Earth is my mother Essay Essays

Earth is my mother Essay Essays Earth is my mother Essay Essay Earth is my mother Essay Essay Essay Topic: Equus The author’s intent in authorship was to understand for herself and to be able to show Navajo sandpaintings as â€Å"dynamically sacred life entities whose significances lie in the procedure of their creative activity and use† ( page nineteen ) . Sandpaintings. created from different colored littorals and sacred objects. are non art. They are representations of fabulous existences and fables created for the intent of restoring someone’s wellness and harmoniousness. The survey of sandpaintings and their assorted significances permits the reader considerable penetration into Navajo land-tied spiritual beliefs. universe position. creative activity myths. society. history. and even constructs of clip. The writer. Trudy Griffin-Pierce. provides small autobiographical information in the book. She mentions her vagabond Air Force upbringing and how her early readings were devoted to books about Native American civilization. particularly the Navajo. Although she is distantly related to the Catawba Indians of South Carolina. she ever felt a affinity with the Navajo and lived for a clip with a Navajo household. larning their traditions. history. and linguistic communication. This bond drew her to Arizona after she completed her undergraduate grade in art at Florida State University. N. Scott Momaday. in his â€Å"Forward† . adds that Ms. Griffin-Pierce is a really originative creative person. capable of understanding and discoursing the artistic dimension of the Navajo universe. She makes the imaginative and inventive Navajo system of belief without our apprehension. Ms. Griffin-Pierce received her doctors degree in anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1987. where she is presently Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department and Teachs three classs. The information on her web site at the University of Arizona reveals that this was her first published book. She has written four newer books. The Encyclopedia of Native America ( 1995 ) . Native Americans: Enduring Cultures and Traditions ( 1996 ) . Native Peopless of the Southwest ( 2000 ) . and Paridigms of Power: The Chiricahua Apache Prisoners of War and Naiche’s Hide Paintings ( in imperativeness ) ; and two articles. â€Å"When I am Lonely the Mountains Call Me: The Impact of Sacred Geography on Navajo Psychological Well Being† . and â€Å"Navajo Religion† . All of her Hagiographas centre on the history of Indians in the United States’ Southwest. She is presently analyzing aging and dementedness among Arizona’s Native Americans. In Earth is my Mother ; Sky is my Father. Ms. Griffin-Pierce inside informations Navajo spiritual beliefs. universe positions. historical myths. social construction. and astronomical constructs before she discusses the usage and construction of Navajo sandpaintings. Basic Navajo spiritual beliefs are still followed by many Navajos who chose non to absorb the dogmas of Christianity presented to them in the 1800’s. There is no word for â€Å"religion† in the Navajo linguistic communication. Spirituality. wellness. harmoniousness. and beauty are inseparable. The existence is an across-the-board whole where everything has a alone topographic point and good relationship to all other living things. God is the â€Å"Unknown Power† worshipped through His Creation. The Navajo besides have a close relationship with the Holy People. with whom they interact daily. ( page 34 ) Navajo spiritual beliefs are closely tied to their intense yearning for and their love of their fatherland. which they consider the â€Å"point in infinite from which all constructs of the universe proceed† . ( page fifteen ) The land and the Earth is their foundation of all belief. admiration. and intending in human being. and the four sacred mountains are the centre. There are no lasting spiritual centres. The Native American Church is a local mescal airy faith. The Navajo have a round construct of clip that permits their mythic. religious universe to coexist with their physical universe. The writer suggests that the Navajo sacred sandpaintings can non be understood unless we accept the Navajo’s â€Å"mythopoetic context of superimposed clip. infinite. and meaning† . ( page 7 ) Navajo spiritualty affirms humanity’s topographic point in nature as a whole. Their ceremonials restore the interconnection of all life. They believe sickness consequences from failure to keep mutual duties with the environment. violation of ceremonial regulations. and evildoings against one’s ain head and organic structures. Her intent in composing this book is to portion a more humane. more affiliated position of the universe and its parts in restoring humanity’s alliance with the existence. ( page 9 ) Navajos still worship Gods and goddesses of specific intents. Their divinities include the Sun ; Changing Woman. who brings the earthly seasons ; and their kids. Hero Twins. Monster Slayer. Born-for Water. First Man and First Woman. First Boy and First Girl. the prankster Coyote. and the Speechless Ones. who can non express words. ( page 34 ) These are frequently depicted in the sandpaintings. Navajos have a construct of the â€Å"Holy Wind† . reminiscent of the Christian Holy Spirit. as a being that exists everyplace and is in all living existences. For them this means that all living existences are related and that humanity has a duty to care for other living existences. Curiously. in Navajo Creation narratives. the Holy People spoke. American ginseng. and prayed the universe into being with their sacred words. Since everyone has an interior signifier and is portion of the Holy Wind. each has a Holy Person located within. Oneness with the existence creates a duty to handle one’s chap animals with the same regard one has towards oneself. ( page 73 ) . The Navajos were among the last American Indians to migrate from Asia to North America and were tardily in geting in the Southwest. They settled in the geographical country bounded by the four Sacred Mountains in the Four Corners country of the Southwest. Their geographical isolation protected them from diseases brought by the Spaniards and provided them with entree to stealing their Equus caballuss. sheep. and caprine animals. They learned weaving from the Pueblos. The Navajo social construction was and is matriarchal. kin. and household based. and they dwell in stray household groups structured by the atomic household. the matrilocal extended household. close relations. and other relations. Many Navajo live in frame houses today. but some still choose well-constructed Hogans. ( page 21 ) Navajo ceremonial healings affecting sandpaintings are conducted by extremely trained practicians called â€Å"chanters† who have learned to sing the luxuriant Navajo rites. The Navajo melody pipe can bring around witchery. exorcise shades. and set up unsusceptibility to illness. A melody pipe is a priest. non a priest-doctor. and neer enters the shaman’s characteristic enchantment province. Most melody pipes are work forces. Women become pathologists. or priest-doctors who get cognition in a enchantment province. ( page 39 ) Navaho ceremonies are rites ( rattling is non used ) or chants ( rattle accompanies singing. The major rites ( Blessingway and Enemyway ) use drypaintings with pigments made from workss. including maize. pollens. Indian meal. flower petals. and wood coal. The writer explains that Enemyway is a signifier of dispossession against the shades of foreigners. force. and ugliness. The intonation ceremonials ( Holyway. Evilway. or Lifeway ) use sandpaintings of different colourss of sand. ocher and wood coal. Other sacred objects. flora. and bowls of H2O are incorporated into both types of ceremonials. ( pages 40-41 ) There are 100s. if non 1000s. of different sandpainting designs. A sandpainting is a topographic point of entry where occults enter and go forth. attracted by their similitudes in the picture. The constitution of this tract lets the immorality or unwellness in the patient be replaced by the good. or mending power of the supernatural being. ( page 43 ) The mending ceremonials last for several yearss. It takes four to six people three to five hours to finish a sandpainting six provender in diameter. The workers begin in the centre and work outwards. ( page 45. The Navajos’ basic construct is that the powers of the celestial spheres and Earth are drawn into the sandpainting for the intent of mending. Time is compressed so that powerful mythic events of the past coexist with the present and reconstruct harmoniousness and good being to the individual being healed. ( page 58 ) The sandpainted image is intended to allow the ill individual project his or her head through clip and infinite. lifting above present earthly restrictions. The Navajo layered worldview becomes meaningless during a ceremonial as all beds of celestial spheres and belowground become one. The Navajos study the configurations and star agreements chiefly for finding of seasons. and they are non portion of the ceremonial nucleus of sandpaintings. even though word pictures of fabulous Gods of creative activity in the signifier of configurations may be used. ( page 103 ) One of the more interesting myths is how Younger Brother went to the sky state and met an interior circle of hostile existences whom he left to remain with the friendly Star People in the outer homes. These friendly Star People. whom the Navajo name â€Å"The People† . and the hostile existences are still incorporated into sandpaintings. The writer concentrated on the â€Å"Mother Earth. Father Sky† sandpainting because it is the most familiar to foreigners and presents the most elaborate word picture of the Navajo celestial spheres of sandpaintings in usage today. ( page 175 ) She describes the intricate. careful. elaborate procedure involved in doing a sandpainting. Mother Earth and Father Sky must be indistinguishable in form and size. The act of making a sandpainting is mending because it focuses everyone’s ideas on the rules of balance and order. ( page 177 ) The picture becomes â€Å"alive† to function its transcendent intent when the melody pipe strews sacred pollen on it and blesses those go toing. ( page 183 ) . The sacred and blessed sandpainting forces the patient to reconnect in clip and infinite to past and show sacred forces and reminds the patient of her connection to worlds present physically or spiritually. ( page 194 ) This book accomplishes the author’s stated intents and does discourse the subjects in item. However. the information is disorganized and scattered. doing the book itself difficult to read. The author’s intent was to learn the reader how to understand and appreciate the devising. content. and intent of Navajo sandpainting. which she accomplishes. Some of the information presented about Navajo spiritual beliefs is oddly similar to Christianity. and the writer does non sufficiently discuss whether or non these were original to the Navajo who migrated to the Americas or picked up and changed a spot from what Christian missionaries tried to learn them. The Navajo ties to the spiritual symbolism of their land is unusually similar to early Hebrew idea. but no reference is made of that. The textual beginnings used by the writer are all documented research documents or books that are reasonably recent in day of the month. One would wish earlier beginnings had been consulted on some issues. but their handiness is non known. The writer combines rather deadening elaborate information with her myths and more lively text. doing the book itself a challenge to finish. BIBLIOGRAPHY Southwest Studies Program. Biography of Trudy Griffin-Pierce. University of Arizona. hypertext transfer protocol: //web. Arizona. edu/~swst/faculty/tgpierce. htm. Griffin-Pierce. Trudy. Earth is my Mother ; Sky is my Father. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 1992.