the okan (medicine lodge ceremony)

Gary Schildt, The Piercing from the Center Pole, ca. 1997, oil on canvas, 48” x 24”, gift of Dr. Daniel and Mary Ann Fiehrer

COLLECTION PROFILE

June 2004

The Artist: Gary Schildt

Born in Helena, Montana in 1938, Gary Schildt grew up on his grandfather’s ranch on the edge of the Rocky Mountains on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Browning. He first became interested in painting as a child and in high school decided to pursue it as a career. He earned a scholarship to attend the City College of San Francisco where he studied both commercial art and photography. An instructor there encouraged him to pursue the creative rather than the commercial aspect of art, and Schildt recalls being warned: “I was told that if I began a career in art and did not follow the current trends, I would have to create my own demands; if I could not, I would discover the meaning of poverty in fine art.”

Schildt did pursue the traditional fine arts and has been honored with several awards and exhibitions throughout his career. Although he works in a variety of media, including paint and bronze, he has consistently focused on the American Indian as his subject. His many scenes of everyday life on the Reservation reflect his deeply felt understanding of humanity in general and the lives of the Indians and the West in particular. Of Blackfoot ancestry, Schildt considers the primary purpose of his art to convey a part of himself and notes that “it is more important for me, in art, to say a few new things rather than a number of old things.” While he feels free to experiment with colors and techniques, his unswerving approach to creating art is to look for personally meaningful topics – topics which are “holes” other artists avoid or don’t perceive to be compelling subjects. 

The C.M. Russell Museum posesses nearly forty paintings of the Blackfeet Medicine Lodge Ceremony, a single but complex subject depicted by Schildt between 1995 and 1997. Schildt’s series portrays a confluence of time periods and sources of information–written, oral, and photographic. In his own words, Schildt’s vision “has been to somehow fuse all the written works, old photos, ceremonies, and the Blackfeet people into one big collection of new light, color and dimension. To bring life to the fading dream I had so long ago, I have tried to present the Sun Dance in its entirety.”

The Medicine Lodge Ceremony: “Heart of the Blackfeet People”

The Medicine Lodge Ceremony, or Sun Dance, is a great annual religious festival and the highest expression of the Blackfeet religion. Reaching its height for the Blackfeet at the middle of the 19^th century, the Sun Dance was also practiced in other forms by other Plains Indians tribes such as the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Western Sioux. The Sun is of central importance in Indian cultures, and for the Blackfeet, was the original spirit living in the sky. The Sun sent Napi to create the earth and everything on it. The Sun took the Moon as his wife, and their son, Morning Star, married a human woman who went to live with them in the sky. Later, the woman became homesick for her family on Earth and disobeyed the Sun to gain a glance at them from above. The woman was told she would have to make a sacrifice for her error by fasting and providing a feast for her people. The woman taught her people about the Sun Dance, which evolved into the most sacred of offerings and prayers that are given to the spirit of fertility. 

Also known as the Okan, the ceremony is initiated through the vow of a woman, who promises to sponsor the Medicine Lodge Ceremony in exchange for divine intervention in a critical situation such as impending danger or a sick child. If assistance is provided, and if the woman is virtuous in every sense, she fulfills her vow and becomes the sacred Vow Woman. Unfolding over approximately nine days, the Sun Dance is a multifaceted ceremony and involves the participation of many people at different levels to both prepare for, and carry out, the ritual events. At the beginning of the 20^th century, in response to the many efforts by the government to discourage this celebration, the Blackfeet moved it to July 4^th to coincide with Independence Day. It is still celebrated on the Blackfeet Reservation.  

The Work: The Piercing from the Center Pole

Whereas many of the paintings in the Sundance Series are descriptive, this one makes a very powerful statement as well. The piercing is the greatest sacrifice of the Okan, and requires the most endurance. The artist’s choice of a dark background highlights the solitude of the dancer in his suffering, and the expression on his face shows a man who is giving a great sacrifice of blood and pain, but bearing it with the stoicism and humility of his people. Wooden skewers are inserted beneath the pectoral muscles of his chest, and then bound by rawhide thongs to the center pole of the Medicine Lodge. An eagle-bone whistle protrudes from his mouth, and gives a high, piercing shriek as the dancer stares at the sun. At the conclusion of this offering, the skewers will tear through the flesh, giving the dancer scars which will be a mark of pride, fortitude and endurance. After suffering this sacrifice for his people, any pain or trial in life or against an enemy would be trivial.

For More Information:

Selected Internet Sources:  www.artofthewest.biz, www.askart.com, www.meadowlarkgallery.com.

Ewers, John C. The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1958.

The American Indian: The Buffalo Hunters, Alexandria, Time Life Books, 1984.

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