Identities: Bunky Echo-Hawk / White Washed
Bunky Echo-Hawk
White Washed, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
Whitewashed literally means to “paint over a space with white paint.” But it can also mean to erase, hide, and conceal. How is the word whitewashed being used as a metaphor in this work?
This painting replicates a billboard advertisement for an
Indian burial site near Salina, KS. The owner of the land found 146 bodies buried there and opened it as a tourist attraction in 1936. The bones were varnished and put on display for thousands of visitors at $3.50 apiece admission.
To Walter Echo-Hawk, Bunky’s father, and the tribes he
represents as a lawyer “…such treatment is a ghoulish outrage. My ancestors were human beings who were tenderly buried by their relatives in accordance with tribal custom and religious belief.”
Walter Echo-Hawk worked on the Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990. He
negotiated an agreement between the Pawnees, the state of Kansas, and the landowners to close the Salina burial site and cover it over. The human remains were returned to Pawnee lands in Nebraska for reburial.
SOURCE: “Walter Echo-Hawk Fights for His People's Right to Rest in Peace—Not in Museums”, People Magzine, September 4, 1989.
Identities: Bunky Echo-Hawk / White Washed
Bunky Echo-Hawk
White Washed, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
Whitewashed literally means to “paint over a space with white paint.” But it can also mean to erase, hide, and conceal. How is the word whitewashed being used as a metaphor in this work?
This painting replicates a billboard advertisement for an
Indian burial site near Salina, KS. The owner of the land found 146 bodies buried there and opened it as a tourist attraction in 1936. The bones were varnished and put on display for thousands of visitors at $3.50 apiece admission.
To Walter Echo-Hawk, Bunky’s father, and the tribes he
represents as a lawyer “…such treatment is a ghoulish outrage. My ancestors were human beings who were tenderly buried by their relatives in accordance with tribal custom and religious belief.”
Walter Echo-Hawk worked on the Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990. He
negotiated an agreement between the Pawnees, the state of Kansas, and the landowners to close the Salina burial site and cover it over. The human remains were returned to Pawnee lands in Nebraska for reburial.
SOURCE: “Walter Echo-Hawk Fights for His People's Right to Rest in Peace—Not in Museums”, People Magzine, September 4, 1989.