Mother Earth Father Sky: Pueblo and Navajo Indians of the Southwest

Description

Transliterations of authentic Indian chants provide a lyrical counterpoint to Keegan’s moving pictorial record, which captures the sacred unity between the Southwest Indians’ land and their way of life.

“Beauty and harmony are the heart of the Indian way of life on the southwestern deserts. The sun and the sky represents the father figure. Sunlight and rain, descending from the sky, are viewed as life-giving substances that promote fertility within the body of the mother earth. But this beauty and harmony are in danger of being destroyed. This book attempts to show the relationship with nature that Pueblo and Navajo Indians now enjoy but which their children may loose if their mystic landscape becomes victim to continued pollution and scarring. Through the photographs I have tried to recreate the sense of wonder and harmony with nature which is the integral part of Indian life. The chants that are included are expressions of the Indian spirit evoked by the natural beauty that surrounds them.
The Pueblo and Navajo Indians have much to teach us about how to live with nature, not just in practical terms based on their long successful existence in a harsh land, but in spiritual terms that are a foundation for their way of life. These teachings are most potently expressed in the rituals and gestures of daily traditional life which I have sought to portray in these photographs, and in the chants that accompany those rituals and express their higher meaning. All is beautiful, All is beautiful, All is beautiful, indeed.”