Re: Hopi Elders Speak. I loved this piece. Susan Hunt.
Last June in Mali we were taken on a field trip to the village of Krina, a place of some significance to the people of Mali because it is the place where Sundiata Keita established the seat of the Malian Empire in the 13th century. Krina is composed of round mud huts with thatched roofs. In terms of material wealth, it looks a lot like Afgan villages. But it has a wealth of meaning: historical, cultural, symbolic, religous, etc. We asked (through our guide and interpreter) if we could have a tour of the village, and the chief (a lovely old man in a sky blue boubou) complied. What we had in mind was a tour of what we considered the village - the part with the buildings. They wanted to show us what they considered their village, starting with the most important things: the water supply and the fields. The Hopi elders would understand this. Not only did they want to show us these physical things, they tried to convey to us that they had historical and symbolic (metaphysical, religious) aspects, which was tricky, given the language barrier. The water supply consisted of twin ponds, which at the end of the dry season were little more than mud puddles, although we were assured that they never went dry and still contained fish. These two ponds were separated by a thin piece of earth, and the fact that they never joined to form a single pond, even when they were full, had some sort of symbolic significance (which didn't make it through the translation). Next we were shown the village fields. There were corn and vegetable fields near the village and rice fields farther way. There were piles of manure in the corn fields, and corrals made of tree branches. They explained that the animals were kept in the corrals so it would be easier to collect the manure to be used for fertilizer. It was clear that they used it to fertilize the fields closer to the village. I asked if they also used it for the rice fields. They said they used "white man's fertilizer" on the rice fields. Recall that this village was really poor in terms of money. It looks like the Afgan villages we are seeing on TV. White man's fertilizer must be purchased with foreign exchange, and Mali doesn't export much so foreign exchange is scarce. Knowing this, I was impressed that the village had so many sustainable alternatives in pace, sustainable in both the economic and the environmental sense. Because of the historical and cultural significance of the area, the wife of Mali's current president (a very scholarly women) is trying to figure out a way to make it a tourist destination so the villages and the country itself can earn more foreign exchange. But it really isn't yet. There are so few tourists, in fact, that one kid started crying hysterically when he saw me because he'd never seen a white person before. The village women thought this was very funny and came running after me to tell me what was going on. The rest of the kids were okay about us, and although curious and lively, they were extremely well behaved -- one of the most striking features of Mali. Well behaved kids. Malian villages are very ambivalent about tourists. You have to get permission from the chief, and maybe also from various elders, before you can look around. We were clearly not welcome in one village in Dogon country, maybe because our guide was not in good standing, and maybe because the village had had a bad experience with foreigners. Malian culture is "embedded" in Karl Polanyi's sense, so all space is sacred space. Foreigners are okay as long as they behave properly. When we visited Kangaba, the most sacred village of the Bambara people, we had to find a "griot" to speak for us, who had to present our case to the chief's brother, who then spoke to the chief, before we were allowed to look around and see the sacred hut (a round mud hut with a thatched roof that looked like any other mud hut in the village). This process took several hours, during which we were served peanut butter chicken over rice sitting on mats under a mango tree in a compound that looks like Afganistan. We loved it. The sacred hut is rebuilt during 7 days every 7 years while griots (oral singers of sacred history) recite the history of the place night and day in the center of the hut while it is rebuilt around them. The appearance of this hut gave no indication (to us) that it was so important to the Bambara people. I guess one of the things that differentiates modern western culture from traditional cultures is that our sacred or otherwise important places have to look expensive, while that doesn't seem to be important to them. Their symbolic wealth doesn't have to have a rich material container (objective correlative, hypostasis), so it's kind of hard to tell what's going on just from appearances. Probably it would be easy for development types to think they were doing a good thing if they modernized Kangaba so it wouldn't look so poor (by our standards), and probably that would be really bad for the soul of the place. THE TEXT OF YOUR MESSAGE FOLLOWS: > > Hopi Elders Speak > > You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. > Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. > > And there are things to be considered: > Where are you living? > What are you doing? > What are your relationships? > Are you in right relation? > > Where is your water? > Know your garden. > It is time to speak your Truth. > Create your community. > And do not look outside yourself for the leader. > > This could be a good time! > There is a river flowing now very fast. > It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. > They will try to hold on to the shore. > They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly. > Know the river has its destination. > > The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the > river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above ! the water. > See who is in there with you and celebrate. > > At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. > Least of all, ourselves. > For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. > > The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! > Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. > All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. > > We are the ones we've been waiting for. > > The Elders > Oraibi, Arizona > Hopi Nation > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ---------------------------------------------------- > Sign Up for NetZero Platinum Today > Only $9.95 per month! > http://my.netzero.net/s/signup?r=platinum&refcd=PT97 > > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Universal Inkjet Refill Kit $29.95 Refill any ink cartridge for less! Includes black and color ink. http://us.click.yahoo.com/1_Y1qC/MkNDAA/ySSFAA/NJYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! 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