Post by Okwes on Feb 28, 2007 16:46:18 GMT -5
Elder preserved the ways of her O'odham ancestors By Tom Beal
ARIZONA DAILY STAR Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.31.2006
www.azstarnet.com/sn/dailystar/162684.php
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<http://gcirm.tucson.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/news.azstarnet.com/s\
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s.html/35333433333364303435393130666530?http://my.50below.com/sitebuilde\
r/publish/tiredealer/jackfurriers.com/index.htm> Frances
Sally Manuel wove her life and the story of her people into the fabric
of this community before her death this month at age 94.
When she and her husband, Jose, left their ranch on the sprawling Tohono
O'odham lands west of Tucson in 1941, their mission was simple. They
needed to make money to feed and sustain their family after drought and
disease killed off their cattle. With feet firmly planted in two
worlds, Frances Manuel eventually found new missions: as advocate for
justice and keeper of traditional ways for urban Indians, and as an
interpreter and educator to the larger community in which she found
herself.
With song and story, and with demonstration of the crafts learned from
her grandmother, Manuel brought respect for the art and the wisdom of
our region's early inhabitants. She was a singer, a storyteller, a
basket weaver, a doll maker, an authority on the medicinal and culinary
properties of native plants. She dictated stories for a lovely and
important book, sang on a recorded collection of O'odham songs, founded
a dance troupe, and was, in the words of the obituary her family
published after her death earlier this month, "a friend and Hu'ul
(grandmother) to all who knew her."
Her oldest grandson, James Fendenheim, lived for several years with his
grandmother at her home in La Reforma, the city housing project south of
Downtown, where she would build a wood fire in the courtyard to make
tortillas. "She brought her own ways to the projects," Fendenheim said,
"her own style.
"And let me tell you, she had style," said Fendenheim. "We didn't do
little things, me and her, we'd go to New York City, to Soho and hang
out with the artists and the rich folks in their lofts." Fendenheim, a
silversmith, jewelry maker and sculptor, said his grandmother inspired
and motivated his art. He went with her to summer classes she taught
annually at an art institute in Idlewild, Calif. They traveled yearly,
including this year when she was 93, to the Santa Fe Indian Arts
Festival and to Native American arts events across the nation. In the
book she co-authored with anthropologist Deborah Neff, Manuel said she
was taught to be "proud inside and not outside." She remained humble
even while being feted for her accomplishments, Fendenheim said, but
"enjoyed the stage" and the perks that came with being a tribal elder.
A couple months back, he took her to get her allotment from the gaming
fund of the Tohono O'odham Nation. "We went at high noon. There was a
four- to five-hour wait. She just walked through and parted the seas,"
Fendenheim said. Manuel's contribution to the preservation and
elevation of her culture was a package deal, said Terrol Johnson, who
spent three years with her, putting together a book built, simply
enough, around cooking.
Before she put a bean in a pot, Johnson said, Manuel would relate its
O'odham name, its cultural significance, the stories and songs about it,
its medicinal and nutritional properties. "With the food comes the
language and the songs and the stories. She was very instrumental in
keeping the stories and songs alive. She was the one elder willing to
share but also very understanding and patient. She always told us she's
doing this for us, for her people, so that this knowledge doesn't
disappear."
Manuel raised five daughters and a son by herself after the death of her
husband in a hit-and-run accident on Congress Street in 1953. She
cooked and cleaned and was a nanny to several Tucson families. She also
found time to serve civic causes � the American Friends Services
Committee, the Association for Papago Affairs and the Tucson Indian
Center, where she was a member of the board.
She helped found the Desert Indian Dancers. She sang on the recording
"An Anthology of Papago Traditional Music" in 1972 and told the story of
her life, woven with many stories of her people in "Desert Indian Woman:
Stories and Dreams," with co-author Neff in 2001.
Her baskets, featuring her own variations on the Tohono O'odham man in
the maze, won her wide acclaim, including an award in 1991 for
Distinguished Tohono O'odham Basket Weaver. In 2004, she was given a
YWCA Women on the Move lifetime achievement award. Manuel spent her
final years on the reservation, having returned to the village of San
Pedro in 1981.
Her nightlong wake was held there on Dec. 22 and she was buried the next
day in the village of S-koksonagk (Many Pack-Rats), where she had been
raised, where she bloodied her young fingers learning the art of
basket-weaving from her grandmother in the middle of her people's
desert, a day's horseback ride from Tucson in the early part of the last
century.
ARIZONA DAILY STAR Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.31.2006
www.azstarnet.com/sn/dailystar/162684.php
<a
href="http://gcirm.tucson.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/news.azstarnet.\
com/stories/nationworld/1942905993/300x250_1/OasDefault/JackFurriers3/fu\
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uilder/publish/tiredealer/jackfurriers.com/index.htm"><IMG
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iers3/jf_backup.gif" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 BORDER=0></a>
<http://gcirm.tucson.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/news.azstarnet.com/s\
tories/nationworld/1942905993/300x250_1/OasDefault/JackFurriers3/furrier\
s.html/35333433333364303435393130666530?http://my.50below.com/sitebuilde\
r/publish/tiredealer/jackfurriers.com/index.htm> Frances
Sally Manuel wove her life and the story of her people into the fabric
of this community before her death this month at age 94.
When she and her husband, Jose, left their ranch on the sprawling Tohono
O'odham lands west of Tucson in 1941, their mission was simple. They
needed to make money to feed and sustain their family after drought and
disease killed off their cattle. With feet firmly planted in two
worlds, Frances Manuel eventually found new missions: as advocate for
justice and keeper of traditional ways for urban Indians, and as an
interpreter and educator to the larger community in which she found
herself.
With song and story, and with demonstration of the crafts learned from
her grandmother, Manuel brought respect for the art and the wisdom of
our region's early inhabitants. She was a singer, a storyteller, a
basket weaver, a doll maker, an authority on the medicinal and culinary
properties of native plants. She dictated stories for a lovely and
important book, sang on a recorded collection of O'odham songs, founded
a dance troupe, and was, in the words of the obituary her family
published after her death earlier this month, "a friend and Hu'ul
(grandmother) to all who knew her."
Her oldest grandson, James Fendenheim, lived for several years with his
grandmother at her home in La Reforma, the city housing project south of
Downtown, where she would build a wood fire in the courtyard to make
tortillas. "She brought her own ways to the projects," Fendenheim said,
"her own style.
"And let me tell you, she had style," said Fendenheim. "We didn't do
little things, me and her, we'd go to New York City, to Soho and hang
out with the artists and the rich folks in their lofts." Fendenheim, a
silversmith, jewelry maker and sculptor, said his grandmother inspired
and motivated his art. He went with her to summer classes she taught
annually at an art institute in Idlewild, Calif. They traveled yearly,
including this year when she was 93, to the Santa Fe Indian Arts
Festival and to Native American arts events across the nation. In the
book she co-authored with anthropologist Deborah Neff, Manuel said she
was taught to be "proud inside and not outside." She remained humble
even while being feted for her accomplishments, Fendenheim said, but
"enjoyed the stage" and the perks that came with being a tribal elder.
A couple months back, he took her to get her allotment from the gaming
fund of the Tohono O'odham Nation. "We went at high noon. There was a
four- to five-hour wait. She just walked through and parted the seas,"
Fendenheim said. Manuel's contribution to the preservation and
elevation of her culture was a package deal, said Terrol Johnson, who
spent three years with her, putting together a book built, simply
enough, around cooking.
Before she put a bean in a pot, Johnson said, Manuel would relate its
O'odham name, its cultural significance, the stories and songs about it,
its medicinal and nutritional properties. "With the food comes the
language and the songs and the stories. She was very instrumental in
keeping the stories and songs alive. She was the one elder willing to
share but also very understanding and patient. She always told us she's
doing this for us, for her people, so that this knowledge doesn't
disappear."
Manuel raised five daughters and a son by herself after the death of her
husband in a hit-and-run accident on Congress Street in 1953. She
cooked and cleaned and was a nanny to several Tucson families. She also
found time to serve civic causes � the American Friends Services
Committee, the Association for Papago Affairs and the Tucson Indian
Center, where she was a member of the board.
She helped found the Desert Indian Dancers. She sang on the recording
"An Anthology of Papago Traditional Music" in 1972 and told the story of
her life, woven with many stories of her people in "Desert Indian Woman:
Stories and Dreams," with co-author Neff in 2001.
Her baskets, featuring her own variations on the Tohono O'odham man in
the maze, won her wide acclaim, including an award in 1991 for
Distinguished Tohono O'odham Basket Weaver. In 2004, she was given a
YWCA Women on the Move lifetime achievement award. Manuel spent her
final years on the reservation, having returned to the village of San
Pedro in 1981.
Her nightlong wake was held there on Dec. 22 and she was buried the next
day in the village of S-koksonagk (Many Pack-Rats), where she had been
raised, where she bloodied her young fingers learning the art of
basket-weaving from her grandmother in the middle of her people's
desert, a day's horseback ride from Tucson in the early part of the last
century.