The animation continues.
Icons of our native past look like diatoms.
I talk with a relative here about the similarities in shape between diatoms and some of the icons of Indigenous art. She shows me a book: Tales of Norkomis, of stories told to its writer, Patronella Johnston, by an old Indian woman of the Ojibwa nation, “who had lived her one hundred and third year.” There I find circles and ovals variously embellished, representing the sun, corn, and Happy Hunting Ground. As in Australian Aboriginal culture, the existence of plants and animals is explained through the actions of spirits who created the earth before mankind.
The drawings and stories and dances of indigenous peoples worldwide keep alive their connections to the land, which physically and spiritually sustain them.
Later in the day I go to the British Library, and search for “Antarctic animation”, and find nothing. I try “Arctic animation” and find some interesting things, including reference to an article on Arctic dance.
MaryGen Salman writes that
…indigenous people in Alaska, in all probability, could not long maintain spiritual links to their respective cultures without the kinesthetic undergirding of Native dance.
Walking home through London’s busy streets, I look at the people and wonder when they lost knowledge of their dances, that once connected them to land. Perhaps the climate needs to warm, to slow them down. In Buenos Aires people dance!
I also ponder how connected we all are, through breeding, and the internet. If only we could remember that dance!
I progress the Ancient Mariner animation. The diatom can also be some kind of icon from our native past. Its meaning can be whatever you need.
.
Reference:
Johnston, Patronella 1975
Pub. Musson Book company, Ontario, Canada
ISBN 0-7737-0016-1