As part of 2023 Activating Indigenous Beats: Hip Hop Nativo Festival, a mobile cross cultural mural was envisioned by the organizers Correne Anderson and Juan G. Sanchez Martinez. Local artists and educators Byron Tenesaca (kichwa-kañari), Jakeli Swimmer (Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indian–EBCI), and Abel Gonzalez Bueno (Hñahñü) were invited to lead the collective project. They met prior to the Festival to co-create the main design. Weaving and the encounter between Native peoples in Tokiyasdi / Asheville (Anikituwagi ancestral territory) were the chosen themes. With support from Sylvia J. Pierce and UNCA Campus Operations, Tenesaca suggested working with an acrylic exterior paint on 10 panels, which are currently assembled and hanging on the wall in front of Mullen Park. From April 12 to April 29, 2023, we created the mural with the support of dozens of UNCA students, staff and faculty members, including Humanities professor Leslee Johnson and biology student Ari Puentes.
Activating Indigenous Beats Mural is a homage to the chakaruna, the bridge-people in the Quechua language, the ones who dedicate their lives to connecting communities and seeding solidarity. It is also a non-alphabetic pedagogical tool! The woven pattern of the first layer is inspired by Anikituwagi basketry designs (arrowhead and noon-day-star), as well as by the Andean equal-armed cross known as chakana. The mural is set up so that the left side represents the South of Abiayala (the Americas) and the right represents the North. From the south side of the mural, the llama and the jaguar are walking toward the north, while the buffalo and the panther are walking in opposite directions to eventually meet them. Both journeys are being protected by two feathered-serpents, life-force of creation, called Uktenas in Tsalagi. They actually have many names throughout Abiayala, such as Kai-kai and Treng-treng for the Mapuche, Q’uq’umatz for the K’iche’, and Quetzalcoatl for the Mexica.
The center of the mural, the direction of the encounter/bridge, is a juxtaposition of the Andean chakana (chaka means bridge in Quechua), the cholq’ij (the 260 days ceremonial Maya calendar), and the Turtle Island medicine wheel–complex Indigenous iconographies related to the seven directions/colors and ethical principles for a good living such as reciprocity. The spiral is meant to invite everyone to align themselves with the natural movement of the sun, and to remember that we are all related and part of the same textile. The native foods–cacao, corn, squash, agave, and nopal–and the sacred medicines–yage, coca, wantuk, tobacco, wachuma– are feeding and healing us in this “returning to ourselves”. They are also growing toward the center.
Finally, at the top of the mural, there is a small symbol design by UNCA student Tiffany R. Clayton, a red triangle supported by three hands, which reminds us that no matter the color of our skin we all bleed red, and that this mural was a truly cross-cultural collaboration based on three main pillars: our bodies, our ancestral lands, and our native languages.
We hope you all enjoy the mural and use it as a pedagogical tool to spark dialogues in your classrooms on identity, belonging, Native Science, and Indigenous epistemologies and sovereignty.