September 2012

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8 seconds on Pistol Pete

Wednesday, September 19, 2012 in Arizona, White Mountain

All-Around Champion Cowboy saddle

The trophy saddle of a former All-Around Champion Cowboy at the Apache Rodeo. Photo by David Lansing.

Vincent Shorty doesn’t quite last the required eight seconds on Pistol Pete, and when he lands hard on the dusty red earth, it takes him a few minutes to catch his breath and stand up. I hear a few of the other cowboys talking about how Pistol Pete is bad all right, but he’s not nearly as bad as Gizmo, the next bull up.

All the cowboys shake their heads and watch as the gate opens and Gizmo explodes sideways, quickly sending his rider to the ground, where he is stomped on by 2,000 pounds of angry bovine.

The cowboys all chuckle nervously. They’re used to such things. There’s been a rodeo here on the reservation in Whiteriver for more than 80 years now, this one attracting more than 800 Native Americans from the U.S. and Canada hoping to bull-ride, barrel-race, steer-wrestle, and rope their way to the prize of a plate-sized silver buckle and a saddle branded “All Around Champion.”

That and a few bucks seem to be reward enough for getting busted up by a bull named Gizmo.

 

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Bull riding at the Apache rodeo

Tuesday, September 18, 2012 in Arizona, White Mountain

White Mountain Apache reservation rodeo

Apache bull riders preparing for their rides. Photo by David Lansing.

Usually they start off with the bareback events but today it’s bull riding because there’s another rodeo in nearby San Carlos and  most of these Indian cowboys will change their dusty shirts and jeans in the truck and head on down the road with their injuries to try their luck again.

An Apache cowboy with a black felt hat tapes up a busted hand while another young cowboy with a broken arm in a sling prepares for his ride by isolating himself while crouching down, like he’s praying, in a corner.

All these cowboys are taped up. Every single one.

As the first bull rider gets into the gate, the announcer says, “Some of these guys have had a dozen surgeries or more. They tape up their strong arm forearm to keep the tendons from getting stripped.”

The cowboys all wear freshly starched and pressed shirts that have rips in the shoulder and thread-bare collars.

Here are the names of the cowboys: Julyan Yellowhair, Vincent Shorty, Richard Billy, Cody Boozer, Wilford Peaches.

Here are the names of the bulls: No Excuses, Nothing Matters, Exit Only, Black Scorpion, Gizmo, Pistol Pete.

Vincent Shorty, who is barely 5 feet tall, gets on top of Pistol Pete, a gate is pulled, and the rodeo has begun.

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White Mountain Apache Reservation rodeo

Sunday, September 16, 2012 in Arizona, White Mountain

White Mountain Apache Reservation rodeo

Lil’ Bit just before the start of the rodeo. Photo by David Lansing.

From Mesilla I drove to Hon-Dah, Arizona, which is midway between Show Low and Fort Apache, if you know where that is.

No, you don’t know where that is. And neither did I. Which is why it took me so long to find.

I stayed at the Hon-Dah Casino, an Indian casino like every other Indian casino I’ve ever been to, which is to say, depressing and lifeless. I know it’s about the only economic option for a lot of Native American tribes but it’s still depressing.

I was here for the rodeo on the White Mountain Apache Reservation which I’d heard showcased some of the toughest cowboys in the West. The rodeo was supposed to start around noon so I got there early, which was a mistake. Nothing was happening. Shortly around 1 things got started with the introduction of Lil’ Bit, whose sash said she was Miss Rodeo Apache. Lil’ Bit was no taller than 4 feet and seemed nervous, as did her horse. She tried to calm the horse by riding in tight circles in the wood chip-covered ground outside the bull pen.

The parade of the Rodeo Apache princesses began and maybe it was the wind kicking up dust or the ominous weather suggesting a thunder storm in the making, but one of the young Indian princesses behind Lil’ Bit was tossed from her mount, and for the next several minutes, several cowboys attempted to rope the bucking, riderless horse before he caused any more panic in the ring. Eventually someone grabbed ahold of his reins and led him back to his rider.

A recording of the national anthem was played over a tinny speaker. All the cowboys took off their hats. There was a scattering of applause. The rodeo had begun.

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Looking for Santa Barbara

Saturday, September 15, 2012 in Mesilla, New Mexico | 2 comments

Yesterday I wrote about the Saint Lady of Mesilla, Francesca de Garcia, who paints retablos which are devotional paintings of the saints and Virgin Mary. A reader asked me to look for a Saint Barbara. “I used to throw a Feast of Saint Barbara party every year because when I was looking for a good time to have a housewarming shortly after Thanksgiving, that was the name on the first Saturday in December,” she wrote.

I should have mentioned that Francesca has a website where you can purchase her retablos (according to her web site, she’s sold some 75,000 “Little Saints” in the past 15 years). She has painted “over 400 different folkart images of Catholic saints, religious icons, angels and name sakes and pre-religion prophets.” I’m not sure what pre-religion prophets are but you can find them at www.saintsandfolkart.com. And, of course, she has a Santa Barbara.

 

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The Saint Lady of Mesilla

Friday, September 14, 2012 in Mesilla, New Mexico | 3 comments

The Saint Lady of Mesilla

Retablos painted by The Saint Lady of Mesilla. Photo by David Lansing.

In the afternoon, I went looking for The Saint Lady. The saint lady is Francesca de Garcia. The last time I was in Mesilla, Garcia had a little shop called Casa de Santiago—House of the Saints—where she sold inexpensive retablos of over 200 saints, many I’d never heard of before.

Garcia had started painting the saints shortly after her husband died, as I remembered. But Casa de Santiago was gone. Or perhaps it had moved. I went into a shop selling bright red ristras not far from the old plaza and asked the woman there if she knew what had happened to The Saint Lady, fearing she had died. The woman said she was still around.

“She usually sets up at the Mercado on Friday afternoons,” she said. “If she’s feeling well.”

I walked over to the Mesilla Square and soon found her retablos. But she wasn’t around. An older gentleman said she was in Las Cruces. Like I said, The Saint Lady painted every saint you could imagine but her specialty seemed to be the Virgin Mary.

There were dozens of them on the table in the plaza. There was Our Lady of Refuge and Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of the Snows. You could buy Our Lady of Czestochowa-Poland or Our Lady the Virgin of Charity (Cuba) or Our Lady of Guadalupe (several versions of this Mexican icon).

Our Lady of Copacabana.

I ended up buying Our Lady of Copacabana, the patron saint of Bolivia. I liked the way she looked. Very, very stylish. Like Madona. The rock star, not the virgin. And I liked that there was a Virgin of the Copacabana. It wasn’t like she was the patron saint of nightclubs or anything, but I didn’t care. I liked the idea anyway.

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