Sunrise Ceremony of the Apache Girl „Willow“

My first contact with the Planet Figure Forum was with Guy Herrick. In our first conversation we found out, that we had the same study of Psychology and Therapy as well as the same interest in the history and culture of the Native Americans.

During our conversation Guy told me that his grand-grand-grandmother was a White Mountain Apache woman, named “Willow”. Short after our conversation I was able to buy the excellent book “The People called Apache” by Thomas E. Mails.

A Western Apache Sunrise Ceremony


Apache girl in her Sunrise Ceremony dress 1898

In this book I saw several paintings of apache girls during the “Sunrise Ceremony”. This ceremony was the most important ceremony for an Apache girl and was held after her first menstruation.
This painting leads me to the idea to sculpt Guy’s grand-grand-grand-mother as a young girl in this ceremony. The first step was an intensive research in the “Sunrise Ceremony” and the material culture of the White Mountain Apache. For this research the book “Western Apache Material Culture” by Alan Ferg was very important.


The regalia for the girls ceremony


The beaded T-necklace of the girl

I used the Preiser anatomy figurine. Unfortunately this figurine had its anatomic faults and some work is needed to get a natural movement. All work was made with Magic Sculp and Apoxy Sculpt. The details were sculpted with Duro.


Cration of the pose


The skirt ist added


The sleves of the shirt ar added


The Poncho -Shirt is added


The beadwork and the little coins (bells) sculpted with Duro


The finished figurine after the first layer of primer

Many greetings from Germany

Bruno

Bruno, a beautifully sculpted figure plus very interesting background information.
Thank you for sharing.

Roger.

Beautiful sculpting Bruno. Willow would be proud. I especially love the fringe at the bottom of the dress.

I only met my Great Great Grandmother once when I was 5 or 6 years old and she left a lasting impression.

Very nice work! I'm with Guy, love the flow of the fringe on the bottom.

Jay H.
OKC

Bruno - That's really very nice! Very delicate and deft sculpting. I really like the way you have her holding the side of her dress. It's a little thing but quite authentic, homely - makes the figure much more believable. It's amazing how much difference just little things make in sculpting a miniature. Grand job!

All the best,
Dan

Great work Bruno!
best regards
christos

I can truly say that this is going to be a masterpiece

Great work it's a very nice sculpture Bruno, l'm cager to see it painted, maybe at our Lugdunum Show 2007?

Congratulations on a lovely figure. The fringe on the bottom of her dress is particularly effective how did you achieve such a fine result in putty?

Bruno, You have done a fantastic job. The details on the figure are especially commendable.~Gary

Hi Bruno - very much it was pleasant!
It seems to me that you one only have mentioned a theme " the woman indian " - I do not remember that I saw still miniatures on a similar theme. It very much expands a history in a miniature is pleases!;-)
Please continue. Yours faithfully.

Bruno,
One word. AWESOME :lol:
Thanks for the little piece of History. I did not know that Thomas Mails had another book out on the Native Americans. I will Have to look for it. I have his Midwest plains Indians book and it is great.

Thank you
John

He ! He ! Nice figure Bruno. Congratulation. Really good work on the dress
The position is rather natural .

Bruno, excellent, my compliments.


Cheers
Roc.

Hi Bruno
compliments bond beginning is curious
to see the job complete.
Good Continuous

Saluti MAB

Hallo Roger, Guy, Jay, Dan, Christors, Patrick, Louis, Gergey, Stephen, John, Gary, Benoit, Rocco and Maricio,

WOW!!!
I'm ver much pleased with your comment. I always love the oportunity to share my worke on our comon hobby with you in the forum and to work in a kinde of dialogue, instead to worke all alone.

@ Guy, Jay and Stephen.
The fringes are made with Duro. I tried several techniques but finally I found this the best for me. At the end of the sculpting I use the left over on Duro to do the fringes. For this reason I simply role small pices of Duro with my fingers on a sheet of paper until it is very thin. Than I try to get a little movement in the fringes with a toothpic, moving the fringes that tey are not totally straight.
It is a little a boring work, but it pays off!
Than I let the "fringes" become hard. In this way I got a good number of fringes. When I need fringes, I select the one which are suits for the subject and glue them with Super glue.
This method you can only use for figurines which are made as single pices and not for casting.

@ Dan
I made the experience, that it is the small details, that give a figurine life. I'm happy that you show me, that this effort payed off - Thank you.

@ Roger, Guy and Sergey.
Manny figurine friends are interested in military figurines, like Napoleonic soldier - I also started with this subject - and in this world woman of course not so much represented.
My interest is to represent the culture, history and herritage of Native American tribes. and for this reason women are as important as men.
Aditionally, the clothing of Indian woman are so beautiful and riche in decoratrions, that they offers a fantastic world to sculpt and paint. Benoit sculpted some beautiful heads of Indian women and two children for me, so I will surely continue to do the work.
I also love to show domestic scenes. The Native American were not that "warlike" white historians made us to belive. According to a study, any Napoleonic Soldier had 5 times more combats in his life as an Native American warrior.

Aditionally I like to do the research. The research for me is as much important as the sculpting and painting. With every new sources I finde, it opens another part of a fascinationg world.
Forgett John Wayne and Hollywood as well as James Fennimore Copper and others...What is actually shown in movies (exepte of the movis "Dances with Wolfes", " Stolen women", "Geronimo" or "Crazy Horse" had hardly anything to do with this culture. Even what people leran in schools is not even 10% of this unbelivable riche culture with a higly developed social life and care, the white society never reached.
Actually a Indian woman had in the 18th and 19th century more rights and more security as a white woman in the white society.

I hope this historical excurse was not boring for you, but I hope that with the historic background, the figurine becomes more life.

I love to share my figurines with you. Thanky you very much for your interest.

Many greetings from Germany

Bruno

Hi John,
sorry I forgot to answer you.

Thomas E. Mails wrote 3 fascinating books on Native Americans

1. Mystic Warriors of the Plains (you already have)
2. The People called Apache
3. Dog Soldiers, Bear Men and Buffalo Women. This book represents the different warrior-, civil- and women societies of the Plains Indians. Very interesting and full of drafts. Unfortunately only 8 colour drawings, the rest is black and white.

As much as I know the books are out of print. The best way is to get them used via abebooks or amazone.com.
In any case the books are great!!!

Many greatings

Bruno

Hi Dario,

thank you for your comment. My comment was short, as this is a figurine hompage and not a historical one. For that reason some was of course very much shorten and of course there are a great differenc between the culture of the different tribes.

According to the movies. Of course my list was not compleet. I just wanted to mention some movies which I and Native friends I spoke with, considder as a realistic movies. I forgot Windtalker, of course one of the best movies on Native American history and herritage ever made. I could have also mention "LIttle Big Man" and others but I don't want to do a movie review.
I don't mention modern movies as Smoke Signals, Pow How Highway ore Black Cloud or Edge of America as they don't deal with the history, beside the fact, that they are great.

But I stay with my meaning that John Wayne and the most Hollywood movies (for example "A man they called horse") are everything but authentic.

According to my statement that in schools only 10% of the Native American Culture is shown. This statement is based on a study by James W. Loewen on the quality of the history lessons in schools.

I don't want to offend the white culture, I'm lving in a white cultur.
I observe that unfortunatly in a lot of books on Native Americans that the Native culture is respresented as "primitive" and the people always "warlike". Folllwig that concept Indian figurines are "warriors"... That leads me to mention the study on Napolenonic soldiers and Indian warriors to show that this people are not more warlike like Europeans (Howard, The Shawnee).

The European culture was highly superior in technical aspects. What is overlooked is, that manny Native American tribes - Plains Indians and Woodland Indians - had a highly developed democratic system and a high social care that was in the 18th. and 19th. century more advanced as the European political and social system.
During my study of Psychology I made a study on the education of Lakota and Crow Children of the 19th century. The result was, that this edication was up to the highest standard of pedagogic... A education without fear and punishment and superrior to the education of white children at this time.
I simply think, that we had to see not onyl the technical advance in a society, but also the social level when we speake about a society.

I thought that additional informations on herritage and history are interesting in the term of an "historical figurine" and it brings life to the figurine. In Germany we had the traditon of "historical figurine" where the historical background is an important part of the figurine hobby. For me it would be boring only to paint a figurine without background...

During 30 years of research and co-operation with professional anthropologists and historians I got a high respect for the culture and herritage of Native Americans and with my comment and figurines I wanted to express this respect.

Many greatings from Germany

Bruno

Bruno,

I don't know why, but i missed this one.
What an tremendous wonderfull sculpting. Great work.
I wait for the painted version.

marc

Hallo Marc,

thank you for your comment. I hope to see you at our Show "herzog von Bayern" at Ingolstadt. It would be nice to have a beer together after all our conversation on the internet.

Many greatings

Bruno