Santa Fe Indian School Seniors, Service Learning
P
R O G R A M S
Traditional Agriculture Program: Roasting corn, braiding corn and drying for chicos.
October 2007
Adobe Making Workshop
Pueblo Youth and Elders
Gabion Building Workshop
Traditional Agriculture
Corn roasting, braiding and drying techniques
Littlebird - Storytelling
Pueblo Elder, Phillip Duran Hamaatsa Listening Circle
A Pueblo Indian Continuum
HAMAATSA (pronounced Hama-aht-sa), is a Keresan Pueblo word given to me years ago by one of my many mentor-elders. Hamaatsa is a reference to “now”, within an indigenous-oral-learning-on-going-experience. To be indigenous, requires conscious awareness of place, particular to spiritual experience made sensible through living connections relevant to that place over and over, again and again. This is the continuum respectfully acknowledged in our oral tradition stories, songs and dances. HAMAATSA is a gathering place — “a place to start over”, where another chance is given to listen to the Mother instruct where to dig in the earth and once again make the White Dawn House, Gosh’guy’yu’nhi Cuh’drew’dhi, the spiritual house modeled after the original house given to the ancient Pueblo people by Creator. This is the atmosphere for Hamaatsa, infused and informed by indigenous ecology, and spoken words. An environment, where one can learn to carry water, chop wood, sweep earthen floors with a simple broom, and as you are about your doing, all the while quietly listening, to learn what you are not, then making the choice for who you want to become. I hear the sound of singing water. I have visions of water flowing through this land, restoring ancient watersheds. I see crops coming alive and the animals returning to the land. I see people arriving at the shores of this Hamaatsa land for the first time, just as the Europeans once arrived on the shores to the east. The Hunu, the good hearted people, are greeting and making these newly arrived, welcome. What will be our actions? Our choices? Will we learn to listen this time?At this globally critical time, we are blessed to have a place like Hamaatsa — A place to demonstrate our correct actions and clear choices regarding our lives “now” and to bring fruitful results forward for the benefit of all our relations, and the children coming behind. -- Larry Littlebird
Founding Director
Program Highlights
Drum Making Language Camp
Pueblo youth and mentors
Water Arrives!
Well Blessing
OUR MISSION is to provide emergent leadership programs for living simply and sustainably on the land; to integrate healing systems from traditional cultures; and to restore indigenous life-ways and land stewardship principles through experiential land-based learning.
Support Hamaatsa cultural lifeways and programs by becoming a $25 monthly steward!
Copyright 2007 Hamaatsa. All rights reserved. HAMAATSA is a Native led 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.
