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Power of the Stone
8/16/2005
by Kathaleen Roberts
in Albuquerque Journal North
Santa Fe Shop Filled With Zuni Fetishes Is Thriving
The Zunis say a fetish chooses you
After getting sidetracked by art studies in Italy, dreams of teaching and beach side fantasies, these animal carvings called Bronwyn Fox back to Keshi.
The daughter of Keshi-founder Robin Dunlap, the 34-year-old Fox took over the business a year ago. Launched in 1982 as a pueblo co-op, today the shop sells the work of some 600 carvers. Just five years ago, the store carried pieces by 300 artists. In a town where residents are loathe to approach the tourist-swamped Plaza, 50 percent of its customers are locals.
Fox moved to Zuni from Santa Fe at the age of 9, when her mother took a sixth-grade teaching job at the pueblo.
"I was the only blonde kid in my class," she said. "But I was accepted to some degree. Kids would come at 10 o'clock at night and say, 'We want to take Bronwyn to the night dances.' ''
She grew to love the easy smiles and the natural warmth of the Zunis, as well as their generosity. Those who have share with those who don't, she said. Friends gave her squash blossom necklaces for her birthday. She developed a profound respect for the spirituality woven throughout their lives.
"They included her in things they might not have if she were an adult," Dunlap said.
A friend once asked Fox if she knew the secret of the masked kachina dancers.
"She says, 'There's a man inside there.' She thought I wouldn't be able to figure that out. That's how deeply felt the religion is to them."
"I always knew I was an outsider on that level," Fox added. "I'm not Zuni and I will always have filters."
The fetish business
Keshi (pronounced kay-she)— named for the traditional Zuni greeting— is committed to giving its artists 50 percent of the retail price of their work. Most shops pay their artists much less, Fox said.
The Zunis use fetishes to enhance the success of hunts, to help in curing ceremonies, to help the family prosper, to bring rain, to boost fertility and to improve other aspects of life. Dunlap helped found the co-op with her fellow teachers after watching so many artists being taken advantage of by traders.
They needed someone to help them target the lucrative Santa Fe market.
To complicate matters, the first manager at Keshi's original Santa Fe Village location paid neither the taxes nor the artists, Fox said.
"Every time a board member would come here and ask to see the books, she didn't have them with her," she explained.
The board asked Dunlap to manage the shop. She bought it five years later with the help of Zuni financing. Dunlap kept teaching in Santa Fe for about a year until business took off, never thinking fetishes would become her life's work. Two years ago, the business moved into a former hamburger stand at 227 Don Gaspar Ave. Sales have skyrocketed 20 times since the original store opened.
Along with the pueblo's own arts and crafts center, Keshi helped jump-start the fetish craze in the early '80s.
"It all hit at one time," said Kent McManis, the author of "Zuni Fetishes and Carvings" and "Zuni Fetish Carvers" and curator of the current fetish exhibit at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. "Obviously, they were one of the most important fetish stores in the country."
Zuni carver Fabian Tsethlikai was one of Dunlap's students at Zuni. The Wheelwright Museum has asked him to be its featured fetish carver during this month's Santa Fe Indian Market. He started carving at 16, learning from his uncles. His pulse still quickens at the sight of Keshi's animal menagerie.
"It inspires me to take up an animal book, to imagine or see the pictures," he said. "They're important people because they helped me financially. (Robin) was my favorite teacher, too."
Changing trends
Trends have bloomed and shrivelled. Traditional Zuni needlepoint and petitpoint jewelry, in which the artist carves minute pieces of turquoise and sets them in silver, is disappearing because it is so labor-intensive, Fox said. Carving has grown more detailed and intricate, thanks to more precise tools. Artist family dynasties like the Quandelacys, the Gaspars and the Quams emerged.
In 1988, a Wall Street Journal article described lawyers bringing fetishes to court. Sales exploded.
"Our phone rang off the hook," Dunlap said. "We had buyers calling from the top floor of the Sears building saying, 'I need a bear.' We had people calling from Australia."
The avalanche of interest proved both good and bad, Fox said. New Agers started collecting fetishes like so many crystals.
"People ask me what will make them rich," Fox said. "I might say a buffalo is a good symbol for abundance because every part is used.
"There's a lot of projecting human stuff onto animals," she continued. "And there's a lot of stuff about luck. But that's not what animals depend on. A carver told me the power of the fetish comes from the stone, the animal, the artist and the carrier."
The Zunis trace the fetish's powers to the animal's natural traits. Bears are important because of hibernation and the importance of looking within, Fox said. Zunis use bears for healing and protection. The mountain lion is the great hunter and leader. Snakes signal change because they shed their skins.
"I do believe they have spirits and they are allies," Fox said. "But I think it has to do with you doing your own work."
Fox took another look at Santa Fe and returned to the store in 1997. Now she buys fetishes from the people she grew up with.
"When she started buying, that was a shot in the arm for the store," Dunlap said. "Bronwyn could really see we needed to branch out. We needed to encourage the young artists. And she's a no-fear buyer. The Zunis absolutely love her. They're asking for her instead of me."
'Luckiest person I know'
Today, Fox calls herself "the luckiest person I know."
Collectors flock to the store during the Santa Fe Indian Market. Seven people staff the shop that Friday because it's the busiest day of the year.
"It's a huge compliment," Fox said. "It's because they know we have a reputation and they know we have the real stuff.
"People burst into tears all the time because they've connected with something," she continued. "I feel that that's not a bad calling to be a bridge.
"When we're gone, it's going to go back to the pueblo. Because it was really a gift to us."
Copyright: The Albuquerque Journal. Reprinted with permission.
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