Bell Hammer Song

The Song of Kokopelli

I. Painted Earth

"Painted Earth" was his first song. It developed as a "road song," called "Big Sky Country." He had reached a personal limit in playing "covers" of artists he liked. Encouraged to create original material, he found his way through the complexity of songwriting while discovering a different subject matter, mostly inspired by dreams and visions. After an unexpected dream with the painters, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, he was guided to approach a unique subject, the paleo-Indians of the southwest, the Anasazi. (See "Song Cycles" in "Archival Notes")

He wanted to coordinate the metaphor of "painting" with the colors of earth: "grass green," "sky blue," "rock red." Not as easy as it sounded. He promised his self he would not write a song with only three chords, one of the beginner problems. Achieving five majors, he soldiered on knowing the subtlety of music awaited him..

"Painted Earth" sounded like the trot of a horse, the cowboy in his saddle, his hat bobbing in rhthym, the reins cinched, his stirrups engaged. He was searching for steers who had wandered from the herd, not unlike like the Wetherill ranchers who unearthed the ruins at Mesa Verde. He imagined his self on their landmark ride which marked the discovery of the Anasazi culture at "Cliff Palace."

Georgia O'Keefe, a New York City expatriate and New Mexican painter, became a patron of his artistic journey, like Frida and Diego. When she visited the Luhan ranch in Taos, New Mexico for a change of scenery, she immediately saw the potential of the high desert landscape: canyons, cactii, cliffs, corn, crows, crosses, sunflowers, skeletal bones of animals, hollowed horns, blue morning glories, black irises, jack-in-pulpits, calla lilies, purple petunias, red poppies. A godsend for all with an eye, she blossomed as an artist when the environment took hold of her imagination and person: as Big Hand testified: "desert air"/"clear the eye," "mountain light"/"see the sky."

II. Mesa Verde

Strangely, some songs he composed paired up, as close partners in song. They had to be played together, if you will, side by side. "Painted Earth" and "Mesa Verde" were examples of the coupling phenomena.

A popular National Park in southwestern Colorado, Mesa Verde ("Green Table") was discovered by the Wetherill ranchers on December 18th in 1888. "Cliff Palace" rose through the pinyon and juniper brush near the overlook at Sun Temple. With snow blowing across a canyon, the cowboys discovered "a magnificent city." They had no idea an ancient culture awaited them.

Mesa Verde was Anasazi, a World Heritage Site, a rare and remarkable ruins. It had been well preserved. Big Hand had the good fortune to visit the Park in 1999. Besides descending a ladder into a dark, ceremonial chamber (kiva), he and his children took a guided tour with a Navajo Park Ranger. The tour ended with a walk through Cliff Palace. The Park Ranger was an adroit, intelligent fellow, with a wry sense of humor. He won't be forgetten as well as the tour, which the Ranger led with one of his daughters in hand.

III. Corn Tassel...

"Corn Tassel..." was a rain-making song, a cloudancer. He could not have foreseen the direction the song wanted to take. The title of "Indian Summer" was his first thought on the transition of summer into autumn. The cobs of  bespeckled "Indian corn" coincided with the arrival of harvest goods. Suddenly, dried stalks with corn husks appeared with pumpkins (Jack- O'-Lanterns) and turkey (Old Tom). The holidays of autumn were clearly beloved and well-intentioned, but the naivete about the real history revealed memory lost, spirit forgotten.

During composition, the supplication of the corn spirit, embodied in the tassel, not only became a chant but the title of the song. The music gave me the opportunity to learn, and learn I did, for which I will always be grateful. The verses of "ancient maize" and "ancient ways" bridged the transition from the repetition of the chant, or chorus, to the masquerade, or dance. The illuminations of solar energy in day ("sunlight/ golden rays") and lunar energy in night ("firelight/golden blaze") complemented "maize" and "ways." (The "ways" of the Indians Americans were coordinated with lunar reckonings of thirteen moons.) Thus, the fertilization of corn was driven by the imagery of poetic myth. "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower/Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees/Is my destroyer./And am I dumb to tell the crooked rose/My youth is bent by the same wintry fever." (Dylan Thomas)

The masque evoked a vision of "cloud dancers" and "silk maidens" which was real but not real, compelling one to ponder the mystery of procreation. The masque served to enhance appreciation of the creative cycle of maize. The pollination described in verse was more a "right brain" function,  an artistic and intuitive process, rather than a "left brain" mental analysis, devoid of wonder and awe. "Cloud dancers" and "silk maidens" fertilized the flower, the "dancers (scattering) the dust/the pollen seeds on rain and gust," the"maidens (gathering) the shed/the kernels yellow, white and red." The celebration evoked in the song honored the maize of the "Old Ones," the elders, or wisdom-keepers, the Anasazi.

The christening of maize as a consecrated grain tested the writer with a poetic challenge, to separate the sacred from the profance. Maize was not an agricultural product only. The difference between the ceremonial kernel of maize, a sacramental seed, and agricultural corn, a food source important to many people, were each respected, especially southwestern, desert tribes. Given the climatic limitations of arid land and barren existence, their lives were sustained by the "three sisters," pumpkin (squash), bean and corn. On the other hand, the ceremonial use of maize by the Hopi, as an example, was dependent on the colors of maize which helped align the people in the six directions of space (N, W, S, E, U, D). The six colors of maize were yellow, speckled yellow, red, speckled red, blue and white. The blue color guided the Hopi toward the southwestern direction during their last migration. The Hopi also planted blue corn on the top of mesas for sustenance. It was a marvel the blue corn grew at all, but the plants were placed well-apart for water usage and protected vigilantly against insect damage.

Perhaps when I began to compose "Indian Summer," I was close but no cigar, although "close" was important to me in my development as an artist. Speaking below the the surface noise of the mind, my subconscious prodded me incessantly. I heard it clearly say with time, "cigar," I mean, "Corn Tassel..'." Yet, I could not fathom the connection between the old title and the new.

IV. Enchanted Ruins

The petroglyphs (painted) and pictographs (chiseled) on the sandstone walls of the Four Corners in the southwest high desert intriqued me from the start of the Anasazi project, or "The Song of Kokopelli." The supernova petroglyph at Chaco Canyon in 1054 was a good example. The crescent sliver of a moon, an open hand pointing above and the star explosion (supernova) marked the luminous stellar event.

Rock art itself was ubiquitous throughout the region, including spirals, wheels, or mandalas ( a circle symbolic of the entire universe), zigzags (lightning), vortexes, helixes, trapezoidal anthromorphic aliens, with antennas and space suits, clouds of rain, bows and arrows, bears, hunters and serpents, especially horned pit vipers, like the rattlesnakes, most common reptile in the aride, desert climate, circles with crosses attached below (similar to the zodiac glyph for Venus) and, of course, variations of the Kokopelli archetype.

The timeline of the supernova was culled from scholarly and scientific discplines who studied Chinese astronomy, Japanese and Arabic texts, global cultures witness to the cosmic event, the art of the Old Ones, including Anasazi rock art, carbon-14 dating, the creation of the Crab Nebula (a remnant of the supernova which was in the constellation of Taurus in 1054), Lundmark's hypothesis (a supernova, not a comet) and Hubble's confimation of his theory and the Hubble sky space telescope.

A World Heritage Site, Chaco was a special place, an ancient ground of peace, wonder and magic. Well-worth a desert trip along a bumpy, unpaved road, Chaco opened up to reveal the unknown and beyond.

The "sun dagger" was observable at Fajida Butte, near the Park Ranger Station. As the seasons changed, the dagger marked the solstices and equinoxes of the sun on the pictograph of a spiral. It helped the paleo-Indians to anticipate the seasons when the earth's axis tilted more or less with the onset of winter and summer. The sun traveled afar with the darkness of fall and winter and returned with the light of new growth in spring and summer.

The disappearance of Chaco Culture led to inhabitation of the cliff dwellings on the sides of mesas by the Anasazi. Betatakin, Keet Seel and Mesa Verde were examples of such habitations. Much later, during volcanic activity near modern Flagstaff in the San Francisco Mountains and Sunset Crater, the Old Ones left their cliff homes altogether, perhaps due to other survival issues such as defensive vulnerability or farmed-out lands. A credible group of scholars believed they migrated south to New Mexico or west to Arizona. The San Francisco mountains, volcanic in origin, stood nearby, the view from Hopiland on Third Mesa clear to the eye. Old Oraibi, the first city on Third Mesa, was once the oldest village in all of North America. The diaspora of cliff dwellers led to the Pueblo peoples along the Rio Grande River, like the Tewa and Taos Indians.

V. Clan Ancestors

Clans were very important to desert southwest people. They were matriarchal in nature and determined tribal relationships, such as marriage. Totems were important to clan identity as well. The Bear Clan were the leaders of all clans because they arrived first in Hopiland during the historical migrations.

While providing a sense of identity, clans empowerd the people with a sense of spiritual protection and guidance. One's clan was by no means an fluke of nature. It was never chosen arbitrarily by a person. It was critical to the ceremonial life of Pueblo peoples. The kachinas, the spirit messengers who could help insure rainfall for the crops, were entreated each year to leave their homes under the San Francisco Mountains and return to the Four Corners. With the moisture gathered from their sky blessings, the next harvest was assured.

One's clan said everything about a person. It was not unlike a name given at birth. The clan was known by its totem, a bear, wolf, butterfly, mountain sheep, raven, ant, duck, frog, parrot, eagle, snake, hare spider, racoon, skunk, coyote. The totem of these creatures served and protected the clan and its chosen members, especially the skunk!

Clan totems were also were represented by kachinas, the tutelary sky messengers. The kachina phenomena was associated with the changes of the Chacoan culture to the modern tribes. Originally, the Anasazi people had been basket makers who morphed into pueblo builders, which included pot makers. The Anasazi were a remarkable people who were not afraid to change their habiations or adopt other patterns of survival if needed.

VI. The Ancient Way

Archaeoastronomy, the lost art of star-gazing, provided the directional bearings of the Anasazi. Stellar, solar and lunar events were observed carefully as they were guides to seasonal cycles, earth changes and cosmic happenings. Unusual rock outcroppings were incorporated often into their contemplation of the heavens. Similar to sextants, which were used in navigation, they fixed the position like the modern GPS. A "dead reckoning" was the result, a calculation of one's current position with a previously determined position. The sightings of the North Star, or Polaris, the sun at solar noon, the moon and navigational stars were examples of fixed positions set for navigation, at sea or in the sky. The Altitude-Intercept method was unlike the systems which navigated according to space, being dependent on time, like Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT. The observer had to know the exact moment of GMT for observation of a celestial body.

Early man and later man were not antithetical. One used stones, the other, stars. One was captured by space, the other, time. For both, it was unthinkable not to have a form of celestial direction.

Science has corroborated the precision and accuracy of primitive astronomical calculations, which were more intuitions and states of heightened awareness about the environment rather than conceptual thought processes. "The Ancient Way" was trustworthy because the path did not venture or veer from the cosmic plan. The certainty born of confidence yielded wisdom, derived from space and time.

Thus, the song was intentionally simple and to the point: "Morning the sun comes daily/rising eastwardly" and "evening the sun goes nightly/setting westwardly" were obvious but also profound. The order and harmony of the universe moved the primitive with a level of trust in the cycles of nature, the sowing of crops, the mating of animals and the metering of winter reserves in between harvest cycles. The Old Ones were Elders who traveled backward and forward in the Great Beyond.

VII. Canyon Chaco

"Canyon Echo" was an attempt to convey the canyon experience, the twist and turn of reverberation which made one feel as if another entity was answering back, returning the call. Somewhat eerie in the canyon walls, the original cry echoed again and again, perhaps with other voices sounding in, the hushed over- and under- tones. Beyond the sun light in the canyon or suddenly upon one in the shadows, the response more often than not was a surprising answer, "You are not alone."

The title of the song was not my initial choice because I was so taken with Chaco Canyon...Chaco, echo, Chaco, echo. In the end, the song dictated the choice of verse: "Canyon Echo" was simply better to listen to in the "rhythmning" of sound. So said T. Monk.

Observations of the watercourse through the sandstone revealed the sculpted "tao" of nature. The waves were patterns not unlike landscape calligraphy or images of photography. The Grand Canyon was the most dramatic of all the gorges, which the Hopi people visited annually on their pilgrimage. The fourth world of the Hopi had emerged at the salt basin where the Big and the Little Colorado Rivers came together on their way to the Baja of California. It was a sacred site because Spider Woman had shown the Hopi the sipapu. This aperture, recreated in the ceremonial kiva, was the entrance way into the fourth world. The Hopi felt the sipapu was also at the junction of the Colorado rivers, where the salt deposit existed. Human ancestors had emerged from the underworld via this opening.

Although common to the modern world, the indiginous peoples all over the world testified as to the sacred issue of salt. Ghandi walked from Ahmedabad to Surat on the Arabian Sea "to make salt"." His singular protest defied the British salt monopoly. The Salt March also led to the Civil Disobedience Movement.  Once an Indian lawyer, the Mahatma said, "Next to air and water, salt is perhaps the greatest necessity of life." The Hopi agreed, the salt basin in the Grand Canyon at the confluence of the Colorado rivers a pilgrimage site.

VIII. On the Wind

An unintentional "wind trilogy" began on the second half of the Kokopelli project: "Canyon Chaco," "On the Wind" and "The Aerie High." Together, they consituted a paean, songs of joy and praise to the wind itself.

In the "I Ching," or "Book of Changes, Hexagram 57, Sun, was described as "The Gentle (The Penetrating, Wind)." "The Gentle means going into." Sun, or Wind, was the hexagram of homecoming. "The Gentle shows the exercise of character. Through The Gentle one is able to weigh things and remain hidden. Through The Gentle one is able to take special circumstances into account." "For thus one can understand things in their inner nature without having to step into the forefront of oneself. One is able to make the exceptions demanded by time, without being inconsistent."

"Feathers worn" and "shadows blue" fell effortlessly to the ground. "Pollen grain" and "mountain air" drifted up with easily into the altitudes. Most importantly, "the echoe (rung)" were themselves voices of the Old Ones. Their whispers and hushed tones could be heard in a subtle, heightened state of awareness.

Interestingly, the word "maize" (corn) was the definition of wind. It was not hard to imagine high grass waving in the wind, shaped by its currents. I always felt impulses to be a participant myself, to touch very lightly the tops of grasses bowing with the wind. In the film, "Dances with Wolves," this behavior was visualized in early shots of the story when the hero, a cavalry officer, felt moved to do so as he approached "Indian" territory on the Plains.

IX. The Aerie High

Originally titled, "The Eagle's Waltz," the song had the flight of golden eagles in mind from its initial inception. Sovereigns of the skies "in currents lofty," the aerie was always within sight "in mountains rocky," the eagle eye tested and assured, their lens highly magnified.

The adults scouted for prey to feed eaglets in the nest as the wind up-lifted them to "the ether rare." As they gave flight, "the snowflakes light" in the vista changed the mountain landscape from brown and green to a silver frost, snow cloaking "the summit white."

Along the way, I realized golden eagles of the west were analogous to the cliff dwellers of the Anasazi. The cliff dwellinge were their aeries and the eagles were the "Old Ones." The sovereignty of the western eagles was their golden perception, the raptors of the sun, although their feathers were dark brown to black.

The song was developed in the "rounding technique" of folk music which suggested the circles of the verses and chorus never stopped but continued through cycles of time, rounding into infinity. Such was the aerial pattern of eagles circling and circling. Suspended chords, which were incomplete, or unresolved, helped add to the effect. Thus, there was no ending and no beginning.

X. The Song of Kokopelli

Many phonographic recordings included a song which had the same title as the vinyl (record), cassette (tape) or CD (disc). I continued this musical tradition with "The Song of Kokopelli" in the Anasazi project.

The chorus came easy, reiterating a constant theme of mine, the inter-relationship between seed and stardust. Sound played an important role as the intermediary link between the two, "the music of the spheres." It created the universe of phenomenal being. A scientific article from physicscentral.com in 2014 concluded "the human body (to be) made up of stardust, 93%!" We were seeded from the stars, or sun. To quote Thoreau, "The sun is but a morning star." To quote Big Hand, "We were sown of sun/in the high pinyon/seed and stardust one."

With the verses, I wanted to point to Kokopelli's unique and eccentric characteristics: "club foot & horn," "fox skin & stitch" " "corn husk & twine" "humpback & flute." I was a lover of language, an etymologist who applied the methodology of compartive linguistics, the ways words sounded without knowledge necessarily of meaning. My approach was clear in the verses from the beginning, including the flora and the fauna inhabiting Kokopelli's environment: "organpipe quill, "muskmelon vine," scrub oak acorn," "cottonwood ash," "pinyon pine pitch," "blue spiderwort," "prickly pear fruit." The awakening of the  "psychedelic experience," induced with trance, hypnosis, chanting, meditation, sensory deprivation, prayer and psychoactive substances, testified to the new reality I perceived in the mountain light and desert air of the "Painted Earth." Essentially, the high plateau of the Four Corners near the lower Rocky Mountains was a shamanic environment with religious and spiritual overtones.

Images of Kokopelli were never too far from one in the modern day Four Corners, ubiquitous interpretations of artists and non-artists alike painted on highway signs, roadside stops and barn roofs. Business cards and  TV adds all had their day with the Kokopelli phenomena. (My card with the website of bellhammersong.com was the Anasazi petroglyph of the hand.) These portrayls of rock art on sandstone were taken from the paleo-images of painted petroglyphs and chiseled pictographs.

The light of the southwest was well-known for its clarity of color, a world seen anew. The ability to appreciate the natural world was offered in verse ("desert air/clear the eye/mountain light/see the sky"). I noticed the light and environment at a young age on a trip to the enchanted land of New Mexico, which included Santa Fe, Taos and the Glorietta region nearby. I had no way to articulate what I witnessed with my eyes. It was special somehow in terms of aesthetic openness, the adobe pueblo peace and brilliant intensity of the sun and its prismatic light. My church choir director on the trip showed me the Taos pueblo, telling me to remember its uniqueness at a rest stop.

Later, I found many visual artists knew this truth, which was why they flocked to the Taos and Santa Fe scene to paint. Writers and poets also came, like Aldous Huxley and D. H. Lawrence. Georgia O'Keeffe, a later artistic patron of mine, worked there for many years after her time in New York City with the photographer, Alfred Stieglitz. She saw the light on a visit to the Luhan Ranch. I was after the illumination of light for poetic sound. I sought the same pigmentations as Kahlo, O'Keeffe and Carr in the Kokopelli title piece. Like "the mustard seed," the faith of desert flowers, cacti, ponderosa pine, pinyon, lawrence trees  squash blossoms, red and green peppers,  sandstone cliffs, twilight's purple, the blueberries of juniper trees, Indian paintbrush, the six colors of maize and not the least, the skulls, horns and bones set below the empyrean, "the highest heaven," above.