BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

Messages from Elders

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

FOREWORD
~~~~~~~~

AL Q"yawayma (Hopi, pronounced: Ko-YAH why-mah -
meaning: "Grey Fox Walking at Dawn") is not only
an outstanding engineer but is also one of
Americas leading pottery makers.

Al has made a particularly important contribution
to our country and to American Indians through
his leadership in establishing the American
Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES).

Al has successfully demonstrated that it is
possible to create a balance between one's
expertise in a given field with one's knowledge
and understanding of American Indian culture and
tradition. Al is both a teacher and a leader who
steadfastly adheres to the tenets of his tribal
background, and encourages students to maintain
and enhance their tribal background through the
arts.

Al's accomplishments, personal phlilosophy and
strong commitment to Indian young people inspired
the George Bird Grinnell American Indian Children
& Education Foundation to establish an award in
his honor. The Al Q"yawayma Award is an effort
to perpetuate the fine qualities embodied in Al's
work as an engineer and his creative abilities as
an artist. Al Q"yawayma is a model for all young
people and it is an honor to acknowledge his
outstanding contributions.

Patricia Trudell Gordon


BETWEEN TWO WORLDS


adapted from a lecture given by Al Q"yawayma
at the Heard Museum on 1-23-1991
and Santa Fe East Magazine, Summer 1991

Indian people today have a foot in two worlds,
but we live one life. Our footing is often
uncertain because each world is in a continuous
state of change. The Indian people need to
evaluate the best that is in our own culture and
hang onto it: for it will always be foremost in
our life. But we also need to take the best from
other cultures to blend with what we already
have.

Cultural change can be painful. Adaptation helps
moderate that pain and provides hope. Seeing
Indian young people adapt and then live out their
culture is very satisfying. What I see after the
pain is a story of reemergence and hope.

The Indian World

Citizens of the United States speak 400
languages. One-half or 200 of these languages are
spoken by the American Indian. Approximately one
percent of the U.S. population is American
Indian. Therefore, one percent of the population
represents fifty percent of America's cultural
diversity.

In a way we are fortunate as compared to other
indigenous peoples such as the Aborigines in
Australia or the black peoples in South Africa.
American Indians alone were able to regroup and
restructure enough so that at least some of our
lands and culture can be protected.

More than 20 percent of America's energy
resources, such as coal, oil, gas and uranium are
found on reservation land. Aside from the desire
to manage these and other resources we are very
concerned about the impact of their development
on all living things. For whatever affects our
waters, wildlife, even the grains of sand and
dust, also affects mankind. All things are
connected. For thousands of years our ancestors
were the caretakers of this land. We still have a
spiritual responsibility for its well being. The
inner world of the human is dependent on the
outer world of nature. Any devastation that we
bring upon the outer world of nature will
diminish the inner world of mankind.

Despite conquest, epidemics and an official
government policy of assimilation, we have
survived. That survival is through struggle,
persistence and endurance is a vital lesson for
our Indian young people today. Education is one
of the keys to overcoming poverty, poor health
and low expectations. Education also gives us the
training necessary to manage our remaining
resources.

Some tribes such as the Hopi were never conquered
in the classical sense and never signed a treaty.
Technically, some believe, the Hopi are still a
sovereign group of villages located high on the
mesas of northern Arizona. To make that point, a
number of years ago one of my relatives prepared
his own passport to attend a meeting in Sweden.
After much dialogue, the U.S. State Department
honored his Hopi passport.

As a Hopi I have been told of our migrations from
the south in meso-America or Mexico centuries
ago. Then in the late l500s our Hopi people had
their first contact with the Spanish. Our history
was personalized for me a few years ago when my
father told of how the Spanish era was closed at
Hopi, through the accidental shooting of the
commander of the last Spanish military contingent
at Old Oraibi in 1840. My fathers clan uncle
fired a rifle through a window. He did not know
much about the rifle which had been left behind
by soldiers a few years before. He only meant to
scare the soldiers away, but his aim was poor. No
contingent of Spanish soldiers ever came back. I
was told of the coming of the buffalo soldiers,
the blue shirts and their gun wagons, and the
ritual firing of the cannon to show force. I
learned of my aunt being hidden from federal
policemen because our family questioned the white
man's education. You see, the Q"yawaymas were of
the very conservative group from Old Oraibi. I
learned about the indignity of being forced to
walk naked through sheep dip and our elders who
were sent to Alcatraz without a trial for a year
because they objected to the white man's
education.

Then there was the experience of our parents and
relatives that occurred in government boarding
schools. Our parents were taken away from home to
these schools which were located in other states
at an early age. These children should have
stayed at home to receive training from their
parents. At school they were punished if they
spoke their language or practiced their culture.
They were taught to obey a puritan authority and
to conform to Anglo cultural norms. Their
education was inadequate.

They were put to work as servants and matrons.
The boys' highest expectations were to become
carpenters, masons and mechanics. Government
school officials and the students had no
expectation that they might one day train for a
profession. In my view the government boarding
school experience was, in the main, very
deculturizing. The effects of this
psychologically and culturally regressive process
has a continuing impact on the Indian person
today.

Now, one-half of the Indian population lives in
urban areas, often shuttling back and forth to
the reservation. To one degree or another, much
of the present native generation might be termed
horizon children. We remain caught at the
horizon, neither sky nor earth, painfully
suspended between two worlds. That is why we
struggle with alcoholism, suicide, high school
dropouts, unemployment and low wages. We now
strive to find out who we are.

Some poignant cases come to mind which illustrate
this cultural confusion. I recall the Ph.D.
electrical engineer who was adopted as an infant
into a non-Indian family and brought up far away
from his culture. Today, he can't face any
contact: with his tribe or with other Indians; it
is just too painful. There is the mother who
committed suicide because she could no longer
face a lie. Her mother had insisted she marry
into wealth rather than into the tradition of the
past. Her tragic suicide orphaned several young
children. It was acknowledged that an outside
value system had crept into her life and she
could not deal with it. I recall a motivational
talk that I gave before a tribal leadership
class. Two girls burst into tears near the end of
my talk. I wondered what I had said. They related
later that their parents had taught them
traditional ways up to the sixth grade. Then
their parents insisted they forget those ways and
concentrate on learning how to make a living in
the outside world. They had never been told that
it was okay to be Indian and at the same time
pursue a profession in the "outside world".

The Third Millennium

As Indian people are now balancing between two
worlds, so is humanity caught in a struggle of
balance between the inner world and outer world,
technology and nature. In January 1991 I was
invited to attend a joint international meeting
between the UN and the Club of Rome, attended by
scientists, religious leaders, artists, poets and
leaders. A theme of the meeting was The Third
Millennium. As stated by Thomas Berry, "We are
entering not simply the twenty-first century, not
simply the Third Millennium of our Era, we are
entering the Ectozoic Era in the biological story
of the planet."

We are experiencing massive extinctions of living
forms in a scale equalled only by the extinctions
at the close of the Paleozoic era 220 million
years ago and the end of the Mesozoic era 65
million years ago. The only choice we now have
before us is how we participate in the emerging
Ectozoic era, forming an integral earth community
that includes all the human and non-human
elements of planet earth.

As the meeting progressed. I was struck more and
more with the familiarity of the ideas. Finally,
I made the connection. Today's newest thinking of
the world as a communion of subjects, and our
role in the integral functioning of the natural
world-these are ideas that were spoken by Chief
Seattle 137 years ago.

In 1854, the "Great White Chief' in Washington
made an offer for a large area of Indian land and
promised a "reservation" for the Indian people.
Chief Seattle's poetic reply is one of the most
profound statements ever made on the relationship
between earth and man.

"What is man without the beast? If all the beasts
were gone, man would die from a great loneliness
of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts,
soon happens to man. All things are connected.
Teach your children what we have taught our
children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever
befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.
If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon
themselves. This we know: The earth does not
belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we
know. All things are connected like the blood
which unites one family. All things are
connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the
sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of
life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he
does to the web, he does to himself. This earth
is precious to Him (God), and to harm the earth
is to heap contempt on its creator."

(Excerpt from
"This Earth is Precious": 1854,
Chief Seattle).

Today there is a growing awareness that
environmental and social problems will require
more than scientific, economic and political
solutions. Modern man has knowledge, but can he
let go of his self-centered values and rise above
his indifferent attitude, indifferent to one
another? In my view it will take a true yieldness
to and practice of God's spiritual principles to
achieve the balance we are searching for. I have
heard and seen those values or principles
practiced by our old people. They include being
thankful, loving, forbearing and being patient
with one another, respecting one another, the
earth and all living things. The Psalms tell us
that "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness
thereof: the skies proclaim the work of His
hands." If we heap contempt on the earth is it
any wonder that our lives are in shambles? I have
the notion that if we overcome the predisposition
to subdue the earth, to extract maximum material
value, that our family and personal lives will be
more inclined to come into balance. We would then
cease to be so egocentric, we would be thankful
and praise our Creator. Chief Seattle had a clear
vision of God's requirements.

We have a start; many people today have a
predisposition to gather together and ponder the
problems. Increasingly they recognize these
spiritual values. However, man, being man, wants
to examine what he gets for giving up some of his
domain. Indian peoples still have a vivid memory
of their primal roots. They were the caretakers
of the land in the Americas. They are a surrogate
for Western man who once also had primal roots,
roots which understood the interconnectedness
with the created earth and all living things. We
now clearly share a common destiny with the
Western world, if not the entire world.

Renewed Hope

Although the reality of the acculturation process
is painful, there is a hopeful side. My
experience with AISES illustrates this hope.

In 1977 I participated in the founding of the
American Indian Science and Engineering Society
(AISES). The purpose of this society was to
significantly increase the number of American
Indian scientists and engineers and to develop
leaders within the Indian community. We started
with seven participants and no assets. The
founders vowed to work a lifetime to achieve
parity - a goal of about 10,000 American Indian
scientists and engineers.

Today, after 16 years of progress, AISES serves
the Indian community nationwide. With nearly 100
student chapters, several thousand student,
professional and corporate members, pre-college
programs, and an annual national leadership
training conference, AISES has become one of the
strongest groups for youth motivation in the
nation. AISES is spreading hope and opportunity
throughout Indian country. A new kind of warrior
is being trained.

AISES is not interested in producing grist for
the competitively driven materialistic corporate
and government mills. Emphasis is placed on the
realization of a balanced life, balanced in
appreciation and knowledge of their culture and
their spirituality. Emphasis is placed on the
family and community building. In fact AISES has
called itself "The Family". Students are taught
by example to pray, to be thankful and have
respect for their elders. The spirit is so strong
that it is spreading throughout lndian country,
into other Indian organizations as well. Perhaps
the spirit will spread to society as a whole. We
have that hope!

In my participation with AISES and other Native
American organizations I find an additional basis
for hope. Although we are dealing with a great
diversity in the Native American community, I
find common ground, a change in our attitude as
indigenous peoples of North America. We are
gaining a world view of ourselves as native
peoples. We have reached and passed the nadir of
our 500 years experience with adversity and
despair. We are now in what I call "the healing
generation", a turning point in the view of
ourselves as native peoples, a genuine renewal
process. We are actively seeking to hold unto the
wisdom in our ancient ways of living, yet we are
seeking to deal with the realities of today. We
see ourselves as one community, while maintaining
our individual tribal identity. We are listening
more carefully to one another.

We help one another. AISES has an expression for
this: "The honor of one is the honor of all".
Despite our diversity in cultural practices and
religious beliefs, we accept and honor one
another. This seems to be the opposite of what we
see and experience in the cities and society of
today. Indeed there is hope.

And my role as an artist? The role of my art and
life as an artist is to glorify God, our creator.
As with our ancestors, Native American artists
can help interpret through inner spiritual eyes
the world and the environment that surrounds us.
Artists will help us to see. They will provide a
nonverbal record of history. As a potter I work
with the precious earth, the living clay. I too
have learned that all things are interconnected.





Hopiland.net

American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES)