Long Journey from Wikame

BOOK REVIEW
By Mitchell Duval

There's no doubt that books with a Native American theme are plentiful at any time of the year; they seem to pop up like needles on a Saguaro cactus. For the children there are thinly illustrated volumes devoted to Native American legends. For the adults there's often only a choice between arid ethnographic studies and sticky self-help books that cheapen the rich spiritual heritage of the Native American peoples. What most of these volumes have in common is an approach to Native America that is superficial at best and coyly patronizing at worst.

That's why it's a real pleasure when a new publication appears that mixes beautiful illustration and wonderfully poetic prose with a deep respect and understanding of Native American culture and the Southwestern landscape. In Long Journey from Wikame, small, Las Vegas-based Stephens Press has presented us with just such a book.

Long Journey from Wikame is renowned artist/poet Roy Purcell's homage to Hake-Kate Crozier, a Walapai man Purcell encountered in Arizona in 1956. Utah native Purcell was just 20 years old at the time, recently discharged from the army, and spending time exploring the red canyons and dry arroyos of the Walapai reservation near Kingman, AZ. One hot day he wandered into a cluster of rundown shacks near Highway 66. It was there that Purcell met Hake-Kate.

Long Journey from Wikame tells the story of this meeting with the sort of inspired watercolors and vivid language that will be familiar to Purcell's many fans. Hake-Kate was well over 100 years old at the time, blind, one of the last of the frontier army scouts, and he recounted to Purcell the tale of his life and the many legends and myths he remembered hearing as a boy.

The encounter with Hake-Kate stayed with the young artist as he went on to achieve success, first as a museum director and also as the artist of, among many other works, the world-famous “Voyage” murals on 2,000 square feet of cliff face in Chloride, AZ. After nearly 50 years of gestation, the time seemed ripe for Purcell to bring the tale of Hake-Kate to a wider public.

Purcell is especially adept at portraying Hake-Kate's childhood stories. Native American creation myths are not exactly in short supply in the literary and artistic world, but Purcell brings a freshness and insight to the tale of Wikame, the holy mountain, and its two gods. The tones of the watercolor illustrations subtly change as Purcell tells the story of how Coyote steals the heart of the old god of Wikame after he dies and how the young god Mastamho creates the tribes of the Mojave-the Walapai, the Supai, the Hopi-out of broken cane. Desert yellow becomes dusty purple becomes deep green — Purcell's command of color and shape is wonderfully persuasive.

And the language that Purcell uses in these creation stories is not only intensely poetic, it's also canny and full of sly humor. Here he ends a description of the newly made tribes of the Mojave with a dryly funny modern word choice: “They knew neither the cold nor heat, darkness nor light, and did not understand when they were hungry. They knew nothing —for the young god had given them no instructions.” Long Journey from Wikame is full of beautiful, evocative prose that begs to be read out loud.

Purcell doesn't beat the reader over the head with any sort of “message,” but Long Journey from Wikame is steeped in the kind of spiritual wisdom that comes from years of looking inward and connecting what's found with the solitude and serenity of the desert Southwest. The Walapai learn from Mastamho how to live in harmony with their surroundings. They use the seed pods of the yucca for food and the yucca's fibers to make sandals and traps for the rabbits that scurry around them. The simplicity of the description makes the importance of being in tune with the natural world clear.

Long Journey from Wikame is a handsomely produced volume with the pages printed on textured art paper and a padded cover. It comes with an audio CD that includes the author reading the book in his rich and sonorous voice and also an interview of the author talking about his life and the making of the book.

Long Journey from Wikame is a fitting tribute by the author/artist to his beloved desert and the native peoples who inhabit it. It's an ideal all-ages book for family and friends and would make a magnificent gift for lovers of art, poetry or the Southwest.


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