Warrior for the Twenty First Century

Narrator: In 1999, Smith was commissioned to make a work that could be packed into a small box–a time capsule. Working on the project with her son, Neal Ambrose-Smith, she set out to make the work take up as much space as possible when it was removed from its container. 

Neal Ambrose-Smith: And so this, the idea was born of maybe a figure and then it could dance or move. And it could be animatronic. 

Narrator: Neal Ambrose-Smith. 

Neal Ambrose-Smith: So we got these guys down the street to make a motor for us to mount this thing on. And then we decided to use chains instead of ropes to hold it together because they make sound and they collapse. 

And it was a lot of fun because Jaune went into this super creative mode of like, oh, we're going to do some sound. It needs sound. And so we went to this guy's recording studio and we brought coffee cans full of coffee beans and, you know, to make a rattle sound. And then we got somebody up on the reservation to do a recording from Sophie May, she's one of our Salish speakers, counting one to ten for “Ten Little Indians.”

The figure itself is a combination of all the things that you might need as a warrior for the 21st century. And when I say warrior, it doesn't necessarily mean male or female.

So the stomach is frybread and then a T-shirt from the reservation. It says Salish Kootenai on it and it's red, which is good. And then at each of the joints, we put these little clear boxes like jewelry boxes or something to stuff things in. So there's sage and there's some tobacco and the feet are cassettes, you know with like powwow songs. And then there's a snag bag connected to one of the hands, you know which are gloves. And a snag bag, for those who aren't in the know is—at a powwow, sometimes you go in there for a snag, which is to get a date. And so a snag bag has lubricants, maybe a condom. Things for safe practice of snagging.