Okay, so the past few days have been filled with a lot of learning. It's been fantastic, but my head is full to overflowing! I am not sure where to even begin this post, so it will probably be a lot of rambling as I am really just trying to kill time till we leave for Durango for ANOTHER fun filled day of awesomeness.Let's see...
We have been doing a lot of hands one activities with the directors of the program and some of the American Indian staff members/volunteers who truly are experts. We went to the basketmaker learning center on campus which is a replica of a pithouse dwelling during the basketmaker time period. It is an amazing almost to scale building and is surprising cool (temperature wise) even in the heat of the day, and surprisingly roomy as all 25 of the participants and four instructors fit in it with no problem as we sat on the floor in a circle for our lesson in "making fire" which, by the way, was an epic fail for all of us. It was a lot of fun to try, but I'm very grateful for matches. :)
We also learned how to make string from Yucca, which I was a lot better at (though that is traditionally a child's job) and how to throw the Atlatl, which is a way to turn a spear into a projectile (before the bow and arrow). I was terrifically bad at that too, but Alisha did very well and one person in our group did hit the fake turkey, so at least we would have something to eat (though we couldn't cook it because none of us could make fire...guess we'd have to wait for a lightening strike in just the right place). Don't worry, I have a couple of pictures of our epic fail at making fire, I think...I have to find them on the amazing number of pictures I have on my phone and camera. After the Atlatl, we went up to the Pueblo learning center on campus, which is a structure from the Pueblo III time period. It is a really neat learning facility. In here, we learned about clothing and living arrangements etc. and Noelle was our beautiful model. The Pueblo is a lot hotter than the pithouse. I'm unsure why, but I would guess it has something to do with the subterranean structure of the pithouse vs. the above ground structure of a traditional pueblo.
Tessie then gave a lovely lecture about Santa Clara, her home pueblo, and the changes that have taken place over the last 100 years or so, and every time I learn more about this community I am amazed by their fortitude and ingenuity. Her presentation was beyond words and I'm super excited that I stumbled across a poem by her sister that I plan to use next year in my unit. It's truly a beautiful poem that I intend to use as the center of my curriculum project (which I have been working on, but I find it hard to do any "real work" when there is so much to do! But I have to have it done before I leave as part of the program requirements! eep!). Porter, Tessie's nephew, then taught us a traditional Towa game, which was a lot of fun to play.
This was all a couple of days ago, but there is so much more. But now I must prepare for Durango so...until the next installment I bid you adieu.
Sounds like a terrific day. I wish i could had went over there. I love learning about Indians, its in my heirtage anyway. I learned to basketmake at a Indian's meeting im Virginia.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this blog. It was very informative and I like how you tried to throw the spears for the first time. I would like to read that peom you were mentioning to better educate myself. I would also like to see those epic fail pictures.:)
ReplyDeleteI think that this sounds like a really fun day. Its cool that you got to throw the spear. That would also be fun to go to the Pueblo learning center. I like to learn about differnt cultures and how they live. I remember a few years ago I went on a field trip and learned about all of this kind of stuff. I also got to throw a tomahawk which was really fun.
ReplyDelete@ Jalen: I would LOVE to learn how to make baskets! We didn't have a chance to do that--but we did an awful lot of other things. Did you get good at it?
ReplyDelete@ Scuba Steve (Stephen I presume?:): You already read the poem:) That was "Towa" by Nora Naranjo Morse. Tessie is her sister, and it really is a fantastic poem and putting it into context is really something special. I do have those epic fail pictures and they don't look like a fail, but we do look goofy. The only thing I really got from that experience was a little smoke inhalation.
@ AJ: Throwing a tomahawk eh? That's either super awesome or super scary haha. The spears were fortunately dulled at the end so no real turkeys were harmed.
The trip sounds really fun. I would like to go to Colorado and experience all those activities. I bet making a fire is not easy, but the experience sounded fun. I would like to throw a tomahawk. Without harming any animals. I'm glad it was a fake turkey because it isn's thanksgiving yet so you would have to throw the turkey away.
ReplyDeleteThe experience was definitely worth the harder times! And inseriously doubt a real turkey would have hung around long enough for us to throw atlatals at him!
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