Sunday, March 25, 2007

Anthony Davis' Featherwork, Alive and Well and Living in San Antonio and the Wiricuta Desert




"We do not learn by experience, but by our capacity for experience." Buddha

Donning his spectacles, Masauke starts the tedious work of assembling rough feathers into ceremonial fans. The majority of these feathers were dropped by the birds or found on roadkills along the many highways that Masauke travels. They were found in various states of disrepair. Using his tiny pair of scissors Masauke repairs the tips of the feathers to bring them as close to their natural beauty as these roadkill feathers can be brought.

There is a knock on the door. It is Linda's neighbour. She walks in to the kitchen, says good morning then starts to talk about the power washer she had been using to wash her driveway. "It won't start" she says. She asks Masauke to help her fix it. He gets up, leaving his featherwork on the dining room table. Ten minutes later, with the sound of the power washer engine whiring in the background, he is back. Linda and the two grandchildren who live with her are playing a board game on the other end of the dining room table. Mark, the youngest, is chanting "I want my pancakes" as they play.

Last night Masauke had promised that he would make desert pancakes. He sits down to cut the leather that he uses to wrap the sticks used on the ends of the feathers. Let me put these on so they can dry while I am making the pancakes he says. After cutting and gluing the leather on several of the ten feathers, Masauke gets up to make pancakes. As he whips up the batter, he switches to his military mode insisting that Mark be sitting down at the table with everything ready in front of him before he will start to putting the pancakes in the pan. I order 3 pancakes, not knowing the size of the monster pancakes. Masauke advises me to try one first. I am glad he did not force me to stick to my word as I see the enormous pancake coming off the grill!

Breakfast over Masauke returns to his featherwork. "A few years ago I watched a film about my dad, Anthony Davis," Masauke tells me. "Besides being the president of the Native American Church of Texas for forty years, he was also a renowned feather genius. He brought the talent of fixing feathers for the native people from his native home of Oklahoma, from the Pawnee. This film was about his ability to fix feathers." Masauke says, "It was a well done documentary on the life of my dad, but I took offense at the closing statement that with the passing of Anthony, the talent or ability to fix these feathers went with him. Anthony did not teach me the art of fixing feathers. It is an ability that comes from the proper alignment of your energy so that your creativity can be best utilized. I saw Anthony for many years fixing feathers. I just saw him doing that."

"All the people wanted him to fix feathers for them. I realized that it was just not the feathers they sought. They sought him out so that he could put his energy , his beautiful spirit in the feathers, and like myself I thought that if I had some of his feathers I would have some of his energy, some of his spirit, but the spirit that Anthony had came from a life long relationship with the medicine, something his mother told him. His mother said when he ran a ceremony for her, that this medicine is wonderful. She told him never to leave it and to his last days he never did. It was after his death that I decided to do feathers. I drew on his expertise that I had seen for many years, but ultimately it was the energy and the spirit and the relationship that I have personally developed with these feathers, be they eagle featehrs, macaw, turkey, each bird has a spirit and an energy of it's own."

"Today in Texas, I walk into a tee pee ceremony, normally in the morning, and I am pleased to see all my fans there, in that 90% of the fans used by the local people were made by me. When I make the fan I know how it will be used. I know the many prayers that will be said with this fan, the many gifts that they will make. Before I made my first fan, I came before Anthony's spirit. I said to him. "I would like to start fixing feathers, Dad." "That'd be alright" his spirit told me. Being from Oklahoma, that was the approval I was seeking."

"In the rare moments when I am totally into my featherwork, I sense him watching me. The colours that I use are the native colours of the fire and the medicine. His colours were healing colours, ours, the Coauhuiltecos, are fire colours. We are desert people. I am sure that he approves of me doing it my way. Anthony was world renounced for his beadwork. Myself I do floralwork, the multicoloured feather work combinations that the medicine gives me, and threadwork. The bead work is farmed out. I keep one thought in mind when I fix my feathers, my dad's advice was that one had to be extremely careful not to take anything from the feathers. The beauty is in the feathers themselves."

Masauke looks up from the feathers. He is tightly wrapping black thread around the white leather handles he had glued to the stem of the feather. Peering over his glasses again he continues. "I sought the man who produced that film. I found him in Sedona, Arizona. I told him that Anthony Davis' featherwork was alive and well and living in the desert, operating out of San Antonio, Texas, with more people seeking my work than I have time to fix feathers for. I invited him to the healing centre in Prescott Arizona for a couple of reasons, one of which was to show him my featherwork. We became good friends and brothers, and now I make my way along this road with my featherwork."

"When I come home to rest and see my family, I spend long hours into the night and early morning fixing feathers and I best remember Anthony at this time. Those that knew him were blessed. That he took me as his son was a true honour. Today I carry his fireplace of the Pawnee people. This fireplace is a chawie" fireplace. I have yet to use this fireplace, not because I don't know the mathematics or the structure of the ceremony, but because I have not yet developed the relationship that Anthony had with the fire and the medicine." "As I put the finishing touches on this beautiful scarlet Macaw centre feather," Masauke stops to tell me "Each bird only has 1 of these. These are 10 birds." He says. "This is what they call a peyote fan. My brother, also a road man, awaits the finishing of this piece."

"The waterbird fan whose production you documented, the one that I finished last night, will be picked up this morning. It will be used by a water woman of the Native American church to bless the morning water and the morning food to conclude their ceremonies. The fans are obtained by people that give a generous contribution for the expenses I incur on the road. I have never demanded payment for any of the Great Spirit's work. The path itself is payment enough."

Sitting in front of a bag full of numerous spools of brightly coloured threads, he picks up another feather to measure to see that the threadwork is identical. Adding the glue he continues his work. Having seen the entire production of the waterbird fan, I eagerly await seeing the final touches on this beautiful scarlet macaw fan. I never met Anthony Davis, but I cannot imagine that he would be anything less than proud at the fine featherwork his son is doing. Anthony Davis' featherwork is indeed alive and well and living in San Antonio, Texas and the Wiricuta desert!

Lessons Learned: 1)We honour our ancestors by keeping their traditions alive, 2) Keeping traditions alive involves developing a relationship with the medicines of those traditions, 3) When we honour our ancestors and follow spirit, the Spirit always makes a way.

Stay Tuned. StayWell and Travel with spirit, Spirit Traveller.

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