Native Arts & Lifeways

The land we live on was once walked upon by the Hohokam - the ancient ones of this area - as evidenced by thousand-year-old potsherds we have found here.  Some twenty miles west of us stand the Baboquivari mountains, which form the eastern boundary of the Tohono O'odham Nation, the largest native nation in Arizona aside from the Dineh.

Our neighbors, the Tonono O'odham, descendants of the Hohokam, have a word in their language, himdag (pronounced him-dug).  It describes all aspects of their culture:  respect for self and all beings; storytelling, music, games, crafts, ceremonies, hunting and harvesting; and the spiritual, physical, emotional and physical health of the people and the land.  Put another way, it means to walk in balance.  Himdag is what we mean by native arts.

As a means to both practice himdag, which has stood the test time in this sonoran desert, as well as to educate the public about ancient, sustainable ways of earthkeeping, among many other things we offer workshops on the following:

Danny August co-ordinates the native arts program at TerraSante, see his website for the workshop calendar and further information.

The element fire, a piece of father sun, makes life possible, gives us warmth, cooks our food, lights our night, transforms matter, beckons spirit: every full moon we spin our campfire with the hand drill.

All you need is two sticks (and a bit of dried grass)?  You bet.  A yucca stalk or seep willow branch spun on a saguaro rib, harvested nearby.  Learn how to transform the fire within to the fire without, and know the feeling that you will never be without heat and light.

To a native person, all plants are useful.  Native people have in the past used and continue to use the abundant plant life in the Sonoran desert for food, medicine, clothing, cordage, tools, dyes, building materials and more.  Some examples are: soap and cordage from yucca, firesticks from saguaro, beans from mesquite, and fruits from cactus.

We periodically have guided plant walks at TerraSante, to introduce you to some of the more important of these plants.

At TerraSante we are blessed with earth with a clay content high enough to make pottery.  We dig the clay, process it (sometimes adding water, sifting, or adding "temper"), shape it, and fire it with local mesquite, which burns at a temperature high enough for firing pottery.

Cordage is an important item in the native world, used in hunting, fishing, clothing, net bags, adornment, and so on.  The leaf fibers from the yucca plant, which grows in our area, are pounded in the traditional way or boiled, then twisted into strong cordage.

The didgeridoo is an instrument for creating sound, originating in Australia.  There, the termites hollow out gum trees (eucalyptus), and the native people cut them down to make these instruments.  In our area, the stalk of the agave plant is used.  These can be cut and fairly easily hollowed out.

Native Australians play didgeridoos as a way of nourishing the earth, communicating with the spirit world, celebrating life, and for other ritual purposes.  The didge players are usually accompanied by people chanting, clapping hardwood sticks together, and dancing.

Scientifically speaking, the vibrational frequencies and waveforms produced by a didgeridoo resonate with various frequencies of the human mind-body-spirit, especially the lower ones, causing a rebalancing of our luminous energy fields, or LEF.  Listening to and playing the digeridoo can put us in a trance state, in which many health benefits can be realized.

Making, playing and healing with the didgeridoo are taught at TerraSante.  Bring your own agave stalk or finished didges.

Before the relatively recent advent of agriculture, for many eons the survival of humans depended on the tools and hunting points they made out of stone.  Some of these points of the Hohokam, or ancient ones, still turn up in washes here.

We teach how to chip stones to make these tools in order to keep this tradition alive as well as for the student to go away with a beautiful keepsake or useful object.  On our wish list is:  large stones or boulders of chert or obsidian, and deer or elk antlers, the traditional tools to flake them with.

To a tracker, nature reveals her secrets in nearly anything.  Much useful knowledge can be gained from learning to read tracks in the sand, or what a broken branch or a smell on the wind tells.  These techniques can be applied to anything.  The clothes someone wears, their body language, accent, perfumes, etc., can tell many stories; so tracking can be useful in the city as well as in the wilderness.

At the core of the native way is the connection to everything in the universe.  This includes things that we can't necessarily perceive with our five senses.  The shaman's, or medicine person's role is to channel this universal energy to others and to the land for sustainence and healing.

Group or individual workshops or sessions can be arranged in advance with Danny August, our resident practitioner, including shamanic counseling, soul retrieval, dream work, stilling the mind, waterpouring, and didgeridoo therapy.  See Controlled Folly Productions for contact and further info.