Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal member Minisa Crumbo Halsey’s 2016 documentary, Woody Crumbo: Spirit Talk.

“It was one of the greatest experiences of my life to be able to put that together,” Crumbo Halsey said.

She served as writer, director and producer of the 44-minute movie that delves into the inspiration and life of her father, acclaimed Potawatomi artist Woody Crumbo. His influence and unique style continues to influence contemporary Native American art, and Crumbo Halsey’s film sought to celebrate and archive his work with museums and other artists across the United States.

“Woody Crumbo was, in his work, was only about one thing, and it was about connecting with spirit and then connecting the viewer with spirit through the artwork,” Crumbo Halsey said in a Q&A session following the screening. “There were no words. There was no song. And a lot of times, people would come away from looking at the work in a very non-verbal state.”

Inspiration

Crumbo Halsey is an avid documentary watcher, and her upbringing cultivated her fondness for the medium.

“I watch them all the time,” she said. “I like nonfiction, and I’ve been a reader my whole life. My mother was a schoolteacher. She started me reading early, early on. … I’ve always been very interested in biographies, history and nonfiction.”

Her idea for the documentary came naturally in 2015, continuing what she referred to in a recent Hownikan interview as a “very creative time” in her life. Crumbo Halsey felt called to make the film, not unlike her other work.

“I feel like my father appeared to me in spirit, and he had been gone for 20 years already when I was writing (my book) Spirit Talk. … The documentary was spirit driven. It was clear that the work that I was doing was fine — do whatever you want. But don’t forget to do one on your father because he’s your biggest and your best subject, and it hasn’t been done. And, someone needs to do it,” she said.

Portraits had been a passion of hers for quite a while, and Crumbo Halsey began interviewing people and documenting their lives with her camera as she traveled in the early 2010s. She decided to take it further after realizing she recorded quite a few artists and musicians who knew her father.

“I got to thinking, ‘If I’m documenting anyone, I should be documenting my father,’” she said.

Inspiration also came from encounters with a crew for one of the world’s most famous video documentarians, Ken Burns. While working on the epic eight-part series Country Music for PBS, they used office space with Crumbo Halsey’s husband, Jim Halsey. Principle writer, producer and director Dayton Duncan interviewed him, Roy Clark, Wanda Jackson and many other Oklahomans who have made irreplaceable contributions to the genre throughout the last century.

“That was very rich to be around some people who just lived and breathed (making documentaries),” Crumbo Halsey said.

Burns taught her that video “eats up” still images, and she knew it would be hard work finding enough photographs and clear shots of paintings to tell her father’s story.

Creation as art

She contacted Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum to search its archives for paintings, photographs and audio recordings of her father. Woody Crumbo worked extensively with the museum in the late 1940s and ‘50s as an artist-in-residence and helped owner Thomas Gilcrease build his art collection.

The Oklahoma Historical Society also provided many black-and-white photographs, and OHS Executive Director Bob Blackburn, Ph.D., worked with Crumbo Halsey. She found audio, news clips, images and pieces of Crumbo’s artwork she never knew existed.

“Everyone was so gracious and so helpful about bringing things forward and making them available,” she said.

Then, she storyboarded the entire film on tables and other surfaces around her house, laying out the images roughly in the desired order using index cards while writing the narration. Crumbo Halsey found it best to follow her father’s life from birth to death.

“That was my cue about what the subject matter and the text was going to be was the timeline of the artwork — when it was done, where it was done, who was there, what was the subject. … As a good documentary does, it tells a story,” Crumbo Halsey said.

Choosing the music that plays throughout the film also brought many emotions and memories. Her son, Woody Carter, wrote many of the songs, using a sacred flute passed down from his grandfather. The movie ends with a video of Carter performing a piece from his most recent album.

“When I got to the end, it was like it just wrapped itself up itself and let me know what the end was — what pictures were going to be used, what music was going to be used, what was going to be said. … It was very interesting,” Crumbo Halsey said.

She recorded the film’s narration and then spent three to four months with an editor, piecing it together and making her vision come to life.

Crumbo Halsey told the Beach Museum of Art webinar participants that Woody Crumbo: Spirit Talk continues to transform her and each viewing brings her to tears.

“It moves me so deeply every time that I watch it,” she said. “I remember, I remember! And that’s exactly what the artwork is supposed to do.”

Much of Woody Crumbo’s art depicts ceremonies, dances and traditional stories from various tribes in places he lived throughout this life — Cimarron, New Mexico; Tulsa, Oklahoma; La Junta, Colorado; and many others.

“When a person paints a picture, if he has the right feeling and his aims and all towards his depiction, if everything is alright and he is successful, he has given that picture a spirit,” he said, in an archival recording used in the documentary.

The creative process is more than the product — perhaps the most crucial lesson Crumbo taught his daughter. Crumbo Halsey captured her father’s spirit in her documentary and put more than a little of herself in it as well.

“Being is the doing, and all life is ceremony,” she said.