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Thomas Kelly  > EXHIBITION > Native Graces
2007, Santa Fe, New Mexico, www:VerveFineArts.com Native Graces. A retrospective photographic exhibition 40 pigment prints.


On 100% archival Mueso silver rag paper. Printed at Santa Fe Editions, Santa Fe, New Mexico/ Gary Mankus.
14X20 inch image size on 17X22 inch paper size
20X30 inch image size on 24X 36 inch paper size

Or, on Kodak professional matt paper with 100 year archival quality made on Noritsu LPS 24 pro Japanese Kodak printer in Kathmandu, Nepal
16X20 inch paper size
20X30 inch paper size

(Shipping of the prints are done in a PVC tube)

Please contact tkelly@photo.wlink.com.np for Price inquiry and further information.
gallery pages:  1  2  3  >  
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Thomas  Kelly > The idea of the interconnectedness of all things is central to the tribal way of 
looking at the world. Practical knowledge of the environment, of crops and medicines, of hunting and fishing, is a byproduct of it. The Makuna believe that human beings, animals, and all of nature are parts of the same One. Animals and fish live in their own communities, which are just like human communities, with their chiefs, their shamans, their dance houses, their songs, and their material possessions. When human peoples dance in this world, the shaman invites the animal people to dance in theirs. If humans do not dance and shamans do not offer spirit food to the animal people, the animals will die out and there will be no more game left in the world. For the Makuna the radical disjunction so characteristic of Western thought between nature and culture, men and animals, dissolves.

Eastern Colombia Amazon, Vaupes region, Population: 600
Thomas  Kelly > For centuries the Amazonian forest has been a nourishing mother 
for the Kayapo, who survive mostly on hunting, fishing and gathering.

Gorotire Kayapo Reserve, Brazilian Amazon
Thomas  Kelly > Wearing tree bark –cloth masks and skirts, dancers representing fish spirits are invited during the season of the peach palm harvest to drink the juice. It is a feast and ritual exchange: the host group offers the spirits large quantities of peach 
palm juice, smoked meat and fish, and shaman-blessed coca and snuff. The 
visitors are the costumed dancers impersonating animal spirits. People eat the 
meat and fish, animal spirits receive the fruits of peach palm, which are 
cultivated, harvested, and processed by humans. This exchange expresses the 
idea that people and animals depend on each other for survival and reproduction.
 
Vaupes Basin, Eastern Colombia Amazon, Population: 600
Thomas  Kelly > Paulo’s hair bangs being painted with urucum dye. Rites of passage clearly 
define the transitions each individual must pass through to become an adult,
a full person with a new social role. Each initiate has a sponsor, an older relative. 

Mato Grosso, Brazil
Thomas  Kelly > The Xavante live in the rolling hills of Mato Grosso, in central Brazil. Their society is based on a system of age sets: the men are divided into groups comprising all those of a similar age. Each group spends five years in each category. The youngest set is the bachelors, the second youngest the warriors. Over the next 30 years, the men pass through six “mature” stages, moving up every five years as a new group 
of bachelors is initiated in the wai’a. Once they have passed through all eight sets, the men move back and are “twinned” with the youngest group. The black and red faces  represent the duality in nature, the opposing forces. Red is the pure or ‘tamed’ force, black—the dark or ‘untamed’ force.

Mato Grosso, Brazil
Thomas  Kelly > Sexual activity is regarded among the Kayapo as a natural and desired 
     part of life. Rules regarding sexual activities are complex and vary between 
     different sex and age groups; sexual faithfulness is a matter of  individual 
     choice rather than a common rule. "There are those men who do not like their 
     women to be with someone else; there  are others who do not mind" says Kwyra 
     Ka "Those who do not mind stay together, those who mind separate".
     It is a normal custom for Kayapo Indians to marry, split up and remarry 
     several times, and as a rule chiefs have several sexual partners at the same time.

 Gorotire, Xingu Reserve, Brazilian Amazon
Thomas  Kelly > The prejudice against nomads is very old. While sedentary peoples have often envied nomads their freedom and political independence, nomads are often stigmatized as being “obstacles to development.” In Africa, nomadic pastoralists 
are accused by their governments of contributing to ecological degradation by overgrazing their animals. In fact, nomads like the Gabra take elaborate care of their grazing lands. Their very survival depends on it. People become restless once the decisions to move has been made, and women often get up in the middle of the night to begin dismantling their households. All of the packing and loading is done entirely by women. Gabra live their entire lives in unending cycles of migration. They know how to use their land and to conserve its resources. They move even before they have to in order to ensure that the land is replenished for the future.

Kenya, East Africa Population: 30,000
Thomas  Kelly > The Gabra philosophy of life is summed up in their idea of finn, meaning 
fertility and plenty. Human beings contribute to finn as they  care for the 
earth and their animals, as they exchange livestock, nourish friendships, tell 
tales, or sing songs. Finn is the earth and the cycle of life that takes place upon it.

Northern Kenya, Chalbi Desert
Thomas  Kelly > Yoruba women dance in trance at a sacred water festival to honor their
animistic spirits.

Nigeria, Africa
Thomas  Kelly > In the 13th Century, the golden age of the Mongol Empire, a sport 
resembling polo became a training game for the Mongolian cavalry 
throughout High Asia. Horsemen learned to bend low at speed, like 
acrobats to finish off fallen enemies with sabres, looting their prey 
on the ground by scooping up jewels that caught their eye. There are 
stories, too, of Genghis Khan knocking about an enemy's head as if it 
were a ball.

Orkhon Valley, Central Mongolia
Thomas  Kelly > These Reindeer Peoples’ entire existence is based around their herds of reindeer, which provide milk, skins for clothes, horn for carving and medicine, transport 
and occasionally, meat. The Tsaatan are part of the Tuvan ethnic group, which inhabits the Tuvan Republic of Russia. There are only about 200 Tsaatan in total, spread over 100,000 sq km of northern Mongolia. They are nomadic, often moving their small encampments every three to four weeks, searching for special types of grass and moss loved by the reindeer. The Tsaatan are strong practitioners of shamanism.

West Taiga, Northern Mongolia
Thomas  Kelly > Bayan-Olgii, is a “Kazakh province’ and it is here that their culture 
persevered despite communist oppression for much of the 20th century. 
The dominant feature of western Mongolia is the Mongol Altai 
mountain range, which stretches from Russia through Bayan-Olgi 
down to the Gobi desert. One of the oldest, most revered and spectacular
activity for the Kazakh people, passed down from generation to generation,
is hunting with trained eagles. 

Bayan Ulgii, Mongolia
Thomas  Kelly > Moksha, perfect inner freedom-is the soul’s release from samsara, the cycle 
of birth and death, attained after dynamic and personal yogic realization of Parasiva and resolution of all seed karmas. Having known the Absolute, there 
is no fuller realization, no greater knowing, no higher “experience.” Even when 
God realization is attained, the soul body continues to evolve in this and other worlds until it merges with the Primal Soul as a drop of water merges with its source, the ocean. -Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

Kakani, Nepal
Thomas  Kelly > A young sadhu reads holy scriptures near the fire. Worship is part of daily life. 
Some sadhus chant powerful mantras. The Gayatri Mantra is one of several mantras which are sacred incantations or mystical formulas of ancient literature. The Gayatri Mantra was given by 	Brahma and mentioned in the Rigveda and is named after the consort of Brahma. The goal of the recitation is to attain God realization. Practice can lead the mind into a transcedental union with the deity.

Pashupatinath, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Thomas  Kelly > Shaivite sadhu drinks from his human skull bowl. A picture of Shiva can 
be seen behind him. Although the practice of taking all of one's food and 
drink from a human skull is rare nowadays, certain sadhus, particularly 
the Aghori sub-sect, still hold to it as a daily reminder of human mortality 
and as a challenge to transcend the duality of life and death. The Aghori 
subsect was founded by Brahma Giri, a disciple of Gorakhnath and are 
strict followers of Shiva. These ascetics remain naked and often wear a 
rosary made of bones around their neck and carry a human skull in the 
left hand and a bell in the right hand. Their sectarian tilaka, forehead 
mark denotes unity of the Hindu triad. 	 

Pashupatinath, Kathmandu, Nepal
Yoruba women dance in trance at a sacred water festival to honor their
animistic spirits.

Nigeria, Africa
Thomas  Kelly > Yoruba women dance in trance at a sacred water festival to honor their
animistic spirits.

Nigeria, Africa
Yoruba women dance in trance at a sacred water festival to honor their
animistic spirits.

Nigeria, Africa
original size: 648px x 429px |
Current: 600px x 397px |
Other sizes: S • Medium • L • O |
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Keywords: yoruba yaruba kids
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