Perceptions of Women's Being.

Woman Alone by Daïdo Moriyama  

The photography of Daïdo Moriyama is raw in its storytelling. His imagery: basic, pure, disturbing and a far enough away distance from eroticism to deserve study without Christian guilt process dismantling the intellectual process developing thought process about the naked body in black & white photograph make a great tool to be used in initiation ceremonies from boyhood to manhood. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 10.31.16  

Native model & actress, Junal Gerlach.

A woman upset the way a photographer sat Native model, Junal Gerlach in a squat upon a tree stump in a buckskin dress and fur lined moccasin boots blurted out: "Beautiful, but put on sum clothes, please!!! Ya dont see native women running around like that... We protect our souls, our beauty, its precious!"

A man responding to this woman's complaint wrote: "what her knees are offensive ?"

She said, "I mentioned clothes, sir... Real clothes!!!"

A woman chimed and said: "That's what she is wearing BUCKSKIN !!"

"Clothes mam'... REAL CLOTHES, like society wears nowadays..." the first woman said, "My point is at least cover your whole body, dang!" Ousted by one person as being a closet Christian the first woman flung back an assertion: "Being respectively dressed, has nothing to do with being a Christian or non Christian... Seriously, would ya let your daughters dressed as this woman in the photo?..."


Something was off in my estimation of her and who she was portraying to us in her objections about the image. I spoke up to the woman as best I could saying, "Ma'am, you missed the woman. You aren't or can't see Junal Gerlach. She is conveying something intangible. Being respectful is one thing along a line, a point that reshaped and continues to reshape Native women's lives according to the various church cults (denominations) all over our history. What was not respected by the white people who came along with and after the missionaries was the sanctity of Nature meaning women's lives didn't merit respect either.

The beauty of this moment the photographer captured lies in the reverence. The woman, Ms. Gerlach, is seated in a sacred and natural way. Children were birthed in this posture. A woman's sacred time, I was told by old wise women, was in this posture as she bled into the Earth, our Mother in ceremonies the Christians deemed of the devil. So, the water and the blood ceremonies of birth and the menstrual cycles that protected the Earth, our Mother and honored her; the sacred ways of expression of Native women's relationship with what grows from within the womb of the ground she sat, or squatted upon is inappropriate?

In simple language, what you are saying comes through clearly. You are outside of this ancient tradition? Even the ancients in Europe had similar traditions before the Church entered the fray it created and began killing the women perceived to have power. Whether they did have power(s), or did not was of little consequence. They were women, the weaker vessels and had to be killed to control the increase of male energies translated into European law and privilege and their assumed right to take and kill with aplomb anywhere in the world! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 10.31.16  

Memoirs of a Geisha by Annie Leibovitz

Japanese tattoo art.