Looking at Indian Art of the Northwest Coast

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I've just gotten a copy of a book by Hilary Stewart on Northwest Coast Indian Art, written in 1979. It is a very nice, sturdy little paperback, about 120 pages, featuring the art of 35 Indian artists from Northwest tribes.

The map on page 13 shows the coast of North America from northern Oregon all the way up to Alaska, and 6 general regions for several tribes. The purpose of the book is to collect two-dimensional art forms from contemporary artists of these tribes. While print-making is a new medium, two-dimensional designs are not. They were traditionally painted on drums, worn on clothing, and she says, many of the figures were used historically as family "crests". So they are both innovative as far as the art medium goes, and are also beautiful iterations of traditional designs.

I think many of us are familiar with at least one or two tales of Coyote, or Raven. I have been collecting and enjoying these stories for a long time, really ever since I first saw the Thunderbolts of the Gods Tutorial with Dave Talbott, Wal Thornhill, Don Scott, Rens van der Sluijs, and Mel Acheson. They made a case both from the forms in the petroglyphs and from myths and legends that the earth had been through a period of intense plasma discharges that filled the sky. Anyway back to Raven stories, most of us have heard that Raven volunteered to get fire for the people when they were cold, and that is why Raven's feathers are black and his voice is gravelly.

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There are many stories in which Raven is stealing fire. Raven usually volunteers to go sneak up and take fire from a greedy being who keeps all the fire to himself, and then he brings it back to share with the people and animals who are freezing -- usually in a long period of cold. But in some Northwest Indian stories, Raven actually steals the sun.

In her description of a striking piece of artwork by Calvin Hunt (Kwagiutl) called "Raven Releasing the Sun," she writes, "At one time all the world was in darkness because a powerful chief kept the sun hidden in a box. It was cunning Raven who, by trickery, stole the sun from the chief's house, made his escape through the smoke hole, and flew with it up into the sky." Later, "As well as stealing the sun to bring daylight, Raven stole the moon..."

What I found really beautiful about this book is that in most depictions of Raven, he carries a disc in his beak. "Raven is distinguished by a fairly long, straight beak having a blunt or short turned-down tip, and usually a tongue. A sun disc in the partially open beak is a reminder that Raven flew with it in his beak and tossed it into the sky to bring light to the world."

These images is so evocative. I will try to find my imgr account and share them here. But most people in this forum will immediately be reminded of the long feathered dragons of Asian New Year's celebrations, the dragon holding a sphere in his hand or in his mouth.

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I want to have the entire "Discourses on an Alien Sky" series right here, for easy reference. The thumbnails of this 42-part series by Dave Talbott can offer a quick way of finding particular universal themes in the myths, legends, and sacred texts of people around the world.

• "A few thousand years ago a gathering of planets hung as towering forms in the ancient sky close to the earth, provoking spectacular electric discharge formations above our forebears and inspiring the vast complex of world myths and symbols."
  
  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... g6r6C_dtqB

I think there are at least three Discourses on "the Comet Venus" which will give more background for the appearance of the Great Comet Venus, or the feathered dragon with a sphere streaking across the sky.

In describing that particular worldwide underlying theme, Dave Talbott brings together visual arts, myths, sacred stories and philological references to the great feathered dragon. It is quite an experience to see such a collection of ancient imagery from every continent, and to see the extraordinary variations on the theme as they are expressed around the world.

The feathered-dragon serpent holding the sphere in its mouth or foreleg represents a planet in a close encounter with earth, followed by all of the electrical discharges streaming behind it, threatening the world. It's quite a lot of scholarship on the subject and Dave Talbott brings out the awe and splendour of these images in that series. It is possible that the image of Raven is an expression of a violently discharging planet Venus, but I want to keep the question open: in the Electric Universe model, any object which moves on an elliptical orbit within the sun's heliosphere can -- and in most cases will -- begin to electrically discharge as it swings toward the sun. That is -- any charged object in the Sun's heliosphere can display cometary discharges, feathery arcs, and long luminous tails. Including rocky planets, but also including something as sizable as a brown dwarf star/gas giant.

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I was so surprised and delighted to find these Kwagiutl images and legend of Raven Stealing the Sun. Through legend and through the visual arts, Raven is remembered for not just stealing fire, but he is in the heavens, placing a new light into the sky for the people, who were cold, and in the dark. It took the many beautiful renditions of Northwest Coast Indian art for me to see that he is a celestial character in that tale, because of the disk in his beak. Quite often he is remembered as simply stealing domestic fire.

You have to use caution. Raven and Coyote, and Mink or Mole, or any other character in Indian legends can come in the form of an animal, a man, or a sky being. In my view, you have to listen carefully to each story, and enjoy the spiritual meaning, or the (usually humorous) social lesson. But there are other contexts, and the same being can be altering the sky or earth or the course of rivers.

Since in this case Raven is "Stealing the Sun," and is pictured with a disc or sphere in his mouth, could this legend be related to the far earlier events of a change in the earth's primary sun?

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The Capture of a Brown Dwarf Star by a Main Sequence Star

In the Electric Universe model, a brown dwarf star consistently shines in mostly infrared light because it is powered from outside of itself. Brown dwarfs are now considered to be the most plentiful type of star in our galaxy. This was not known in Velikovsky's day, but this and many other outstanding qualities of brown dwarf stars have been discovered during the decades since, in the slow and steady progress of the space age.

In the Plasma Universe, the visible universe is 99.99% plasma. It is not uniform; plasmas of various temperatures, compositions, magnetization, degrees of ionization and dustiness separate themselves into filaments and cellular forms. The heliosphere around the sun is such a plasma cell. The plasma of the sun, having different characteristics than the interstellar plasma it is embedded in, separates itself by forming a plasma double layer.

A brown dwarf would also possess its own plasma sheath, its own heliosheath, much larger than the body inside.

In the Electric Universe model, if you took the gas giant planet Saturn, and its satellites, and removed them from the Solar System, Saturn would again light up. It would intercept the available current of the interstellar plasma, and it would be a brown dwarf star. If you put it back into the Solar System, it would no longer shine as a brown dwarf. The available current within the Sun's heliosheath is intercepted by the Sun -- and if you moved it into the Sun's plasma cellular influence, it would cause the brown dwarf to fail like a neon or flourescent light. After a period of sputtering and discharging, it would be captured and become a gas giant planet.

Again, the same body, the brown dwarf, would be different class of celestial object, depending on whether it was in the interstellar plasma current, or inside of the Sun's heliosheath.

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Now suppose a Brown Dwarf star, or a binary set of brown dwarf stars, entered the heliosheath of a bright yellow main sequence star, with their own little system of satellites.

What if this system included a planet like earth? Would life on earth be able to survive such a capture?

If they lived to tell the tale, would they have stories of different suns, which would become regarded as just old tales after thousands of years of placid revolutions around the present sun?

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In a 2013 Panel at an Electric Universe conference, Dr. Bill Mullen asked a question about the slim chances for the survival of life on earth in the event of celestial capture.

Jim Ryder: "Thank you. Bill."

Bill Mullen: "Yes I have a question for Wal Thornhill, I think a question
many of us have wanted to ask about the Saturnian configuration, uh and it's a question
about Life as We Know It, and the sense of life in our biosphere. 
How would life be able to survive the capture of uh the planet Earth by the sun away from Saturn or any
earlier capture?" 


Wal Thornhill: "In the electric Universe model of course the uh driving power is the electric force, and we [in the Electric Universe model] also see Birkeland currents flowing in between galaxies and within the Galaxy and between stars.

I have said before that if Saturn or Jupiter were to be placed outside the
heliosphere at some distance they would light up again as minor
Stars.
 
The point is that during the capture process there was a considerable amount of electrical energy exchanged, and the Earth was part of that as witness the polar column, which was a a huge current sheet, so that uh during that capture process even though we may have been in the outer reaches of the solar system there was considerable energy being expended.

So I mean we already have evidence that the Ancients went through some terrible times; you know the so-called 'Twilight of
the Gods,' the 'fimble winter' and so on.  And also they complained about the sun being too hot at other times, which indicates that we were on an elliptical orbit.
 
But during all of that, even on the elliptical orbit, there is a transfer of
energy, as witness comets and their discharges. So the there is electrical energy input which could...it seems to have uh saved the day you know for the human race and other animals in the biosphere. So I think that-- I hope that answers that
question."



ref: Panel: Electricity of Life - Part 2 | EU 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z5D8v4EYHQ
at 17:05 min

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As Wal Thornhill has it, the legends of extreme cold and heat are to be taken seriously, because many of these legends reflect a time during the capture of the Brown Dwarf Saturn into the Sun's influence. It was on this temporarily elliptical orbit that the earth was subject to periods of prolonged cold and then periods of heat, before it settled into its present-day orbit.

I would like to share one story from the Kwakiutl Northwest Tribe, the same tribe we were just talking about. I can't bring myself to shorten it or summarize it for you. It is as it appears, as Chief Wallas told it.

• Mink, Son of the Sunshine
  
  As told to Pamela Whitaker
  by Chief James Wallas in
  Kwakiutl Legends. 1989.
  
  The bright sun was shining on a village by the smooth sea. In her lodge a young maiden sat bask in in a sunbeam that came through a slat. The slat was like a little window with a sliding door, the only window in the lodge.
  
  The girl enjoyed warming herself in the rays of the sun. A few weeks later she found out she was going to have a baby and her parents questioned her about it. The asked her who the father was.
  
  "I don't know any young men," their daughter replied, "and I stay home all the time. The only think I can think of is that I was standing in that sunbeam warming myself."
  
  The time came for the baby to be born. They named it Made-like-the-Sun, the Mink.
  
  When the child was growing up, the other children used to make fun of him. "You haven't got a dad," they would say. "You're not like us."
  
  Made-Like-the-Sun would come in crying to his mother. "Don't listen to them," she assured him. "You have a father."
  
  "Where is my father?" asked Made-Like-the-Sun.
  
  "See that warm sun up there?" said his mother. "That is your father. Without him nothing down here could live."
  
  "How can I get up there?" the boy wondered.
  
  He noticed other children playing with bows and arrows. One day he asked his mother, "May I have a bow and arrow to play with so that I can learn to shoot?"
  
  "Since your father is way up in the sky, I will ask your uncle to make you one," replied his mother.
  
  The little mink longed to see his father. His uncle had made him a fine bow with four arrows, but he wished and wished that he could go up in the sky and see his father. One day climbed a little hill away from where the other children were playing and shot an arrow high into the sky. It stuck up there! He shot a second arrow that stuck into the handle of the first. The handles started stretching back to earth. He shot a third arrow and it stuck into the second and stretched even farther back to the earth. The fourth arrow, his last, did not quite reach the ground, so he took his bow and attached that. It reached the earth. He shook it hard and it bacame a cedar withe rope [sic].

cont'd

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• Mink, Son of the Sunshine
  cont'd
  
  Made-Like-the-Sun climbed up, up, into the sky. He did not tell his mother where he was going. When he got to the end of the rope,he walked and walked toward the setting sun. It was almost dark when he saw a house and went to the door. "Who are you?" he was asked.
  
  "I am Mink, son of the sunshine," he replied.
  
  "Come on in," he was told. "Your father, the sun, is inside. Soon he must walk again all day back to the west." The boy was taken into the presence of the brilliant sunshine.
  
  "So you are my father," said the little mink, Made-Like-the-Sun.
  
  "Yes I am," replied the sun. "You have come at the right time," he continued. "I am not young any more. I am getting old and tired. Now I am going to instruct you to take over."
  
  "You will walk from east to west, but you must not listen to the people down on earth. The people will say to you, 'Give us a little more sunshine so we can warm up. Clear the rain and clouds away,' but you must not listen. Just keep on walking from east to west. Do not stoop down, or there will be terrible fires bellow." He took off his sunshine mask and gave it to his son. "Tomorrow morning I will be with you to show you the way."
  
  Early the next morning, Made-Like-the-Sun rose in the east with his sunshine mask on. He was the great sun! His father accompanied him as he walked across the sky toward the west. He did very well. When the people on earth called up to him, "Give us more sun," he did not listen. He just kept walking.

...

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• Mink, Son of Sunshine
  
  But the next day when he traveled alone across the sky, he was not so strong. At first he tried to be. He heard the people down below saying, "Let the sun shine a little more to clear these clouds away and warm us up."
  
  "No," he said, and kept plodding from east to west. But he kept hearing people calling him from below. "We just want a little more sunshine -- just a little more to warm us up."
  
  Finally he said, "I'll give you just a little more sunshine," and he stooped down a bit. Then the people began complaining about the heat. The forests began drying out and the rocks on the shoreline cracked.
  
  Father Sun heard the people screaming down on the earth. "Oh, it's too hot! We're going to burn up!" and he went to see what his son was doing.
  
  There Made-Like-the-Sun was, stooping down. The Sun grabbed the mink by the neck and pulled him back. "I told you not to stoop down. I told you to keep walking," he thundered. "I will take my job back now," and he flung his son back to earth.
  
  Made-Like-the-Sun landed in the water in a magnificent dive. That is why the mink is a skilled diver like his mother the sea lion.

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We are looking at two-dimensional Indian art, stories with unusual visual references, and legends of the earth having been on an elliptical orbit, causing periods of heat and of extended cold.

In the Kwakiutl Indian legend (above) of "Mink, Son of the Sunshine" as told by Chief Wallas, there is more than an illustration of a pair of suns and an elliptical orbit.

One of the characters in the celestial drama of changing suns shoots a chain of arrows toward the sky, or perhaps toward another object in the sky. He is able to ascend on the chain of arrows.

The chain of arrows is preserved in many Indian Legends, not just in the northwest. Rens van der Sluijs has written about the Chain of Arrows in "Shots in the Dark," Parts 1&2.

• Shots in the Dark Part One
  Mar 25, 2011
  The mythical landscape is replete with structures alien to the familiar terrestrial environment today.
  
  • https://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2011 ... 25tube.jpg  
    Striations in an electrical discharge tube filled with hydrogen. The left portion is 45.7 centimetres long, the right one 44.4 centimetres. The small tube terminates in a point, the large one in a ring. In the image on top, the point is positively charged, producing 62 disc-shaped strata in the small tube and 12 saucer-shaped ones in the large one. Below, the point is negatively charged, producing 54 disc-shaped strata in the small tube and 13 saucer-shaped ones in the large one. The strata in the small tube were blue, but at times, with a large current, carmine. Copied from photographs, obtained in respectively 15 and 10 seconds. © Warren de la Rue and Hugo W. Müller, 1878
  ...Countless myths tell how one or a group of mythical beings brought this curious formation into being, usually in the bygone days of "creation." For example, the Kaurna tribe, of the Adelaide Plains of South Australia, told that a certain Monana “was one day throwing large spears in various directions, east, west, north, south; when, having thrown one upwards, it did not return to the earth. He then threw another, and another, and so continued throwing; each spear sticking fast to the former one until they reached the ground …”
  
  The lowest segment, required to link the formation to the surface of the earth, tends to be described as crescentic in form, such as a hook, a bow or the upper half of a bird’s beak. Thus, in traditions from the Kutenai, of Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, “a chain of arrows” is formed by the primordial animals, “which Raven completes by putting his beak in the nock of the last arrow.”

• Shots in the Dark Part Two
  Mar 28, 2011
  The previous Picture of the Day described several of the many myths that refer to a celestial chain of arrows or a celestial ladder. It asked, how is this theme to be explained?
  • https://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2011 ... 8tubes.jpg
    Experimental results obtained in 1879 when conducting electricity through rarefied gases in a vacuum tube and modulated by a magnetic field. From left to right, the tube is filled with nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and tin(IV) chloride. The positive electrode is on top. The tube with nitrogen produced a spiral, the one with carbon dioxide a set of nine stacked toroids embracing a Y-shaped column. (c) John Rand Capron.

bold added

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There are also ladder- or arrow-type features in certain petroglyphs around the world, reflected in the close match with high-energy plasma discharges, called Peratt Instabilities. As Wal Thornhill remarked above, viewtopic.php?p=11829#p11829 ,the earth during the time of planetary capture was caught in a plasma current sheet, engulfing the world in plasma formations. These plasma cells, similar to cometary comas, along with the other plasma formations, also provided enough electrical input to have "saved the day" for life on earth.

In Wal Thornhill's Electric Universe model, excursions of the planets during the period of capture brought periods of cold and heat, because of the temporarily elliptical orbits.






ref: ref: Panel: Electricity of Life - Part 2 | EU 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z5D8v4EYHQ
at 17:05 min

• "In the electric Universe model of course the uh driving power is the electric force, and we [in the Electric Universe model] also see Birkeland currents flowing in between galaxies and within the Galaxy and between stars.
  
  I have said before that if Saturn or Jupiter were to be placed outside the heliosphere at some distance they would light up again as minor Stars.
  
  The point is that during the capture process there was a considerable amount of electrical energy exchanged, and the Earth was part of that as witness the polar column, which was a a huge current sheet, so that uh during that capture process even though we may have been in the outer reaches of the solar system there was considerable energy being expended.
  
  So I mean we already have evidence that the Ancients went through some terrible times; you know the so-called 'Twilight of the Gods,' the 'fimble winter' and so on. And also they complained about the sun being too hot at other times, which indicates that we were on an elliptical orbit.
  
  But during all of that, even on the elliptical orbit, there is a transfer of
  energy, as witness comets and their discharges. So the there is electrical energy input which could...it seems to have uh saved the day you know for the human race and other animals in the biosphere."

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This is a tale from a small tribe that lived along the mighty Columbia River, in three villages close to what is now the Dalles, and the Deschutes River. Today the Wasco tribe lives on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation with many other tribes of Oregon. If you pass through, be sure to stop and see the beautiful museum and trails there, and the gift shop. Up further north there is a place where the Indians sell fish from the river in Cascade Locks, Or. Wave towards the west too for me.

Two Brothers Become Sun and Moon

• "A woman and her two sons lived below the Dalles."
  
  "...The mother told the boys to make bows and arrows, saying, 'I'll give you five quivers, and you can fill them. I'll trim robes for you with shells, then I'll tell you what to do.' The boys made arrows.
  
  She trimmed them beautiful robes, then said, 'I want to send you to kill Sun.' In those days the sun never moved out of his tracks, always stood directly overhead, and no living being could go far and live --so great was the heat.
  
  The mother said, 'When you kill the Sun, you can stay up there. One of you can be the Sun, the other Moon.' The boys were delighted. They started off and travelled south. When they got a little east of where Prineville now is, they wrestled with each other. Spider boy got thrown, and at that spot a great many camas roots came up. At every village to which they came, they told the people where they were going; and all were glad, for all were tired of Sun and his terrible heat. Finally the boys turned and travelled east, till they were nearly overcome by the heat.
  
  At last they came to a place from which, looking to the left, they could see a great ball of shining fire. They looked to the right, and there was a second ball of shining fire. They had gone up in the air, and had come to Moon's house. It was on the left side of Sun's house, not far away." "...Moon's daughter was very lame...The boys were amused when they saw her walk."
  
  "Moon's house was full of light, bright and dazzling. The boys ate, and then went out and came as near Sun's house as they could. It was so bright and hot that they couldn't get very near. They took their arrows and began to shoot at old Sun, who sat in his house. With their last arrow they killed the old man. Immediately there was no more strong light.
  
  They pulled out their arrows and said, 'We cannot both be Sun, we must kill Moon.' They killed Moon. Then they argued as to which should be Sun.
  
  The elder said, 'I will. I am older than you are. You can be Moon and take his daughter.' The younger brother agreed to this.
  
  Now the people below were very anxious to know where the two boys were who had travelled to the east. As the heat grew less and less, they said, 'It must be that the boys have done as they said.' The mother knew that they had been able to accomplish all they wished for. Now they went through the sky, and Moon followed Sun."

Hines, Donald M.. Celilo Tales, 1996.

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The Nez Perce tribe which today lives in Idaho, I would consider also to be a Northwest Tribe. Idaho is an incredible state. To the south are the continuation of the beautiful Columbia Basalts along the Snake River, winding through the world-famous Hagerman Fossil Beds. But traveling just a little way north, past the Craters of the Moon, can land you in the Rocky Mountain Range.

When we visited the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon, I stopped at a gift shop and met an Indian lady there with long black hair who said she was a ggg grandaughter of Chief Joseph. That was neat, and I believe her!

Here is a Nez Perce legend called "Coyote Arranges the Seasons."

• Coyote Arranges the Seasons
  As told by Sam Slikcpoo in 1954
  
  In the Early Times, the Sun was too hot. Often it scorched the earth and the people were uncomfortable.
  
  "I could be a better Sun," Coyote thought to himself. "I will take its place."
  
  So he tried to catch Sun. He traveled west to seize it, but when he got there, it dropped out of sight. He traveled east to meet it, but when he got there, Sun was high over his head. He made a boat and traveled east by water, but when he got there Sun was in the middle of the sky.
  
  At last he went to frog with his problem.

(Comment -- It is very possible that Frog may be an important variant on the Squatterman Plasma Petroglyph, with its arms and legs splayed out but with a wider or rounded body.)

• "Help me get ahold of Sun," Coyote said to Frog. "Can't you go up to the sky and bring Sun down?"
  
  "I think we can if we work together," answered Frog. "You throw me against Sun. I will grab it with my four hands and bring it down to earth."
  
  So Coyote took hold of Frog and threw him with all his might at the Sun. Frog seized Sun and pulled it down to earth. While Frog was on his journey to the sky, Coyote had planned what he would say. He used his special powers and made some places to show Sun. When Frog came back, Coyote welcomed Sun warmly.
  
  Coyote led Sun to a good camping place, scraped off the earth, and showed him the ashes of an old campfire. He pointed to five old tipi poles. "Our fathers lived in this tipi," said Coyote.

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(Comment: I think we can see where this is headed. XD
Coyote shows Sun an old sweat lodge with willow branches and the rocks for making steam. So Sun was convinced that their fathers had been friends and camped with Coyote.)

• Coyote Arranges the Seasons
  cont'd
  
  Coyote had planned to kill Sun as soon as he was asleep, and so every once ina while he would look over at his companion, expecting to find him sleeping. But Sun was always awake, always had his eyes wide open, just as in the daytime. [Coyote made a knife, and then a larger knife.]
  
  ...Again, Sun lay with his eyes open. But one time when the Sun was looking in another direction, Coyote took his flint knife and cut Sun's head off.
  
  Then Coyote went up to the sky and became the sun. But he soon found that he did not like to spend all of his days traveling across the sky.
  
  "I'll have to bring Sun back to life," he said to himself. "I'll put his head beside his body. Then I'll straddle him three times and so bring him back to life."
  
  That's what he did. He stepped three times across the body and the head, they grew back together, and Sun came back to life. Sun yawned and stretched.
  
  "Oh, I have enjoyed my rest," Sun said. "I'm not going to work so hard again."
  
  "That's right," replied Coyote, "I'm not going to let you. You will never again be as hot as you used to be. You will be warm in summer but not scorching hot."
  
  "I am going to divide the year into four seasons." [Coyote explains the seasons to Sun.]
  
  ...But Winter was not satisfied. He thought he should control a longer part of the year than Summer controlled. So he and his four brothers challenged Summer and his four brothers to a wrestling match.
  
  Winter won, and all the Summer brothers were killed. The earth was very cold for a long time.

to be cont'd