TALES OF THE RED FEATHER

good evening ladies and gentlemen this is Jack Douglas and here at his home in Northridge California is mr. joe meager for 50 weeks of the year mr. meager as a mechanical engineer but when his two weeks vacation rolls around he combines travel with his favorite hobby hobby well it goes much deeper than that listen well as long as I can remember I've been fascinated by the American Indians in my opinion the most colorful of all Aboriginal people now in some countries the Aborigines have died out but with America are more fortunate the first Americans have not vanished and with our help and understanding their numbers will multiply now as Jack indicated I spend every vacation in that part of America we call Indian country and I know you will understand my appreciation of Indian lore if you will join me in a tour of the West to the land symbolized by the red feather home where the buffalo roam that's what the early cowboys and frontiersman wanted according to song and legend and that's about all the western Indian wanted really but it was not to be the white man pushed westward taking the land as his own and decimating the buffalo herds in a slaughter that turned the plains red and moist Mother Nature however was still to be reckoned with she gave the white settlers the fertile plains but she reserved for the Indians and posterity tens of millions of acres of dry rocky majestic terrain the whites of the 19th century were unable to cope with this kind of country the Indians could and had to notably the Apache the Navajo and the Hopi in a land that the settlers considered arid the Indians found nature's few precious reservoirs cool clear water in a land that seemed barren the Indian found life in a land that appeared terrifying the red man discovered tranquility and view half a century later the Indians tenaciously continue to raise flocks of sheep on little more than sand and sagebrush but the picture is changing rapidly all Derrick's dot the landscape and the flames of burning excess gas turned the Twilight blue to shades of angry pink the sound of bulldozers booms through the canyon building dams to preserve and control the supply of water now some people resent these changes but I'm not quite so romantic the novel can get justice thirsty as the new settler from Oregon of Maine throughout Indian country you'll see many deserted Hogan's and crumbling forts and the ancient remains of once proud native villages inhabited today only by nature's wild creatures but visited daily by thousands of people people curious to see how and where the first Americans live Pueblo Bonito is one of the better known and this painting shows the Pueblo or village during its heyday but fortunately we don't have to depend merely on paintings or ruins to bring back the past for Indian antiquity is still with us in Pueblo such as Taos in New Mexico Taos remains virtually unchanged since that memorable day in 1542 when Coronado's men wrote into this very plaza searching for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold they found little gold so they had to settle for a mere Empire this is Navajo country and you can recognize it immediately by the traditional hogan's Navajo homes built of cedar logs and covered with dried mud the aroma of cedar is what you'll remember most when you mentor a Navajo Hogan now the Navajos are as industrious as any Indian tribe and more so than most but when the women find a few hours of free time they organize a stick game an elementary game that probably predates Columbus the sticks a white on one side and they're black on the other and this sticks are thrown against a flat rock and the combinations of blacks and whites determines the number of stones that the throng may bypass with her marker and this has always been a woman's game and incidentally they are not above making a few bets such as a cup of flour or sugar now one of the women had brought along her baby cradle Borden all now at first he seemed to be quite content with being propped up against the whole gun he just stretched out on that cradle board and wrinkling his toes and soaking up the sunshine after a while though he got a bit upset at being ignored so well it's mama to the rescue but does that break up the stick game not on your life this happened to be a very hot dry day the temperature was in the 90s as I recall which made this picture all the more puzzling the fire was much too big for cooking and in fact it soon reached bonfire proportion what in the world was he up to as it turned out this was the start of another Navajo custom a sweat bath in the fire he had placed a dozen or more huge stone and the fires kept blazing until the stones and rocks are quite hot it's the hot stones to a specially built miniature a hog on a short distance away from the living quarters anyway three or four thick blankets or rugs have placed over the entrance to seal in the heat from the blistering stones the sweat bath has a dual purpose it cleanses the body without using up scarce water and also the Navajo believes it purifies the spirit as well what's inside he sings sacred chants that will strengthen his spirit I am a human I am going among the vicious black snakes I am handling the vicious black snakes I am unafraid I have courage with courage no harm can befall me I am unafraid emerging from the sweat bath after about a half hour mr. Lewis long may surprise some of us with what he's about to do he dries himself by rubbing dirt and sand over his entire body strange behavior not when we consider that his religious beliefs make him feel spiritually closer to the earth than we do he thinks of it literally as my earth and this dust on his body he believes has placed him in physical contact with one of the great moving forces of his religious life he and the dust of Mother Earth are as one and this adds an emotional factor to the purification ceremony known as the sweat bath [Music] this modern attractive Goldwater's department store in Phoenix Arizona seems far removed from Hogan's cliff dwellings stick games and purification rites but while I was here in Phoenix Goldwater's was featuring a magnificent collection of Kachina dolls the finest array of its kind I have ever seen to the Hopi Indians the Kachina is not a play doll but rather a replica in friendly spirits responsible for rain good crops and plentiful hunting the Kachina spirits represented by these dolls are not worshipped as gods but they symbolized the very core of the Hopi religious beliefs even in this age of nuclear energy the Kachina is not stamped out by automation the true Kachina is lovingly yes and laborious ly handcrafted the root of the cottonwood tree supplies the raw material an over a period of days and even weeks the small log is roughed chiseled and carved to hand-paint the finish carving james k-1 whatta wa fashions a paintbrush from the dry stem of the yucca leaf it's just that simple but the actual painting is more elaborate and prescribed by tradition most importantly all Kachinas are masked figures for no Hopi in his right mind would ever claim that he had seen the real face of the Kachina spirit represented by this doll these are more elaborate Kachinas and fittingly so for these are famous figures the Kachina is symbolizing the rain spirits rain or not in this dry season I looked out to the cornfields they had had a drop of rain in weeks there was nothing in the sky to even suggest right just fleecy white clouds in a blue background rain well hardly but Jimmy would not be swayed the Hamish Kachinas would bring rains at the dry cornfields now I'm not a cynic but I must confess that I thought Jimmy was putting me on that afternoon high of at about three o'clock the sky turned into what I can best describe as white darkness and suddenly absolutely sudden the rains came to Indian country [Music] an hour later it was as if nothing had happened but I knew it had in the land of the red feather we're in Scottsdale Arizona in the month February and what we are watching is the annual parada del Sol parade of the Sun the parada is typical I think of the desire of all Americans to perpetuate their country is colorful yesterday and despite the light rain tens of thousands of spectators came to Scottsdale for this festive day this float is dedicated to the four flags that have flown over Arizona snow rental touches added some local people who raised Arabian horses [Applause] when derocker Azov is a heart of the Navajo government and in early September the scene of the yearly and Navajo Tribal Fair I tried standing on a high hill to photograph the enormous crowds and show you the size of the fair but even the camera couldn't capture the entire panorama yes they have a fine rodeo too but it's by no means the only worthwhile attraction at this four-day Jamboree the riders are amateur Navajos the flame of the Navajo is ashy Fraser is by now legendary and these 4-h club youngsters most of them Navajos including this beautiful girl are determined to excel at parents and grandparents wonderful prize sheet and a fine bunch of youngsters I must say this is the opening parade of the world renowned in a tribal ceremonial at Gallup New Mexico praying together tribes from all over the Americas they're all here and to name a few these are the Zuni women followed by the Apache devil dances then a tribal ceremonial stadium Sikhs many thousands of visitors and it's the scene of rodeo events and athletic contests in this case the stickball game as a forerunner of our shinny all across another page from the past the deer dance [Music] the most exciting dances I thought took place at night by the light of the flaming fire when most visitors had left for the day and the Indian could be himself and express himself [Music] now we move along on a Los Angeles freeway and just a few miles from the downtown district is a Southwest museum a non-profit privately endowed organization the Southwest is considered one of the most interesting and authentic of all purely Indian museums this teepee is not a replica but a real teepee of the Blackfoot Indians it's made of buffalo and steer hides and as many years old and this type of saddle crude though it may seem has been used for generations by the Plains Indians it's been a custom of the Plains Indians especially to paint picture stories on that teepees usually extolling the virtues of the owner as a hunter and warrior the Plains Indians were extremely close conscious I've always thought of them as being the dandies of the American Indians this maroon blouse or shirt must have made its owner proud but it's awfully heavy to wear decorated as it is by hundreds of elk teeth these were the clothes they wore these were the weapons they carried knives hatchets and axes made of steel and introduced to the Indians as trade goods by the pioneer settlers the peace-pipe actually a medicine pipe and pouch was a very sacred object used only for very special occasions Hollywood to the contrary it was not put to use every time a white man rode by the museum is full of excellent and realistic paintings very impressive and vividly colorful I'm sure you'll record this portrait is that of Sitting Bull the Sioux medicine man who played a part in the custom Massacre the rifle Sitting Bull used in his later years is another interesting artifact at the Southwest Museum it's a model 1861 Winchester but it's not knowing whether or not he had this rifle at the Little Bighorn will make this what Jack calls a must when you vacation in Los Angeles the Southwest Museum these now are some of the people who make up what I like to think of as the living museum native artisans who steadfastly stick to the old ways in doing things and making things her name is Trinidad Quintana herrera a widow who is raised and educated for children Trini is a maker of corn beans after the dried corn has been shelled it will be colored in this pot necessity forces Trinity to use crepe paper for the coloring or die hours later when the dried corn is still soft from balling a needle and thread all that she needs to string together a hundred or more kernels of corn to make a single ornamental necklace the string is completed by tying a leather thong to each end with a dozen or more finished corn necklaces in her arms Trini walks the few minutes from our home to the Santo Domingo trading post it's just off the highway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and its owner is a transplanted Easterner mr. Fred Thompson by combining Eastern merchandising ideas with the flavor of the Indian West fred has made santo domingo one of the best and best-known trading post in the Indian nations but just look at this right there must be at least a thousand corn strings in this one Trading Post apparently they're a very hot item and one reason may be the price 50 cents to a dollar the mission of San Luis Rey near Oceanside California was this second in the chain of missions established by the Franciscan fathers stretching from San Diego to San Francisco the larger missions generally established a secondary mission nearby assisting or assistance sea emissions such as the assistant sia at the Indian village of pala 20 miles from Oceanside the village is populated by the Capano Indians moved here by the government in 1903 from elsewhere in California now one of the primary functions of all of the missions was to bring Christianity to the Indians and the mission of San Antonio and Paula is today the only one of the original California missions still serving the American Indians as we will see in a few moments the inner courtyard of the mission is indescribably beautiful a breathtaking mixture of Mexico and old California the shrine was donated by Sol extreme star Ramon Navarro and memory of his parents approaching the shrine his sister Victor a Navajo serving God many hundreds of miles from her reservation welcome to Mission sanatorium ours is the last of the original California mission still serving the American Indians here at Mission San Antonio we teach both the Indian and white children who come to us from a distance of about 12 or 15 miles how many Western states are there we thirteen western states and it comes from here to there where are the two states that are separate from the United States Lydell Hawaii in Alaska as I listened and watched one word came to my mind America here was a small California village few people have ever heard of a Navajo none a mission school children of different races and creeds and the one unifying word is America now flying over Monument Valley in the heart of Navajo land two of the most memorable weeks of my life had come to an end but I had much much more than merely a good time to remember but two golden weeks I had renewed my acquaintance with my Aboriginal American brothers for them as for all of us times have changed they have not changed they remain today as I have known them for most of my life not as they are falsely portrayed in the TV and Hollywood westerns but as they really are gentle kind industrious proud of their heritage and unshaken in their beliefs if I am prejudiced I plead guilty to the charge I am deeply sentimentally and emotionally and fatuous with the first Americans my fellow countrymen who live in the shadow of the red feather in the shadows of Wyoming's Tetons we meet two talented people who share with us a love of the Indian and his culture reginal and Gladys Loudon the TP and these Indian things you see around here have been part of my life for while ever since I was 10 years old which is more than most Indians nowadays can say I learned my first Indian dance steps about the same time and I've been interested in Indian dancing ever since it just seemed to me that here was a real American art that all of us ought to know more about so Gladys and I have spent our lives living with old-timers and learning about the early days and trying to recapture some of the dances that have not been given in nearly a hundred years Americans have traveled all over the world in search of art and culture and have neglected this great wealth of material right here within our own borders we hope that we can preserve this not only for the Indians themselves but for all Americans as a great American heritage what we're about to see the Lubin's in an ancient Indian dance is a far cry from move in TV westerns one of the last surviving dances of the early days is the now popular grass or Omaha dance although this was advanced largely for a good time only bravest warriors could belong to the Omaha society originally also only men who had distinguished themselves against the enemy were permitted to sing and drum for this dance but tonight I'm going to give the honor to Gladys Loren we are carwash Stanley [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] ladies and gentlemen the loud band dance was photographed by our own Tom McHugh for the balance of the program we are indebted to our special guest mr. meager now until next week Jack Douglas saying thank you so much and good night ladies and gentlemen boys and girls [Music]