“Fernando’s grandfather told him that all animals are related. The horned toad is wot of all beasts, the swordfish of all fish, and the sl?ow of all birds. The bear is the older sibling of all the animals. The eagle, condor, and buzzard are said to remove the foulness of the world. I told Fernando of the San Gabriel belief that the condor rips up the carcasses for the buzzard- that they are fist cousins. Fernando replied that an old man told him that we are all brothers, and our mother is one: this mother earth. He has always believed what old people told him when he was a boy- that the world is God.”
(Harrington/ Blackburn, 1975, p. 102)

Animals
from The Harrington Papers Series
11”x14”
Mixed Media Collage on Art Board
2006
$400.

The Harrington Papers Series works incorporate printed text from some of the Chumash Oral Narratives that were collected by John Peabody Harrington. The text functions as a puzzle of sorts. It appears to be piled in random layers and only part of the story is revealed.

A note on the text: the ? is a phonetic rendition of a glottal stop sound that is not found in the English language. For more information visit Inezeno Chumash Language Tutorial