Friday, September 17, 2010

Concow Maidu Culture/ OOTI the acorn/ 'EARLY SPANISH CONTACTS WITH THE MAIDU' and 'A BRIEF HISTORY OF OROVILLE'/ Faux postage stamps/ ARTIST STAMPS by Eric Whollem/ Mooretown Provisional Postage from MAIDEM KODOM



Ooti
Maidem Kodom
2010
by Eric Whollem
copyright by the artist


Ooti the Acorn

Ooti is the name given to the staple food of the Maidu, the acorn.
Acorns were made into soup or bread. Sometimes meat or other
seasonings were added.

Manzanita berries also were used to make a sweet bread.

When food supplies got low, the toxic seeds of the buckeye
were carefully leeched to make food.

The Maidu used bedrock mortars and large smooth grinding
stones to grind the acorns, which were then leeched with water
in special baskets.



       CONCOW MAIDU LORE IN THE ART OF ERIC WHOLLEM


EARLY SPANISH CONTACTS WITH THE MAIDU

Today at Powwows or Big Times fry bread has been added to the
Maidu cuisine. This may or may not be an influence that arose
from early Spanish contacts in California. A number of words in
the Concow dialect are Spanish in origin--such as 'pane' for
bread, 'caballo' for horse, and 'pantalon' for pants.

A friend of mine once found a rusted out old Spanish sword on
the shores of Lake Oroville. There are few physical remains of
Spanish colonization in Butte County, as the Spanish usually
preferred lands on the coast.

Concow Maidu Culture/ Indian Reservation Stamps: 'NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBAL STAMPS AND THE FAUX POSTAGE OF MAIDEM KODOM'/ OOTI the acorn/ Artist stamps by E.Whollem/ Cyberstamps based on an ancient California culture



Ooti
Maidem Kodom
2010
by Eric Whollem
copyright by the artist


Native American Tribal Stamps and the Faux Postage of Maidem Kodom

There is a genre of stamps called variously 'Indian Reservation Stamps'
or 'Native American Tribal Stamps.'  The stamps that I have created for
Maidem Kodom, my own fanciful 'Maidu Nation' are not of these
categories, as they are 'faux postage stamps,' or 'phantom cinderellas'
as they might be called by collectors. They are my own artistic creations
and not authorized by any Native American group.

The first Native American group to issue stamps of their own was the
Rosebud Reservation of the Sioux in the 1950's. The Crow Creek
Sioux issued the first pictorial reservation Hunting Stamp in 1989.
See the link below to view these authentic Indian stamps.

Thus far most Native American stamps have either been Hunting
Permit Stamps or Tobacco Tax stamps.

Michael Jaffe wrote an article in which he gives a historical account
of Indian Reservation Stamps. In 1992, Jaffe writes, the Pine Ridge
Reservation of the Oglala Sioux issued some wildlife stamps that
were intended mostly for sale to collectors. This was followed by a
similar issue by the Sisseton Wapeton Sioux Tribe, who similarly
decided to create stamps for philatelic purposes. Most Native
American tribal stamps have been very limited editions of stamps
printed just for hunting and fishing permits.


CONCOW MAIDU FAUX POSTAGE STAMPS

Fantasy stamps have been created by artists for hundreds of years.
The first such stamp was created as a parody of the British Colonial
Tax stamps which aggravated the American Colonists. Subsequently in
1862 George Hussey designed a fantasy local courier post called
the Winan City Post, which caused a sensation among inventive stamp
designers in the 19th century. Copies and varieties of this stamp were
created until the year 1878. 

Since then thousands of faux postage stamps have been designed
by artists. Names for this kind of stamp include: phantoms, artist stamps,
artistamps, cinderella stamps, fantasy stamps, postoids,  
and micronational stamps.

'Maidem Kodom' means 'Land of the People.' It is the name of my
own postal micronation and is not authorized by any tribal
authority.


Ooti
Maidem Kodom
2010
by Eric Whollem
copyright by the artist

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE



The 'Mooretown Post Office' and the 'Mooretown Provisional Post' are
artistic liberties I have taken with the creation of these stamps which
are designed with the intention of celebrating Maidu cultural ideas
as they relate to the art that I have created over the years, having
lived, off and on, at Black Earth Village in Feather Falls, California
for about thirty-five years.

The old name for Feather Falls is Mooretown.

*
The art on this stamp is made from earth colors that I gathered myself;
it is a detail of my painting entitled, 'King of the Wood.'

___________

Those interested in depictions of Native American Reservation Stamps should view this link:

Readers interested in Michael Jaffe's article on RESERVATION STAMPS should check this out:

For my own blog post about Native American Tribal Stamps see:

For an account of Faux Postage Stamps see Wikipedia:

For a look at my own  Artist Stamp creations see:

For those interested in Duck Stamps and other Hunting Permit Stamps see this list of links, which is put online by the National Duck Stamp Collectors Society:

Readers interested in Micronation Stamps might want to read:

For my complete gallery of Maidu Indian Faux Postage Stamps see:

*

ARTIST STAMPS
Artistamps, faux postage,
cyberstamps, mail art, micronation stamps,
cinderella stamps,
digital art,
fantasy stamps.

*

Concow Maidu Culture/ OOTI the acorn/ ARTIST POSTER STAMPS by Eric Whollem/ Faux postage from the micronation of Maidem Kodom/ A cinderella CYBERSTAMP from the MOORETOWN POST OFFICE



Ooti
Maidem Kodom
2010
by Eric Whollem
copyright by the artist

One Feather Postage From the Country of the People

Maidem Kodom is my name for the 'postal system' that has issued
these faux postage stamps. Maidem Kodom means 'Country of the
People.'  This postal system is, of course, an extenstion of my artistic
imagination and has no real connection to any tribal authority.

Poster stamps are stamps that are an advertisement for something.
These stamps are, of course, a promotion for my art. . . relating to
the public my interest in and interactions with the Concow Maidu
Indians of Mooretown Ridge in the Feather Falls area of Butte County,
California.

Poster stamps began as a genre of stamps in the late 19th century and
were popular up until the 1940's. Stamp collectors categorize them as
a subvariety of 'cinderella stamps.'

_____________

Readers interested in my articles on Poster Stamps should check out this link:

My posts on the Maidu can be found here:

My general posts on Artistamps may be found on this link:

*
Artist stamps, artistamps, cinderella stamps, cyberstamps, fantasy stamps, faux postage, mail art, micronation stamps, poster stamps.