FREE Yanaguana Indian Arts Festival is Saturday, NOVEMBER 8th
FREE Yanaguana Indian Arts Festival at The Briscoe Museum Downtown Nov 8th
The Briscoe Western Art Museum invites the community to celebrate Native American Heritage Month at the FREE Yanaguana Indian Arts Festival on Saturday, November 8, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. at the museum’s campus on the San Antonio River Walk. The festival, museum admission and all activities are free, offering a full day of art, music, dance, storytelling, hands-on crafts and cultural connection for all ages. Free event registration is available online.
Throughout the day, guests of all ages can enjoy arts and crafts, meet artists, hear Native American music, learn about Native American heritage and culture and explore the Briscoe’s galleries at no cost.
Highlights include:
- A spiritual blessing by United San Antonio Pow Wow, Inc., a group that works to provide Native American people the opportunity to participate, practice, teach and exchange tribal traditions among all tribes and to enlighten everyone about the history and culture of America’s first inhabitants.
- A Pow Wow-style drum circle with United San Antonio Pow Wow and Enemy Horse Drumming demonstrating and explaining common pow wow dance styles.
- Indigenous storytelling with Joyous Windrider and Rosie Torres, sharing intergenerational stories and movement that bring Native American stories to life for all ages.
- Live music by Native American artists, including Tim Blueflint Ramel. An enrolled member of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, a federally recognized American Indian Tribe, flute player Blueflint Ramel has opened for and shared the stage with Grammy Award Winner Mary Youngblood and a wide variety of artists. He is also an accomplished flute and jewelry maker and will demonstrate his craft throughout the day.
- See ledger art with artist George Curtis Levi showcasing art that originated amongst the Cheyenne in the late 1840s. Ledger art utilized pages of repurposed record books (ledgers) to depict everyday life. A member of the Southern Cheyenne tribe in Oklahoma, Levi also has ties to the Arapaho and Oglala Lakota communities.
- See traditional pottery techniques of the Caddo Nation with Chase Kahwinhut Earles, a renowned Caddo pottery maker who has dedicated his craft to reviving and preserving the traditional pottery techniques of his Caddo Nation ancestors. Earles’ creates intricate, historically accurate pottery that reflects the deep cultural heritage of the Caddo people, whose pottery tradition dates back centuries. His works are celebrated for their authenticity, craftsmanship, and connection to Caddo history and spirituality.
- Shane Hendren, a turquoise expert and a Diné/Navajo jewelry maker who is a member of the Indian Arts & Craft Association (IACA), an organization committed to promoting the integrity of materials used in native jewelry.
- Wayne TaySha Earles, a Caddo carver who creates cultural stonework and stone jewelry inspired by ancient Caddo lithic artifacts unearthed largely from the Spiro Mounds in northeastern Oklahoma. Using soapstone, pipestone and alabaster, Earles makes exquisite replications of the ceremonial maces, batons and banner stones turned up by archeologists. He also carves stone pendants, necklaces and chokers.
- Crafts and fun for all ages include ledger art, mixed media collages, leather medallions, basket and loom weaving, a community weaving basket and creating your own parfleche case, a pouch typically made with rawhide that is painted with images or geometric designs. Plains Indians created the parfleche because of its utility, beauty and convenience. Other tribes in North America then adopted its use.
- Browse a curated selection of Native American artwork and talk with the artists as they demonstrate their crafts, including jewelry, pottery, beadwork and textiles.
Yanaguana = San Antonio River
Named in honor of the Payaya people who were indigenous to the San Antonio area, “Yanaguana” was the word they used to describe what is now known as the San Antonio River. The festival has been held annually since the museum opened and includes free admission to the Briscoe, making it a perfect way to celebrate the vital role Native Americans played in shaping the West while enjoying art and artifacts that highlight Native American history.
And So Much More….
Festival-goers can also enjoy the Briscoe’s 14 galleries and its special exhibition, Going to Texas: Five Centuries of Texas Maps, exploring the history and identity of Texas through 66 rare and original maps from the extraordinary Yana and Marty Davis Map Collection paired with more than 25 artworks from private loans and the Briscoe’s permanent collection. The map collection, on loan from the Museum of the Big Bend at Sul Ross University in Alpine, Texas, reveals how cartography shaped perceptions of the region across centuries. Spanning nearly 500 years, from 1525 to 2006, the collection is widely regarded as one of the most important Texas cartography collections in existence.
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