Viewing page 8 of 16

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Transcription: [00:30:25]
{SPEAKER name="Greg Cofax"}
Yeah, there is a way to survive like this. Let me comment on this too, not everybody makes a living doing this. This is a lot of people doing a second job, or it's a way to make some extra money. Only the best survive doing this. And that doing if you're not really good at doing it, you know, it's tough to make a living.

[00:30:51]
So uh, you take a look at his work, you know, you'll know why he's able to do it.

[00:30:58]
There are very few people um that can do this along the coast. But there are a lot of carvers. You know, and you have a full range of people who are just beginning and people who have been at it for a little while. Um, and then people who have been doing it for a hobby. Where I fit, I'm not even close to where he's at. And I'll never be that close because I won't make that commitment.

[00:31:25]
The other thing is that you got to have talent and uh, um, that's almost the most important thing, and there are young Mukahs who have the talent who are early twenty's who are going to take them, you know, another seven to ten years before they start producing items that you can look at and go "wow that's really nice"

[00:31:53]
And uh, it just takes that long. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of time.

[00:32:01]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
Greg Colfax, you carve for different audiences, though, you have different markets. You said once that you'd be honored if someone from one of the families asked you to carve a mask that is going to have a ritual use and yet you also carve for, for uh, collectors.

[00:32:20]
How does that difference affect your work?

[00:32:26]
{SPEAKER name="Greg Cofax"}
It affects my thinking an awful lot. When I'm hired by a traditionalist, there's always a story behind the mask. And you find out that story when you begin to carve. So uh, that's my main enjoyment is finding out more and more about this realm of masks.

[00:32:52]
Totem poles. I enjoy doing totem poles. I was fortunate enough to be hired to do a blend of a welcome memorial pole, and in the process of it being put up on that one day,

[00:33:07]
Ge, I learned more in that one day about totem poles than all the books that I've read you know.

[00:33:12]
Ge, there's just one realm here that I've noticed that maybe was omitted.

[00:33:25]
It'll take, give me about four or five minutes.
[00:33:29]
An old person was um asked, "who are you? "Who are you people out here?"
[00:33:35]
She answered, "Well, first we were whalers, and then there were no more whales,
[00:33:40]
and then we were fur seal hunters, and then there are no more fur seals.
[00:33:43]
and then we were halibut fishing, and then there were no more halibut,
[00:33:47]
now we are salmon fisherman, and soon those are going"
[00:33:52]
and I'd like to add one more,
[00:33:54]
now we are grant writers.

[00:33:54]
[[Crowd laughs in admiration]]

[00:33:57]
and there is a number of families who have successful--uh, uh--elders in that family who are incredible grant writers.
[00:34:09]
and you look at their children, and their children are picking up that ability.
[00:34:13]
and so, um, it's something new, and it's an ability that there is a tradition behind it in which your parents and your grandparents teach you an attitude towards the people you're getting the grants from.
[00:34:32]
and we're a small tribe. But, we're on a list of our successes, it noted, I believe.

[00:34:42]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
That's absolutely indesputable.

[00:34:44]
I first met Greg Arnold a number of years ago when I a consultant for the National Endowment for the Humanities and
[00:34:51]
he walked in the door just about to get his grant so he's got one after another since.
[00:34:58]
we measure success in different terms and now that grant writing enables--or the grant getting--enables some of our traditional people to survive in ways we would have never thought before.
[00:35:12]
it means an enormous amount of adaptability.
[00:35:16]
Um, when uh, um, on that subject of I'd like to ask Mrs. Watt to comment about adaptability at Seneca.
[00:35:26]
Many of the men you said used to make these handles for the baskets and pound the ash.
[00:35:31]
Now, what's the case?

[00:35:33]
{SPEAKER name="Mrs. Watts"}
Well, all our handle makers are gone. So, we've used different things like seed grass for the handles which is pretty but not for the big basket
[00:35:47]
always have the wood handles
[00:35:43]
we are fortunate enough to find a few handles to bring here.

[00:35:55]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
Where'd you get those?

[00:35:56]
{SPEAKER name="Mrs. Watts"}
We got this from the Mohawk people.

[00:36:00]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
Indian people have always traded. Indian people have always gone outside their own tribe to trade and to, uh, to work with other people.
[00:36:08]
That is not anything new, it's thousands of years old.
[00:36:12]
If you look at the, uh, the little exhibit, recent exhibit on Woodlands Indian Art, you'll see the traders went from the Mississippi Gulf clear down to Mexico to get supplies and take things.
[00:36:23]
Adaptability is what cultural conservation is always about.
[00:36:28]
When the people who make one type of handle die out, you go to another tribe who makes them.
[00:36:34]
When those die out, you develop another material that will make handles so that the craft will live on
[00:36:42]
and that is essentially what cultural survival is about: adaptability, change, and the energy and vision and commitment, as Greg Cofax has said, to make that change.
[00:36:54]
Our time for the workshop is over. I want to thank you for joining us today.
[00:36:59]
If you have other questions, I hope you'll come forward and talk to Mrs. Watt and to Greg Arnold and Greg Cofax, and talk with us about the things we've been sharing with you today.
[00:37:10]
Thanks so much for joining us and welcome to the rest of the Cultural Conservation exhibit and the rest of the festival.

[00:37:17]
[Applause from crowd]