Arizona Lifestyle

Sunday, August 16, 1978
Mesa Tribune - Tempe Daily News

The Old Ways

By Patricia Myers, Lifestyle editor

The medicine man opened the small leather drawstring pouch, his fingers
reaching in for the golden grains of pollen. He looked steadily at the man
standing in front of him, at the red-bearded artist known as Day-Ga-Chee.
He touched the white man's forehead, leaving the pollen's yellow dust upon
it. Then he touched the man's midsection with on index finger.

"This is the center of your sprit and body; it is your soul," he
said in a grave voice.

He touched each of the man's shoulders, again leaving traces of
the golden dust, then inscribed an invisible circle to encompass invoking an
Apache Indian blessing.

Then he began to chant, his voice rising and falling as he held an eagle
feather, touching the white man's forehead, his shoulders and midsection,
and then inscribing a circle again.

Moments earlier, in the small house-studio in central Mesa, he
had blessed each of the artist's paintings of Apache ceremonials, blowing
onto them the soft grains of pollen still evident on their edges.

Philip Cassadore, and Apache Indian medicine man from the San
Carlos Reservation near Globe, was in Mesa to bless artist Clair Millett and
his paintings of centuries-old tribal rituals and dances. The blessing was
like those he has offered for an Apache family's new hogan or other
important possession. It appealed for the approval and protection of the 32
"persons" or "people" - the tribe's spiritual powers, intercedents for the
creator, the giver of life.

"I had asked Philip to come and see my paintings and critique
them, to be sure the colors and costumes are authentic," said the artist,
Millett, who has studied Indian rituals and traditions for many years, said
he asked for the blessing because doing that reflects respect of the Indian
ways.

During the blessing ritual, the circle depicted the earth,
Cassadore said. The cross with four points was made because four is a
sacred number in Apache beliefs, representing the number of days it took to
create the earth, and the four "people" who are legendary Apache figures.

The request for the paintings to be blessed was appropriate, the
medicine man said. "If you do not ask if it is the right thing to do, it
shows disrespect to the 'people.' But if it's a lesson to learn, from me
and from you, through these paintings, in a respectful way, it is teaching
others that don't know about these 'people'."

Clair Millett knows about the Indian ways because he has spent
more than 20 years of intensive research on tribal rituals. He became
interested in Indian ways as a child growing up near Show Low in northern
Arizona.

After his family moved to Mesa, he saw the Papagos come to town
to buy supplies, riding in steel-rim-wheeled wagons, their dogs running
underneath them in the shade.

Later he attended the pow-wows for tourists in northern Arizona.
He was appalled when he saw fat, sloppy Indians in sun glasses donning
ceremonial costumes over swimming trunks, wearing tennis shoes as they
staged shows of the dances once reserved for strong, athletic warriors.

When he visited reservations on his own, he realized that many
of the younger Indians didn't know about the ceremonies. He said it
"terrified" him. "Because of the overpowering white culture that is
dominating the Indians' way of life, and as the old Indians die, many of the
traditions that have passed from father to son by word of mouth are dying
out.

"As they disappear, we lose the last vestiges of the culture
which existed on this continent before the white man came. What once was a
necessary part of survival is slowly fading away, and with this in mind, I
painted these pictures to help, in my way, to retain and record some of the
original American culture before the time comes when it may no longer
exist," he said.

Nearly 20 years ago he became so dedicated to his research that
he sold his successful Mesa-based advertising-photography-printing business
to devote all his time to painting. During a visi t to the Navaho
reservation he was given the nay Day-Ga-Chee, "man with red whiskers."

Married and the farther of nine, with six children still at
home, he has faced more than one financial crisis since then, but said, "I've
got to paint, to lay paint on canvas, to make my statement. There are a lot
of other things I could do to make money, but I have a hard time walking
away from this. And when I do, I am compelled to come back."

His personal quest for past decade had been to preserve the
traditions of the Indians. That's how he met Philip Cassadore, son of the
famous Apache clan chieftain and medicine man Broken Arrow, and
great-grandson of Chief Cassadore of the Gila Valley. A lecturer and
consultant on Apaches, Cassadore was at the Heard Museum with his tapes of
Apache songs the day Millett went there. Since then Millett has been a
special guest for tribal ceremonies, including the four-day puberty rites
for Cassadore's two daughters. Working from sketches and photographs,
Millett began to create a series of paintings of dancers and key scenes in
the ceremonials.

It is the dancers that have held the artist's most intense
attention. "The Indian dances are colorful, beautiful and meaningful, and
nothing like them exists anywhere else in the world. The parts of the
costume have meanings that go back for thousands of years. The traditional
steps of the dances depict life as they lived it centuries ago," he said.

He paints with acrylics using palette knives to layer various
colors of paint. He focuses on a central figure in each. When he paints
the Hopi Kachina Dancers, or the Apache Crown Dancers, each figure is
surrounded by a aura of color that seems to vibrate with intensity.

"As I watched the dances on the reservation, I could see the
prism effect of the dust, humidity and firelight behind the dancers. It
reflected the colors in a halo around them, much like a halo around the
moon. I have tried to capture the halo behind the dancers," Millett said.

"When I paint, I go through three phases. The first is high
excitement, the euphoria of beginning. Then I get bogged down, but I plow
through and finally the excitement comes back, the high, the rush. The
great glory comes when someone comes along and says 'I like that' and likes
it enough to pay for it.

"I have a statement to make and it's an emotional thing,
something I feel. It's a sensuous emotional drive, almost sexual, that gets
in the marrow of my bones; it's compelling."

Each of Millett's paintings carries his special signature - a handprint.
This is his personal adaptation of the ancient Indian act of "counting cou,"
the tradition of touching an enemy in battle, but not killing him, then
going back to the tribe and placing a handprint in blood on the warrior's
horse or pony or teepee.

Through the years, one, two and then three arrows cross the painted
handprint, signifying the number of times he has achieved a special goal in
his life. "The bull's-eye have been hit this number of times," he said.

"My main interest is in the figure of the dancer. I started
with the Hopi, then the Apache. Now I may evolve from Indians and go into
other ethnic dances.

"The dance was my thing to begin with because I like anatomy and
the action, the emotion of dance. I probably will do more on the Apaches,
but I will let the spirit guide me and go by the emotions I feel. I want to
fulfill that commitment to Philip for what he has done for me, "Millett
says. "When I finish painting Indians, I will go to Mexico, Hawaii or
France, or any place there are dancers."

'I've got to paint, to lay paint on canvas, to make my statement. There are
a lot of other things I could do to make money, but I have a hard time
walking away from this. And when I do, I am compelled to come back.'

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