TEASING PEOPLE INTO HEALTH? SAMI CARTOONS, INDIGENOUS HUMOUR, AND PROVOCATIVE THERAPY

Maren Uthaug's razor-sharp and self-deprecating cartoons reflect Sami people in a seemingly offensive way, addressing sensitive Indigenous issues such as cultural disorientation, racism, suicide, and addiction in an outspoken way. However, it was Sami people – Uthaug's relatives – who asked for and successfully published these cartoons. Why do Sami people request cartoons like these? Outlining some relevant aspects of highly divergent Western Comics Studies, the analysis and interpretation of selected cartoons is an opportunity to compare Uthaug's provocative strategies to the functions of humour in First Nations literature. Accordingly, the paper focuses on Indigenous humour as a means of emotional and social healing in the processes of decolonization and reconciliation and, additionally, adopts Frank Farrelly's concept of provocative therapy which is defined as a way of teasing people into health. Relying on Native American Terry Tafoya's (Taos Pueblo) description of Farrelly as a kind of medicine man, the paper asks whether also Uthaug acts as a cartoon-drawing Chiffoneti, a blend of priest, healer, and trickster regarding Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers.

Abeyta

The Taos Valley (Abeyta) adjudication case illustrates how settlement outside the formal court process led to a more amenable resolution of difficult and adversarial litigation. The Taos adjudication was sparked by a dam that was never built, but the case continued on to sort out water uses in the valley. Taos Pueblo, at the headwaters of most of the major streams in the area, was well placed to negotiate their Indian water rights. Over time, the regional acequias, the Pueblo, the city of Taos, and other interested water users created a tailored water agreement, now in settlement, that was more in line with historical understanding and practices. Concerns remain over groundwater pumping, shortages, and excluded parties.

Chimney Rock and the Ontology of Skyscapes

Because of its architectural style and excellent masonry, the Great House of Chimney Rock in southwestern Colorado has been identified as one of some 225 outliers of the Chaco Regional System. Located just below the spectacular double rock towers, the Great House is set in a dramatic and unique skyscape containing a number of sight-lines to extremes of the Sun and Moon. Once considered important as a calendrical station, which communicated astronomical information southward to Chaco Canyon, the Great House may have been primarily important as a place for viewing the juxtaposition of the gods of earth and sky, a theophany similar to that of darśan of India. This paper proposes that the initial identification of a number of skyscapes as horizon calendars and calendrical stations should be reconsidered in the perspective of animism and alternate ontologies. Construction of the Great House may have been initiated by the local community and accomplished with the help of masons from its closest neighbour the Great House of Salmon. The area appears to have become a pilgrimage centre in its own right, not under hegemonic control of the powerful elites of Chaco Canyon. Rejection of the Chacoan influence is indicated by the construction by the local community of a structure that restricted entry to the area of the Great House. The decline of Chimney Rock as a pilgrimage centre sometime after 1093 AD was accompanied by the abandonment of the Salmon Great House, the breakup up of a trade network, and out-migration to the Taos Pueblo.