Archer Pechawis - Horse
Essay by Candice Hopkins : Talking to my Horse, Whistling the Garry Owen
During a meeting with Archer Pechawis over coffee this past fall he used a word
to describe his performance and subsequent web-work, Horse, that stuck with me.
He called it a gift. It is a seemingly simple statement but one that points to
the idea that the piece somehow has an existence outside of its maker. It also
struck me as a peculiar position to take. For one, it implies a rather
deliberate inversion of the hierarchical relationship between an artwork and an
artist. It also gives a surprising amount of agency to the work itself—a freedom
to act that is not normally accorded to something that is the creation of
another.
It was through carefully watching and listening to the piece unfold that the significance of this word, and its implied agency, began to make sense. Fundamentally, Horse is about the reversal of hierarchies and power relationships. It is about the potential of one small action to change the course of the world. And it is the universe that one would expect to find if, instead of Alice going through the Looking Glass, it was someone from the Cheyenne leader, Black Kettle’s camp instead. The following is what he saw.
The story starts out innocently enough. Told through video and sound, Horse is narrated by a man who had recently married into Black Kettle’s band. The piece begins with a description of life in the winter of 1868 four years after the Sand Creek Massacre and just following the signing of the Medicine Lodge Treaty. Sand Creek, as is now known, was among the worst massacres of Native people in U.S. history and the Medicine Lodge Treaty, as was the case for most treaties of the time, was a bad deal for Indians. (The Treaty further reduced the size of Indian reservations and also moved the signers into closer proximately to other groups vying for the same dwindling resources. This move inevitably led to fighting and tension.) The three treaties that collectively made up the Medicine Lodge Treaty would remain un-ratified because of internal disagreements. In the end, they wouldn’t so much promote understanding between the different groups inasmuch as they would widen the divide between the leaders of the democratic Kiowa, Comanche, Plains Apache, Southern Cheyenne, Southern Arapaho, and their constituents. The narrator was among those who resisted signing the Treaty. But this was the winter of 1868 and people were tired of fighting and tired of death and were looking for peace wherever they could find it.
It was around the middle of November that year when the world went a little sideways—if only for a moment. The event took place on the Washita River, near present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma, and this version involves a talking antelope, visionary horses, an Irish drinking song, a brass band, George Armstrong Custer, and a group of fast-thinking Cheyenne. The Cheyenne, as it turns out, were almost in the wrong place at the wrong time.
While the narrator does the best job at recounting the events that transpired that day, a brief synopsis could go a little like this: While hunting out one day the man came upon three antelope and managed to kill two. (The kill was serendipitous given that there were about 50 lodges, plus at least two additional lodges belonging to visiting Arapaho and Lakota that winter, making a total of at least 250 people in Black Kettle’s camp at the time.) It was when the man failed to kill the third antelope that things went a little askew. Just before running off, the antelope turned to look at him and spoke. He uttered one word: “Soon.” This word would set an entire series of events into motion. [1]
But first some background.
The story of the Battle of Washita River is well known. Among historians, it is still debated as to whether this was a massacre, but the facts can be laid out as follows: in the early morning hours of November 27, 1868 the 7th U.S. Calvary, led by Lieutenant Col. George Armstrong Custer attacked Black Kettle's village as they were winter camping along the Washita River—then known as the Lodgepole River. Between sixty and one hundred and fifty men, women, and children were killed. (The accounts vary widely depending on who was doing the counting. To this day the final numbers remain unverified). The village had previously declared its peace with the United States, and following orders from Indian agents, had signaled this by flying a U.S. Flag clearly overhead. Shortly after the killing began another white flag of surrender was quickly raised by the camp but went unnoticed (or ignored) by Custer as he continued his march. Custer’s attack was sparked by a group of some one hundred and fifty Cheyenne (including some from Black Kettle's band) who had been raiding other nearby camps and settlements. The irony is that only a few days prior Black Kettle was preparing to reprimand these rogue individuals and reiterate his peace agreement with the United States. The Cheyenne Custer attacked were mostly unarmed. Believing that they were at peace, they didn't stand a chance. Black Kettle and his wife, Medicine Woman Later, were among the first to die.
The story that the narrator recounts, however, ends a little differently. In this version Custer doesn't win but neither do the Indians. Rather, it is the beasts of burden, the Horse People, who change the course of history. The man recounts that one by one, during the battle, the horses begin to rebel. Violently throwing off their riders, they fight off the soldiers with their teeth and hooves, striking and biting and kicking. As a result of their intervention those in Black Kettle’s village are spared certain death. Their resistance costs the Horse People dearly and there are many casualties. Their intention, as we later learn, was not simply to win the battle; this was only a small part of the equation. Rather, the event was orchestrated to get the Cheyenne to listen to what they had to say. The Horse People, as it turns out, would foretell an omen for the future: a time when new technologies would radically alter the course of human life, all but severing our relationship with the natural world and its medicines. The people of the world, in only thinking of themselves and their present needs, would remain all but blind to these shifts.
During our conversation Archer also relayed that the original title of the work was “Talking to my Horse, Whistling the Garyowen.” The Garyowen being the adapted Irish drinking song that Custer's Military band would play during and in preparations for battle. (One can only imagine what it must have felt like to face death with the uncanny aural backdrop of colonial horns and percussion echoing through the landscape). This title is revealing as the work does speak to the American Revolution and its parallel history of the dispossession of Indian land. Perhaps more importantly, it also speaks to the relationship between oral traditions and technology. The work, like much of Pechawis’s past projects, exists in a transitional space. Adeptly interrogating the Horse People’s omen, it exists at the point where “Cree culture meets the onrush of millennial technology.” [2]
1. Lending insight into the relationship between humans and nature from Aboriginal worldviews, Cree filmmaker, writer and theorist Loretta Todd, has previously written:
While it may be seductive to draw parallels between Aboriginal concepts of transformation, or shape-shifting, and disembodiment in cyberspace, to do so would be simplistic. Perhaps some insight can be found in the relationship between animals and humans. A hunter does not get animals because he is a good shot. You could say animals choose to give themselves to the hunter as part of an “old agreement,” a symbiotic relationship in which animals and humans communicate.
From Todd’s essay “Narratives in Cyberspace,” reprinted in Transference, Tradition, Technology (Banff: Walter Phillips Gallery Editions, Indigenous Media Arts Group, and Art Gallery of Hamilton, 2005), 156.
2. Quoted from a statement by the artist, nd.
It was through carefully watching and listening to the piece unfold that the significance of this word, and its implied agency, began to make sense. Fundamentally, Horse is about the reversal of hierarchies and power relationships. It is about the potential of one small action to change the course of the world. And it is the universe that one would expect to find if, instead of Alice going through the Looking Glass, it was someone from the Cheyenne leader, Black Kettle’s camp instead. The following is what he saw.
The story starts out innocently enough. Told through video and sound, Horse is narrated by a man who had recently married into Black Kettle’s band. The piece begins with a description of life in the winter of 1868 four years after the Sand Creek Massacre and just following the signing of the Medicine Lodge Treaty. Sand Creek, as is now known, was among the worst massacres of Native people in U.S. history and the Medicine Lodge Treaty, as was the case for most treaties of the time, was a bad deal for Indians. (The Treaty further reduced the size of Indian reservations and also moved the signers into closer proximately to other groups vying for the same dwindling resources. This move inevitably led to fighting and tension.) The three treaties that collectively made up the Medicine Lodge Treaty would remain un-ratified because of internal disagreements. In the end, they wouldn’t so much promote understanding between the different groups inasmuch as they would widen the divide between the leaders of the democratic Kiowa, Comanche, Plains Apache, Southern Cheyenne, Southern Arapaho, and their constituents. The narrator was among those who resisted signing the Treaty. But this was the winter of 1868 and people were tired of fighting and tired of death and were looking for peace wherever they could find it.
It was around the middle of November that year when the world went a little sideways—if only for a moment. The event took place on the Washita River, near present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma, and this version involves a talking antelope, visionary horses, an Irish drinking song, a brass band, George Armstrong Custer, and a group of fast-thinking Cheyenne. The Cheyenne, as it turns out, were almost in the wrong place at the wrong time.
While the narrator does the best job at recounting the events that transpired that day, a brief synopsis could go a little like this: While hunting out one day the man came upon three antelope and managed to kill two. (The kill was serendipitous given that there were about 50 lodges, plus at least two additional lodges belonging to visiting Arapaho and Lakota that winter, making a total of at least 250 people in Black Kettle’s camp at the time.) It was when the man failed to kill the third antelope that things went a little askew. Just before running off, the antelope turned to look at him and spoke. He uttered one word: “Soon.” This word would set an entire series of events into motion. [1]
But first some background.
The story of the Battle of Washita River is well known. Among historians, it is still debated as to whether this was a massacre, but the facts can be laid out as follows: in the early morning hours of November 27, 1868 the 7th U.S. Calvary, led by Lieutenant Col. George Armstrong Custer attacked Black Kettle's village as they were winter camping along the Washita River—then known as the Lodgepole River. Between sixty and one hundred and fifty men, women, and children were killed. (The accounts vary widely depending on who was doing the counting. To this day the final numbers remain unverified). The village had previously declared its peace with the United States, and following orders from Indian agents, had signaled this by flying a U.S. Flag clearly overhead. Shortly after the killing began another white flag of surrender was quickly raised by the camp but went unnoticed (or ignored) by Custer as he continued his march. Custer’s attack was sparked by a group of some one hundred and fifty Cheyenne (including some from Black Kettle's band) who had been raiding other nearby camps and settlements. The irony is that only a few days prior Black Kettle was preparing to reprimand these rogue individuals and reiterate his peace agreement with the United States. The Cheyenne Custer attacked were mostly unarmed. Believing that they were at peace, they didn't stand a chance. Black Kettle and his wife, Medicine Woman Later, were among the first to die.
The story that the narrator recounts, however, ends a little differently. In this version Custer doesn't win but neither do the Indians. Rather, it is the beasts of burden, the Horse People, who change the course of history. The man recounts that one by one, during the battle, the horses begin to rebel. Violently throwing off their riders, they fight off the soldiers with their teeth and hooves, striking and biting and kicking. As a result of their intervention those in Black Kettle’s village are spared certain death. Their resistance costs the Horse People dearly and there are many casualties. Their intention, as we later learn, was not simply to win the battle; this was only a small part of the equation. Rather, the event was orchestrated to get the Cheyenne to listen to what they had to say. The Horse People, as it turns out, would foretell an omen for the future: a time when new technologies would radically alter the course of human life, all but severing our relationship with the natural world and its medicines. The people of the world, in only thinking of themselves and their present needs, would remain all but blind to these shifts.
During our conversation Archer also relayed that the original title of the work was “Talking to my Horse, Whistling the Garyowen.” The Garyowen being the adapted Irish drinking song that Custer's Military band would play during and in preparations for battle. (One can only imagine what it must have felt like to face death with the uncanny aural backdrop of colonial horns and percussion echoing through the landscape). This title is revealing as the work does speak to the American Revolution and its parallel history of the dispossession of Indian land. Perhaps more importantly, it also speaks to the relationship between oral traditions and technology. The work, like much of Pechawis’s past projects, exists in a transitional space. Adeptly interrogating the Horse People’s omen, it exists at the point where “Cree culture meets the onrush of millennial technology.” [2]
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1. Lending insight into the relationship between humans and nature from Aboriginal worldviews, Cree filmmaker, writer and theorist Loretta Todd, has previously written:
While it may be seductive to draw parallels between Aboriginal concepts of transformation, or shape-shifting, and disembodiment in cyberspace, to do so would be simplistic. Perhaps some insight can be found in the relationship between animals and humans. A hunter does not get animals because he is a good shot. You could say animals choose to give themselves to the hunter as part of an “old agreement,” a symbiotic relationship in which animals and humans communicate.
From Todd’s essay “Narratives in Cyberspace,” reprinted in Transference, Tradition, Technology (Banff: Walter Phillips Gallery Editions, Indigenous Media Arts Group, and Art Gallery of Hamilton, 2005), 156.
2. Quoted from a statement by the artist, nd.