Native Medicine Water Drum: The drum helps one remember

by Chris (Comeswithclouds) White

Native American Church of Virginia -- This medicine drum was inspired by a Plains Indian Medicine Man at the turn of the 19th century. The Native peoples from Mexico, throughout the United States and into Canada suddenly deprived of their way of life, via the near extinction of the buffalo, and their ideology, spirituality, traditions, and ceremonies, by which their culture had been sustained for thousands of years, was violently and abruptly halted.
      A "NewWay," to the realization of identity with life & being, and in all that passes in the course of time, was divinely given as medicine, to heal the spirit in the form of a desert cactus; most reverently harvested by the Huichol Tribesman who know it as Hikuri-the plant of eternal life.
     The drum in ceremony represents familiar sound, a connection to what is real, when the illusions or perceptions of life are challenged. A person/people can forget who they are. The drum helps one remember the rhythm of the heartbeat. The rhythm of their people. The rhythm and frequency of nature/creation, which the Creator set as an ordinance, a baseline of truth for rebuilding, after all has been lost.
     This medicine drum is key in ceremony to recover knowledge from within (self) and the spiritual ground of the Native Way of life.
     All creation has a heartbeat or rhythm, which Creator has set as an ordinance that gives life its rhythm, its frequency. When that rhythm resonates within self, one who is lost can follow the rhythm home.

“Native Medicine Drum”
by Chris (Comeswithclouds) White
CEO Native American Church of Virginia
18” x 10” x 9” 

Medium: Hollow cherry log, deer skin, locus wood, leather and natural braided rope details.

Exhibitions.  This piece was exhibited by the Artist at the Art at the Mill Art Show in 2014 in Millwood Virginia.