One message is from Vancouver; a weather report from a friend:
Weather wise, we got another huge snowfall on Saturday and another expected today or tomorrow. Vancouver has used 7000 tonnes of salt to melt ice so far, whereas most winters they only use 1000 tonnes. Salt shortage everywhere prompted Vancouver to hand out free salt on Wednesday but it was gone in minutes and people who had been lining up for it left disappointed.
A lovely micro-narrative?
The other message was from Sarah Rhys, a creator of wonderfulness (who I know from the days of Place Research at UWE - now Place Intl.). She sent me the cover image of her new book Coal Tree Salt Sea, which accompanies her new exhibition. In the book there is an essay of mine - harking back to salt mines and other explorations - past, present and future?
As it happens, I was very near Sarah's base a few days ago, on that special - some say magical - Welsh mountain, Skirrid
Here is some of my early draft text for the Coal Tree Salt Sea publication:
Some geopoetics of salt, people,
places
There is a place I was once told about. It is called the sipapu - in the ‘Salt Canyon’, or the
’Hopi Salt Mines’. While spending time at the Colorado River in Arizona, I learnt
of some old pathways; ancient route-ways to the Grand Canyon (Öngtupqa, in Hopi language). This is something I wrote at the
time:
“…conversations with
salt. The salt conversation was possibly the one that was most ungraspable. It
certainly holds unrealised potential. The description of the Hopi ritual
salt-route, from the mesas to the confluence of the Little Colorado and the
Colorado River - as set out in Don Talayesva’s autobiography Sun Chief[1]
- is engrossing and profound…”
Talayesva describes how the salt journey to the original sipapu (the opening leading to the
underworld) included young male novices, formed the culmination of their Wuwutsim coming-of-age initiation
process, “with elaborate ritual and
ceremony”. An aspect which particularly interests me is the central role
played by salt, simultaneously a poetic/sacred/symbolic material, yet also vital
to the functional and survival needs of the tribe, or village. As described, the
journey to Öngtupqa from the
mesa-lands, and back home, took four days. To me, the activity resonates with
the Australian aboriginal ‘songlines’ traditions - where the experience of the
path is mediated by (and through) metaphorical and animistic relationships to
locations, landforms and stories. For the Hopi, “The salt lies in dangerous territory”. It was a psychologically risk-filled
expedition through a landscape of protective gods and spirits, during which the
site-specific, imagination-based narratives are - or were - recounted and
enacted by the older members of the traveling party - including a ritualized ‘coupling’
with the Salt Woman at a shrine along
the way.
It seems these practices have now waned, as is common
amongst tribal peoples worldwide, in this age of globalised, ‘westernised’,
anti-ritual, culture. There are deep issues here of relationship to land &
place, respect, and transformative ritual. In 2008, Wendy Himelick wrote of the Hopi tradition:
“On the one hand, they pray for life, health, and happiness for everybody – including non-Hopis. But on the other hand, there are certain restrictions upon which they all agree: no visiting Sipapu or the Hopi Salt Mines. It’s good for the tourists, or any bahana, to learn about the importance and sacredness of these areas, but not good for them to go see it themselves? Why?
It was explained to me to be a matter of preparation and of danger. Ongtupqa, no question about it, is considered to be a very dangerous place to Hopis. Not just anybody is allowed to visit, and those who are must undergo special processes of purification and preparation before entering and after leaving. It is understood by all that there could be very serious consequences to you and your family if these conditions are not met. What’s more, it doesn’t seem to matter if you believe or not – you’ll become a believer when the ill effects of disrespect hit you. It is a form of protection to keep the general public away from such sensitive areas." Ongtupqa - Salt Canyon,Wendy Himelick, 2008, Boatman’s Quarterly Review Vol 21 #3
“On the one hand, they pray for life, health, and happiness for everybody – including non-Hopis. But on the other hand, there are certain restrictions upon which they all agree: no visiting Sipapu or the Hopi Salt Mines. It’s good for the tourists, or any bahana, to learn about the importance and sacredness of these areas, but not good for them to go see it themselves? Why?
It was explained to me to be a matter of preparation and of danger. Ongtupqa, no question about it, is considered to be a very dangerous place to Hopis. Not just anybody is allowed to visit, and those who are must undergo special processes of purification and preparation before entering and after leaving. It is understood by all that there could be very serious consequences to you and your family if these conditions are not met. What’s more, it doesn’t seem to matter if you believe or not – you’ll become a believer when the ill effects of disrespect hit you. It is a form of protection to keep the general public away from such sensitive areas." Ongtupqa - Salt Canyon,Wendy Himelick, 2008, Boatman’s Quarterly Review Vol 21 #3
For many people today, such words and sentiments probably don’t really
compute?, and may actually be blithely dismissed. I am reminded of recent
encounters in Hawai’i, where currently there exists a stand-off between the
resident, scientific community of astronomers and many indigenous Hawaiians
(kānakaʻōiwi). The former are arguing that it is essential - for science, and
for the local economy - to construct an ‘extremely large’ new generation
telescope on Mauna Kea - the tallest mountain in the world (if measured from undersea base to summit). The latter believe the mountain to be a sacred space,
deserving of respect and sensitivity. (Mauna a Wākea is the first-born
mountain son of Wākea and Papa, the progenitors of the polynesian Hawaiian
people). This theme - of such oppositions - seems now to be a
significant challenge for humanity as a whole - how to balance, or maybe
braid, very different paradigms? Despite what is often presented, there is no simple divide between ‘western’ and ‘indigenous’ perspectives or situations; the space between is blurry and complex. Many places, and peoples, in the ‘westernised’ world still
hold presences of sacred, pre-religion, relationships to places, artefacts,
materials - including salt.
Bread and salt, salt of the earth. Like water, salt is
generally viewed today as purely utilitarian. It is for sustenance; it is a
chemical, extensively used - for instance - for de-icing our road networks to
allow unimpeded winter vehicle movement. Clearly, it wasn’t always so, and
there are remnant traces of ‘the other’ (the poetic) in some ‘superstitions’
around say the spilling a salt cellar (whereby one tosses a pinch of the spilt
salt over the left shoulder). Irish folk remedies include the use of salt,
combined with a recitation of prayers, to cure those who might have been
‘fairy-struck’; and tainted ground or spaces may be purified by sprinkling
salt. In Wales, the tradition of the ‘sin-eaters’ also embraced the transformative
purification power of salt.
In 2012, I took a group of young art students to visit some salt ‘hills’. These were in fact two large mounds of de-icing salt stored in huge hanger-like buildings by Cornwall County Council. My intention for that visit was to shift the mode of perception of the material - salt - from an intimate (studio/desk) scale to a much more expansive, landscape-scale imagination. Accompanying the impressive presence of these two salt mounds was the story of their very different origins and journeys. As we learned of, and pondered on, the geographical sources, our minds conjured up distant salt lands and spaces. The mound of large and irregular crystals of pink and white had come from a solar salt pan in an Egyptian desert; the more uniform brown-tinged hill held a history much deeper in time, and in the ground. It was ‘rock-salt’ from Kilroot, near Carrickfergus in Ireland. In the 1850s, a surveyor searching for precious metals discovered a thick layer of salt under about 600ft of rock. This is the same Triassic salt layer that also appears, and is mined, in Cheshire, in England - laid down when this part of the planet’s surface occupied much hotter, desert climatic conditions.
In 2012, I took a group of young art students to visit some salt ‘hills’. These were in fact two large mounds of de-icing salt stored in huge hanger-like buildings by Cornwall County Council. My intention for that visit was to shift the mode of perception of the material - salt - from an intimate (studio/desk) scale to a much more expansive, landscape-scale imagination. Accompanying the impressive presence of these two salt mounds was the story of their very different origins and journeys. As we learned of, and pondered on, the geographical sources, our minds conjured up distant salt lands and spaces. The mound of large and irregular crystals of pink and white had come from a solar salt pan in an Egyptian desert; the more uniform brown-tinged hill held a history much deeper in time, and in the ground. It was ‘rock-salt’ from Kilroot, near Carrickfergus in Ireland. In the 1850s, a surveyor searching for precious metals discovered a thick layer of salt under about 600ft of rock. This is the same Triassic salt layer that also appears, and is mined, in Cheshire, in England - laid down when this part of the planet’s surface occupied much hotter, desert climatic conditions.
I recall the first time I heard about a meshing of people,
salt, landscape and time. It was the description by friends from southern
Brittany of the lives of the workers - all men, mostly old - who tend the
coastal salt-making tidal pools. To me, it conjured up a picture of a semi-monastic
existence - slow, quiet, repetitive labour; following and resonating with the
tides and seasons, but unvarying across the years, or centuries. The salt from
here is grey-green due to impurities of suspended clay; not ‘fine’ table salt
for the former tables of the rich - but today it has a place in the new
paradigm of artisanal produce, amongst those who are seeking enhanced connection
to the origins of their food, and to slower, human-scale, more harmonious
production methods. As yet I haven’t visited Le Marais Salant of Guerande, but as a student of landscape and
visual artist, I have poured over aerial photos of this patchwork-quilted,
honeycomb-patterned land with its appealing colour spectrum of subtle greys,
greens and browns. From the air - and space - these coastal salt landscapes of
the world, although visually unique, each possesses a recognisable common essence.
A search of San Francisco Bay, the Portuguese, French and Spanish coasts, and
many other coastlines, reveals similar patterns. Most of these coastal marsh
areas are, of course, destined to be inundated, and erased, due to slowly rising
global sea-levels. Perhaps my fascination with them lies in their sense of
ephemerality and fragility, as much as with the ancient meditative human relationship.
As I write these words, I’m travelling - downstream - along
the Douro River in Portugal. I’m sure this waterway would have enabled the
sea-salt trade to extend its reach deep into the interior of Iberia, across the
great Castilian meseta. Salt is also
key to what is still one of the cornerstones of Portuguese cuisine - bacalhau, or dried salt-cod. The Grand Banks cod fishing grounds off
distant Newfoundland were able to be exploited by Iberian fishermen, only with
the input of vast quantities of salt, needed to preserve the catch for
transport and long-term storage. This is a true ’slow food’, requiring days of
soaking and changing of water, before it is suitable to be incorporated in one
of the seemingly thousands of bacalhau
recipes. In very rural spots, it is still possible to see the bacalhau soaking in a small stream of
spring water. This reliance on salt for a major part of a culture’s cuisine was
also a facet of ancient Greek and Roman life. The salty fish sauce the Romans
called garum (for the Greeks before
them, it was garos), and a paste
called muria, were mainstays of their
diet. The poor used the residue - allec
- to flavour their corn porridge. It seems the garum of Lusitania (present-day Portugal) was especially prized in
Rome.
For a final glimpse at salty geographies, I’ll return to
America and the reality of the intimate braiding of people, place, function and
myth that relationships to salt – both human and non-human - have created. It
is believed that some of the present US road network is derived from pre-colonisation
Native American trackways, which themselves were overprinted upon the seasonal migratory
routes of the bison herds that the tribes hunted. One example is what is called
The Buffalo Trace (also known as the Vincennes Trace or the Old Indian Road). The journeys to the Kentucky
salt-licks from the prairies of Illinois provided an essential nutrient for
those vast animal herds. We find here now a largely forgotten palimpsest in the
landscape, and one that weaves together salt geology, mappings and the geopoetics
of disappearance.
[1] Sun Chief: The Autobiography of a Hopi Indian (The
Lamar Series in Western History) by Don C. Talayesva
