Winyan Wánakikśin HONORS WOMEN LEADERS
Buffalo horn belt celebrates living Native American women activists
Santa Fe Indian Market’s 2018 Best of Show winner, a buffalo horn concho belt by Kevin Pourier (Oglala Lakota) titled Winyan Wánakikśin (Women Defenders of Others), is dedicated to the power of women. After Pourier’s wife, Valerie, urged him to do a piece about women, he reflected on “the true power of the women in my life” — about mothers, grandmothers and a cousin fighting for equal rights for Natives; about women protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock who cooked all day, cleaned the camp at night and then ran to stand in front of a bulldozer or face attack dogs and mace. “The women I wanted were the ones I see at our ceremonies at home here, who work behind the scenes, who are cooking and planning, who do the work. And they never get any of the recognition for doing that,” Pourier said. “They’ll just jump up and do things because they know it’s right, whether it’s for the community or their families or their own children.
Those are the ones I wanted, the ones who are humble.” Pourier chose eight women “of strength and integrity in their communities.” Some he knew; some he learned about from others. He researched their stories and asked each for a portrait and a symbol significant to her. Pourier etched realistic images of the women on buffalo horn and depicted their symbols with inlaid crushed stone. A tipi frame representing winyan (women, who are “backbone of the people” in Lakota beliefs) separates each concho from the next. The buckle displays earth (the mother) held by four hands with different skin tones, “showing that women from all around the earth are standing up and speaking out and regaining their strength and power.” Pourier strove to perfect each portrait, going back to correct minor flaws in an eye or a nose. When he overcorrected, he would grind the image off, sand and rebuff the horn, and start over. He redid one portrait three times. Tipiziwin Young-Tolman (Dakota/Lakota) is one or the women featured. She is dedicated to reviving her Lakota language, one of many tribal languages decimated by U.S. government policy. After learning to speak Lakota as a young adult, Young-Tolman became a preschool language teacher at an immersion program at Sitting Bull College in North Dakota. She has had the joy of seeing her middle son flourish in that program. “It has been the highest honor and privilege to work with the children of my community and witness the revitalization of who we are and to really work against that assault that happened to our people,” Young-Tolman said. “I really believe that these young children, that they are our little elders, and that they conduct themselves in a whole different, meaningful, sacred way that many generations of our people did not get an opportunity to do.” Three years ago, Young-Tolman and her family moved to Pullman, Washington, so she could attend a Washington State University teachertraining program based on an Indigenous worldview of education. Raising a family and attending college has been challenging, but she plans to pursue a master’s degree. “I feel like language has gifted me everything good, including my husband, my children. This journey I’m on, I don’t see the clear outcome, but I know that I’m working toward something really quality and nourishing, not only for my family but for my people and my community.” Tipiziwin means “Yellow Lodge Woman.” Young-Tolman chose yellow tipis to represent her family’s “big, rich history of being history and winter count keepers of our tribe.” Four-pointed white stars represent her children and her great-great-grandfather, who originated her family name by painting his lodge yellow and wore moccasins quilled with four-pointed stars. Jodi Archambault (Standing Rock Sioux) served in President Barack Obama’s administration as associate director of intergovernmental affairs, as a high-ranking official in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and as special assistant to the president for Native American affairs for the White House Domestic Policy Council. She helped settle long-standing tribal lawsuits against the federal government, established an annual White House Tribal Nations Conference and facilitated a bipartisan effort to restore tribes’ inherent powers to govern their own affairs, particularly in regard to domestic violence and violence against Native women. After leaving government, Archambault worked as a behind-the-scenes strategist in the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Her insider’s knowledge of Washington, D.C., and the relationships she had formed with tribal leaders helped her develop successful systems and partnerships for the resistance. Archambault’s focus has shifted to philanthropy and narrative change. “I work in various different areas that are pressing toward the future so we can thrive,” Archambault said. Archambault believes the stories that Winyan Wánakikśin tells are important not only to Native communities but to the world. “These aren’t just Native activists,” Archambault said. “They’re activists and advocates for a better tomorrow for everyone.… I think everybody’s survival is hinging on whether or not we can turn the value system that’s driving our society to a place of more balance and harmony.” The image complementing Archambault’s photo is of beadwork from a powwow dress she designed, which was featured in an exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. She chose that image “because it’s who I am. It’s how I honor my grandmother. My grandmother taught me to dance. And it’s also a signal to future generations, my descendants, that this is important to carry on our Lakota traditions.” Roxanne Swentzell is a renowned artist from Santa Clara Pueblo and co-founder and president of the nonprofit Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute. Flowering Tree’s projects include saving and cultivating Indigenous seeds and the Pueblo Food Experience, which demonstrated how Tewa people can thrive on a pre-Spanish-contact diet. Swentzell also works to preserve Tewa methods of planting and food preparation and has involved Santa Clara community members in reviving adobe building, constructing hornos (adobe ovens) and women’s cooking houses in the village. For Swentzell, these efforts are all about cultural preservation and “trying to put back the consciousness that all our options, the way we do everything, matters. So pick any piece of our lives and walk down that journey of how it got to be there. There’s a whole process. And how we seek to do that process really makes a difference in the world.” Swentzell lauded Pourier’s decision to honor Native women. “I think the voices of women are so important to hear now. Our world needs our voices very, very much,” Swentzell said. Swentzell, who comes from a long line of potters and creates her own sculptural figures from clay, chose an Ancestral Pueblo pottery design for her concho. “When I look at that pattern, I see my ancestors, and I see the way that they might have been seeing their world around them, which was incredibly connected,” Swentzell said. Other women featured include Susie Silook (Yupik/Iñupiaq/Irish), a walrus ivory carver, sculptor and writer whose works focus on violence against Native women. Silook advocates for Alaska Native artists working in walrus ivory, who have been impacted by the ivory ban (which was meant
to focus on elephant ivory). She has been recognized by the Alaska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. A whale tail on her concho represents how important the whale is to her Yupik and Iñupiaq people. Lawyer and playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle (Cherokee Nation) has filed briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court advocating for the restoration of tribal sovereignty in prosecution of domestic violence and sexual assault. She is also a playwright; her works have been performed at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and many other venues. She chose the turtle as her symbol in reverence for the central role it plays in her Cherokee culture. Wanda Batchelor was the first woman to lead the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California. Her honors include Nevada Woman of the Year and Nevada Indian Commission Tribal Leader of the Year. She led the fight against building the Centennial Dam on the Bear River, one of the last wild salmon runs in California. Her grandmother’s basket design is carved behind her. Writer and advocate Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne/Hodulgee Muscogee) has worked for several White House administrations and helped shape policy on sacred sites protection and access, religious freedom, treaty rights, mascot abolition and language revitalization. Harjo is a trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama. She is president of the Morning Star Institute and chose a Cheyenne morning star for her symbol. Bobbi Jean Three Legs, a Hunkpapa member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, protested the Dakota Access Pipeline by organizing a 500-mile run from Cannon Ball, North Dakota, to Omaha, Nebraska, followed by a 2,000-mile run to Washington, D.C. She chose a Dakota floral design for her concho. Pourier has been moved by women’s reactions to Winyan Wánakikśin. Throughout the 2018 Indian Market, many women were in tears as he spoke about the women portrayed on the belt. “I would look up and see them and it would choke me up so much that I couldn’t finish what I was saying,” Pourier said. “It must have touched them so much to see that this was about them, and it was about their struggle.… And even though it wasn’t them personally, it was something that was needed for so long.” The Honorable Deb Haaland, U.S. congressional representative from New Mexico, was galvanized to speak about the belt at an appearance in Santa Fe last year. Pourier has since featured Haaland on a belt portraying female politicians titled Women Finding Their Voices. “The more people can see people who look like them in positions of leadership, the more Indian Country will identify those places as theirs too. That’s what Keven Pourier’s project can do for the country. It’s not about us. It’s about the future and the people who look up to us,” Haaland said. Kevin Gover (Pawnee/Comanche), director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), purchased Winyan Wánakikśin for the museum. It is Pourier’s third piece in NMAI’s collection. “I just thought it was a nice idea to very specially make art that is intended to honor women leaders, and not just those of the past,” Gover said. “Who hasn’t seen some Pocahontas or Sacagawea image? But these are contemporary women who are leaders in our community and nationally.” In 2018 the Smithsonian implemented the American Women History Initiative, which made Pourier’s piece especially relevant. “This initiative is really asking us to elevate the stories and histories of American women,” said NMAI associate curator Cécile R. Ganteaume. The belt’s inclusion of current events such as the Dakota Access Pipeline protests also fits the Smithsonian’s model. “What [the Pouriers] did through the honoring of eight women is they combined their personal narratives with Native history and U.S. history,” Ganteaume said. Winyan Wánakikśin will be prominently displayed near the entrance of the flagship Washington, D.C., museum. The Pouriers would also like to see the women featured on Winyan Wánakikśin recognized in a documentary film and perhaps a book. “These women are so intelligent and powerful and have these stories, I think it would be awesome,” Pourier said. “So we’re putting the energy out to the universe and hoping that someone wants to follow along and come along on this dream.”