My half-hour at the Native American exibit....

Today I had about a half hour between my International Midwifery class and the beginning of my work day, so I decided being already downtown it was high time I visited the Portland Art Museum again, since I had purchased a student pass and I intend on getting my money's worth (and of course, I love art!)

I was disappointed to see that the exibit I'd hoped to see, Little Dancer, aged fourteen by Egdar Degas, was not going to be in the museum until Sunday, so I decided I'd try to find a part of the museum I hadn't seen yet, and explore that. So far I'd only randomly wandered through the Portland Art Museum, so I was sure there where parts I'd never seen. I got a map and noticed there is a whole Native American wing I'd never explored, so I went there.

I was blown away as I stepped into that branch of the museum, because although I've seen Native American artifacts before, I'd never seen Pacific Northwestern Native American artifacts up close and in real life before, which is what the Portland Art Museum specilizes in. The first thing I saw was the pannels of someone's house, decorated with huge red beings who looked otherworldly. Next, I noticed a ceremonal feast "bowl" which was actually the size of a table and had several other "bowls" laid out inside of it, no doubt intended to hold different courses. All of these massive bowls where decorated in the most beautiful, ornate, otherworldly creatures and humans, all dancing together, no doubt celebrating wealth and a season of gorging oneself on the abundance of the Earth. As I stood and stared at the bowl, an image began forming in my mind; I could see beautiful brownskined people gathering at an abundant meal, complete with venison, salmon, huckleberries, whale and seal meat, and everything dripping with seal oil. I could see smiling young men, proud of the food they had provided on the hunt, beautiful young women with their smallest babes carried on their backs, kids and dogs running everywhere. Older women sat chanting with some of the younger women, despensing pearls of wisdom, while older men entertained some of the kids with stories of daring in the longboats out on the ocean, with nothing between them and the massive whale but a harpoon. I know some of what I saw was a "noble savage" type of fantisy; I know life wasn't always plentiful, that people who lived simply had hardships we will never know; starvation, disease, death from accidents while hunting, pregnancy and childbirth complications that lead to deaths of moms and newborns...

But they had some pleasures we probably have scarely touched the surface of...for one thing, they where intimately connected with nature in a way I rarely get to experience, especially now that I'm living in a major city and don't have a car to get out into the woods all that often. I spent some amazing time in a park the other day while the baby I was watching napped in his stroller; it was a warm, sun filled January day, so I took Jack to the park and let a big old Douglas Fir sweep the tips of my fingers with his needles, everytime a breeze stirred the old tree, I stretched my fingers to the needles and talked to the tree as we communed together. But I only experience things like this once in a blue moon; I'm sure the Pacific Northwestern peoples of old talked with their favorite trees on a daily basic, and got to bask in the minute beauty of the thousands upon thousands of little needles that cover a full-grown tree...it is a truely miraclious thing!

For another, they where intimately connected with one another in ways we will never know. We move too much in our culture, we constantly change jobs, change schools, move from town to town and country to country. We never have the chance to build the sorts of intimate relationships people are suppost to have; knowing someone from birth to death and knowing them well enough to know what every single expression, mood and shrug means....

I feel sad that we don't have those kinds of connections anymore...I'm sad that we don't have that kind of connection with the Earth, and I'm sad that we don't have that kind of connection with each other either.

Love ya,
Carrot

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