"We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth as "wild". To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery."

Luther Standing Bear - Rosebud Sioux

Guardian of the Water Medicine

Guardian of the Water Medicine
Dale Auger

Dale Auger

Dale Auger: On Art, Blood and Kindred Spirits
by Terri Mason

Defining Dale Auger in one sentence is akin to releasing the colours of a diamond in one cut. It can’t be done. It’s the many facets that release a diamond’s true brilliance, as it is the many facets of Auger’s life, education, ancestry, experiences and beliefs that have shaped and polished his work into the internationally acclaimed and collected artist that he is today.

Born a Sakaw Cree from the Bigstone Cree Nation in northern Alberta, Auger’s education began as a young boy when his mother would take him to be with the elders. “I used to say to myself, ‘Why is she leaving me with these old people?’ – but today I see the reason; I was being taught in the old way.”

Auger’s respect for traditional teachings led him on a journey to study art, opening the door to a doctorate in education. He is a talented playwright, speaker and visual artist whose vividly coloured acrylics have captured the attention of collectors that reads like an international ‘Who’s Who’ spanning English to Hollywood royalty. The essence of his work is communication, and now Dr. Auger has come full circle, interpreting the life of his culture – from the everyday to the sacred - through the cross-cultural medium of art.

Read the rest here:

http://www.daleauger.com/printversionbio.cfm

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Featured Tribe - Mobile of Alabama

Mobile (meaning doubtful). A Muskhogean tribe whose early home was probably Mauvila, or Mavilla, supposed to have been at or near Choctaw Bluff on Alabama river, Clark County, Ala., where DeSoto, in 1540, met with fierce opposition on the part of the natives and engaged in the most obstinate contest of the expedition. The town was then under the control of Tascalusa probably an Alibamu chief. If, as is probable, the Mobiln tribe took part in this contest, they must later have moved farther south, as they are found on Mobile bay when the French began to plant a colony at that point about the year 1700. Wishing protection from their enemies, they obtained permission from the French, about 1708, to settle near Ft Louis, where space was lotted them and the Tohome for this purpose.

Little is known of the history the tribe. In 1708 a large body of Alibamu, Cherokee, Abihka, and Catawba warriors descended Mobile river for to purpose of attacking the French and the Indian allies, but for some unknown reason contented themselves with destroying a few huts of the Mobilians. The latter, who were always friendly to to French, appear to have been Christianized soon after the French settled there. In 1741 Coxe wrote that the chief city of the once great province of Tascaluza, "Mouvilla, which the English call Maubela, and the French Mobile, is yet being, tho' far short of its former grandeur." At this date the Mobilians d Tohome together numbered 350 families. Mention is made in the Mobile church registers of individual members the tribe as late as 1761, after which are lost to history as a tribe. For subsistence they relied almost wholly on agriculture. Clay images of men and women and also of animals, supposed to be objects of worship by this people, were found by the French.

The so-called Mobilian trade language a corrupted Choctaw jargon used for purposes of intertribal communication among all the tribes from Florida to Louisiana, extending northward on the Mississippi to about the junction of the Ohio. It was also known as the Chickasaw trade language.
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