Garden of Chances

Artists’ Statements 181 Dalaakogg, the Na’isha or Kiowa Apache word for zenith, is indicated on the star calendar to show the exact latitude of the rail station. The zenith position is timed to the heliacal rise of the Pleiades and the Lakota spring ceremony Yate iwakicipi—Welcoming Back the Thunders [1]. Yate iwakicipi occurs when the Seven Sisters first appear in the pre-dawn spring sky; during this time, some Lakota still travel to the highest point of the Black Hills, as has been done for many generations, to pray for rain, help and strength. Depicted in the mosaic, circling high overhead in the winter sky, the Winter Hawk, Ge-gee-nu-hu-ha, and the snow birds, Ha-na-ee-ah, recall the rescue of the Arapaho people who once long ago were lost in a terrible winter storm. In the ceremonial symbolism of the Tsistsistas, the Cheyenne, the bright red star Aldebaran represents Maheone Honehe, the Red Wolf maiyun (spirit). The heliacal rise of Aldebaran on the summer solstice marked the beginning of the ceremonial period for the early Cheyenne people (500–300 B.C.) [2]. The stars in the Milky Way appear from the dust kicked up by Gudal Tsen, the red horse of the Kai gwu (Kiowa). Each end of the star field contains a constellation of a bear. One is Báakkaalaxpitchee , an Apsáalooke (Crow) constellation that resides in Hercules and the Corona Borealis: its name in the sidewalk stretches 15 feet in length. The other bear, Phulah, is located in Taurus and is written in Towa, a language spoken only at the Jemez pueblo Walatowa, where the stars are children and protectors of Mother Sun and Father Moon. In the Phulah region of the sky are the twin grandmothers, So Ahotsi’i, who gave birth to the Diné, the Navajo nation. People Starting with the Native American community in Denver, my research took me to Lukakuchai, Nowah’wusthe and other indigenous centers to learn the names of the stars. Many people graciously shared part of their world description (through a public art project) to increase understanding among all peoples of this state and region for generations to come. Without their assistance , this project would not have been possible. Each individual and his or her nation who helped with the project are named in a cast-iron plaque in the floor (Fig. 5). Viewers must interpret the work to some degree. When the unfamiliar names are slowly sounded out by passers-by on the busy downtown street, the rift between the deep past and the present is momentarily echoed in the space between earth and sky. “When language touches the earth,” writes N. Scott Momaday, “there is the holy, there is the sacred” [3]. My hope is that those who look across the star calendar floor are moved by the chronicle of ancient names returned to the land. The entire station platform constitutes a passageway, a stopping-off point on a cosmic locator map. For the downtown viewer, Ha-no-oo is intended to offer a contemporary alternative to the nearby commercialized spaces framed in concrete—a poetic, sacred, metaphoric experience of the landscape . Within the stone patterning, a child can readily discover a celestial hopscotch. As the outbound rail departs the station platform, we are left to fill in the blanks of our own crossing, locating our passage where story and journey intersect—in the memory of this place. Acknowledgments Ha-no-oo: Star Calendar was commissioned for the Denver Regional Transportation District by Art at the Stations, Inc., Denver, Colorado. Partial funding for this project came from the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District Tier III Fund and a COVisions Individual Artist project grant from the Colorado Council on the Arts. References 1. Karl Schlesier, The Wolves of Heaven: Cheyenne Shamanism, Ceremonies, and Prehistoric Origins (Norman, OK: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1987). 2. Ronald Goodman, Lakúota Star Knowledge: Studies in Lakúota Stellar Theology (Rosebud: Sinte Gleska Univ., 1992). 3. N. Scott Momaday, The Man Made of Words: Essays, Stories, Passages (New York: St. Martins Press, 1997). GARDEN OF CHANCES Guillaume Hutzler, Bernard Gortais and Alexis Drogoul, LAFORIA/IBP, Centre National...