Spirit of the Land. A tribute to Native North America

HOME >> Sacred Earth >> Spirit of the Land

SPIRIT OF THE LAND
A pilgrim's tribute to soul power in Native North America


	The buffalo has long been viewed as sacred by the western prairies; at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo jump near Fort Macleod, Alberta, one of the oldest, best preserved buffalo jumps in North America, animal remains and human artifacts reveal much about the traditional spiritual beliefs and cultural customs of the ancient Blackfoot Nation, whose survival depended on the buffalo's bounty.

Excerpt from Spirit of the Land: Sacred Places in Native North America which appeared in Equinox: November 1994, pp. 66-69

At the dawn of the 1990 autumnal equinox, I climbed into the bucket of a hydraulic lift and was hoisted 12 meters into the air beside the Big Horn Medicine Wheel in northern Wyoming. I felt a powerful energy there at the 3,000-meter summit of Medicine Mountain. It seemed to me that the Big Horn Wheel linked the distant plains with the heavens.

Though little is known for certain about its origins, the wheel is believed to be more than 2,000 years old. The Crow, Arapaho, and Shoshone peoples of this area all have oral histories about sacred ceremonies held here, and present-day prayer offerings can be found on a fence erected to protect the wheel. I did not know it at the time, but the Big Horn Wheel would figure prominently in my life in the coming years. The sense of mystery and awe I felt then has never left me.

											In June 1992, I participated in the Wisdom Keeper's Convocation at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While in Rio, I witnessed the signing of the Charter of the Indigenous People of the World and was involved in lighting a ceremonial fire, a symbolic focus of spiritual energy from around the world. Soon after, I was presented with the idea of photographing sacred places in Native North America. This immediately appealed to me because I have long felt a kinship with Native spiritual values.
Big Horn Medicine Wheel

I remembered my experience at Big Horn and wondered where the 28 spokes radiating from the central cairn might lead. A framework began to emerge. I decided to use the Big Horn Medicine Wheel as the starting point of my photographic journey, following each spoke across the continent in search of sacred landscapes.

These photographs are among those that appear in Spirit of the Land: Sacred Places in Native North America, the book that resulted from my quest. They include specific sites that First Nations identify as holy, as well as other natural landforms that capture the mystical essence of the earth. Twenty years of photographing the land have drawn me ever closer to the life-giving cycles and rhythms of nature; I have long enjoyed discovering faces in tree bark and driftwood and seeing animal or human figures in the land before me. The photographs have been selected to convey how it felt to be at such places. I have sometimes used special photographic techniques in an attempt to portray the spirit of the place - for me, small vignettes of nature are often more evocative than overall images of the physical landscape.


			Haida Heritage Queen Charlotte Islands Honoring ancestral spirits: Mortuary and totem poles carved more than 150 years ago in the ancient ceremonial village of Ninstints slowly return to the forest. Some poles feature containers for the ashes of the dead, while others identify great lodges, such as the moon and thunderbird. The village is now a United Nations Heritage Site.

Today, despite centuries of oppression, North America's original inhabitants are finding new strength in their own traditions. The banning of ceremonies such as the Sun dance, the Ghost Dance, and the potlatch, combined with the degradation of sacred lands through mining and development, are tragic events in our history of this continent. It is a testament to the enduring spiritual power of native cultures that these traditions are now experiencing a resurgence.

For many North American Native people, the circle represents the cycle of life. On the circle, there is no beginning and no end. This symbol of infinity and interconnectedness is seen in the sweat lodge, the bowl of the sacred pipe, the sacred hoop, and the medicine wheel. Some Native writers describe the medicine wheel as a microcosm of life, its circular pathway encompassing all aspects of the world within the four cardinal directions. Each of these directions represents a stage of life within which specific lessons are learned. East is the place of birth and new beginnings; south, of youth, strength, and idealism; west, of emotional growth and self-knowledge; and north, of wisdom and life's fulfillment. Corresponding to these directions are the four seasons - spring in the east, summer in the south, autumn in the west, and winter in the north - and the elements of earth, wind, water and fire. The four related colors, according to the Lakota, are red, yellow, black, and white, which also reflect the main races of the world. At Bear Butte, a hallowed peak in South Dakota, the same four colors are seen in prayer flags tied to tree branches, and distinct soils of the same colors are found within a short walk of each other.

Spider Rock, Canyon de Chelly National Monument
Canyon de Chelly was home to the ancient Anasazi culture. This thousand-foot-high twin column of sandstone is known as Spider Woman, one of the Holy Beings of the Hopi and Navajo people.

Although there are many similarities among native spiritual traditions, there are also, of course, distinct variations. Oral histories may vary, but the truth embodied in each telling endures.

My hope is that encountering these photographs will allow people to connect with the world as it was when all the land was revered, when all the elements were honored for their power, when wilderness provided spiritual as well as physical nourishment, and when all humankind respected the sacred nature of their surroundings.


	Sands of Time Apache and Pueblo legends have been inspired by the elegant gypsum dunes at White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, which undulate gracefully over an area of nearly 800 square kilometers.

Top