we live in a world with many ways of
knowing with many different systems of
knowledge knowledge that so many people
have about the landscape has been
underestimated hasn’t been clearly
understood it’s time to assert that we
have the knowledge of place and tell us
the idea of what apps are about Okinawa
there okay I’m Callie you’re coming back
you got eaten up by rabbits but you’re
making it all this year’s even I’ve been
planting 60 consecutive years ever since
I was in a cradle board my grandma’s and
auntie’s put seeds in my hands and then
they put me a little too whole I planted
it next year I planted the next year
next year next year
everywhere I live I always find it
something most of it here
Junius a a place where most people live
within two minutes of every living
relative and dead relative I think
knowing where you’re from is important
what other people call you is what
really makes you up this place first
some of them know me as a farmer some of
them don’t even know my museum director
my name is Jim a note and I’m the
director of the archway Island Museum
here in Zuni New Mexico there’s my field
right there and I can see the corn is
dead and dry and it’s kind of creepy to
look down on it’s disorienting one time
I showed my mother some aerial photos
her first response was I’m not a bird
she says that’s not how I look at things
she asked me what am I looking at I
don’t know what I’m looking at maps have
done a lot to confuse things for people
and I think more lands have been lost to
native peoples probably through mapping
than through physical conflict I wanted
to make some maps that were both elegant
evocative and profoundly important to
the zoning people and that’s where the
map art idea came from
he’s read American Museum of Natural
History in New York City of course
that’s going to be one of the last ones
I had no idea at the beginning that so
much story would come out of this
mapmaking process at first I thought we
would create some new kinds of maps the
counter and challenged the notion of
what maps are where North does not have
to be at the top that scale is
unnecessary what’s more important is
these stories of history described in
these vignettes of experience and now
these are here for all zuni’s to learn
from from here on these maps become a
thing that helps a family or group to
start speaking about places to start
learning from each other and talking
about places in a way that’s uniquely
Zuni if we were to go outside our doors
now and walk downstream from the Zuni
River it would take us right back into
the Grand Canyon it’s like an umbilical
cord connecting us back to the place
that we came out from others
when I come to this place it’s like a
special place on the bookshelf library
our culturist library well today we take
pictures sometimes selfies of ourselves
but our ancestors were marking on the
rocks here things that they saw
like turkeys and deer and there’s stuff
all over you can see things zig zags
hash marks it’s a fish that’s a really
rare one
our legislators began to see petroglyphs
here that are the same as those in the
bottom of the Grand Canyon a certain
clan symbol a certain way of making a
spiral it has a Zuni signature that
helps us to connect these dots and bring
the whole story together
we limit ourselves if we think of Maps
is only 2-dimensional the map maybe
something we heard from our grandmother
about a place there are maps in songs
and in prayers there are maps that are
etched in stone and woven into textiles
and painted on ceramics Google Maps and
any other kinds of maps really well
they’re very helpful
the names around here are in English or
Spanish as so they completely leave off
the meaning of the place it is replacing
our language and eclipsing our language
and knowledge with something different
something that’s not really from here
this whole constellation of what makes
up a map to me is has always been far
beyond a piece of paper
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imagine ancestors traveling for days
looking for water being parched thirsty
imagine coming to this valley and
finding this and they said this is this
is where we’ll stay when you grow old
with the community and all of their
great great great great great
grandmother’s are from this place that
carries a kind of identity and
profoundness that you can’t find
anywhere else when people have a map
that is part of for me their identity it
tells them that they are of this place I
think I feel part of something with this
work if my grandpa and grandma would see
there any Maps I think they would have
recognized quickly oh yeah this is
what’s in that song this is what’s in
those prayers and I think as their
descendants they would have been proud
a lot of things that our grandparents
tell us and passed down to us they
always say remember these things
remember it and too often things are
forgotten but I think the map art is
going to be something where they’ll say
you remember
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you
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