INTERVIEW BY ELLEN HEYN
The stories and histories of the Grand Canyon, as lived and told by Native people, are vital to understanding this sacred place. Last fall, at the start of storytelling season, medicine man and wisdomkeeper James Uqualla took a few minutes to share a little-known story of one of the Grand Canyon’s most majestic winged inhabitants.
I’m a member of the Havasupai Tribe, from the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is considered one of the “master altars” throughout the area.
Storytelling is the way in which our people shared the traditions. Our traditions are oral. We are now entering into the storytelling season, so this a time where we get a chance to share information of what our ancestors have gone through.
JAKE HOYUNGOWA
The Grand Canyon — not many people are aware that within this master altar, one of the most beautiful, prolific, winged ones lived. And that winged one today we know as a condor.
The story is that the condor landed at the bottom, allowed for the people to get upon its back, and it flew up. The condor flies counterclockwise, and each time it circles it goes higher and higher. Once out of the canyon, it allowed for the people that were on its back to get off. Landing in the east some got off, landing in the south some got off, west, north, again, others got off. And that, then, began the peoples going out into the various cardinal directions.
What people don’t realize, and we see it all the time, and we’re reminded every time we see it, is the striations in the Grand Canyon were all the marks from the tips of the condor’s wing as it flew around and around, higher and higher.
As a master altar, the Grand Canyon allows for the beginning of life for all that is around. The Havasupai people are a people that have been birthed to be guardians, watchers, sentinels of this master altar. I say this with great humility. We must remember, though the cardinal directions are separate, they all meet on Mother Earth. The children of Mother Earth, all the two-leggeds, regardless of color — red, yellow, black, white — they are meant to be in unity, as a unified force. They allow for the survival of all that is two-legged, as well as the continued life of all that is our relationships with Mother Earth.
