INM Video: Sacred Land Project inventing new mobile GPS devices App for land preservation via education: Finding Sacred Ground, a Sacred Land Film Project

Sacred Land Film Project : successfully funds through public donations the cost to develop an App to support protecting and preserving sacred land. SLFP is a community dedicated to protecting the Earth's sacred places through education and action.

Video of Sacred Land Project 
Augmented reality, a technology for mobile devices that superimposes images and audio over the user’s surroundings, is one of the hottest new developments in mobile media.  Developers are scrambling to design new augmented reality applications, using this amazingly immersive, interactive tool for entertainment, education, social media...you name it!

But can this hyper-modern, cutting-edge augmented reality technology also help save ancient indigenous sacred sites, and inspire reverence for the natural world? We sure think so.

In partnership with Devils Tower National Monument, Paige Saez and Anselm Hook of Maker-Lab, our non-profit media company, Sacred Land Film Project (SLFP), is developing an interactive multimedia tour for mobile devices and web-based applications called Finding Sacred Ground, a global transmedia experience that will use locative GPS technology and augmented reality to raise awareness of native peoples and their traditional lands by revealing the hidden history of a place and its indigenous caretakers. Narrated by native elders and storytellers, this transmedia project will leverage story, multimedia, song and augmented reality in unique combination to transform the user’s perspective of the land and his or her vital role in protecting it.

Stage one of our project is to create a pilot audio Finding Sacred Ground app for iPhone. We have a plan for the app, we have the media content...we just need $4,500 to pay for a mobile phone application developer to tie it all together for us. 

Indigenous People Video: Mayan Healing Interview: Don Elijio Panti, Mayan Arvigo Healing ~ Greek TV show "Everyday Goddesses" Interview of Vivian Menjivar about her practice and teaching of Mayan Arvigo Healing

Indigenous Mayan Healing Practice Interview: A friend Vivian Menjivar  being interviewed on Alkistis TV in Greece for the program called "Everyday Goddesses". Viv speaks of the healing tradition she practices and teaches in Greece, the Americas and Europe called "Mayan Arvigo Healing" as taught by Don Elijio Panti, the great Maya Shaman of Belize, Central America. Don Elijio believed that a woman's center is her uterus. "If a woman's uterus is out of balance, so is she," he would say. Don Elijio passed away in 1996 at the age of 103. In this Greece TV interview (in English) Vivian Menjivar speaks of her indigenous Mayan teacher and her direct personal experience practicing Mayan abdominal massage on herself and others.

Don Elijio Panti of Guatemala ancestry was heir to generations of knowledge about traditional healing and spent his life in service to others. He was recognized throughout the Americas for his skills in using the simple but ancient system of Maya healing, employing plants, prayers, massage, acupuncture, and herbal baths. Beginning in 1931 he practiced his art of healing in San Antonio, a village of Mopan and Yucatecan Maya people. Don Elijio Panti was trained in the forests of the Peten, Guatemala, by a Cadbe Indian, Jeromine Requena, when they were both employed as chicleros or collectors of the Sapodilla tree sap that is made into chewing gum. Although he could never read or write, alongside his teacher, Don Elijio enthusiastically learned about Maya medicine.

His work took on international importance in the mid 1980s, as he began participation in a collaborative project of the Ix Chel Tropical Research Foundation and The New York Botanical Garden. This project was an effort to survey the forests of Belize for the collection of medicinal plants for screening against AIDS and Cancer in association with the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI). Don Elijio participated in a great deal of field work. His knowledge resulted in the collection of hundreds of plant samples for this important endeavor. Even now plants collected through Don Elijio's knowledge and collaboration are being evaluated for their use in contemporary medicine.

In recognition of his many international contributions, he was awarded the "Distinguished Citizen Award" (University College of Belize), "Most Valuable Senior Citizen" (Help Age Belize), "Distinguished Contribution to Science" (The New York Botanical Garden), and Member of the British Empire" (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Belize).

Don Elijio's work and his life story were immortalized in two books, Rainforest Remedies: One Hundred Healing Herbs of Belize (1993), and Sastun: My Apprenticeship With A Maya Healer (1994). Panti died in Cayo on February 4, 1996 at the age of 103. Elijio Panti National Park, which was officially created in 2001, is named after him.

Additional links : Ix Chel Farms and the Don Elijio Panti Medicinal Trail In Belize
New York Times honoring of Don Elijio's passing at age 103

Music Video: Joe Hisaishi - "The Path of Wind" orchestral from movie "My Neighbour Totoro"

Joe Hisaishi - "The Path of Wind" orchestral from movie "My Neighbour Totoro"

Mamoru Fujisawa (藤澤 守 Fujisawa Mamoru^?), known professionally as Joe Hisaishi (久石 譲 Hisaishi Jō^? born December 6, 1950) is a composer and director known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981. While possessing a stylistically distinct sound, Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, including minimalist, experimental electronic, European classical, and Japanese classical. Lesser known are the other musical roles he plays; he is also a typesetter, author, arranger, and head of an orchestra. He is best known for his work with animator Hayao Miyazaki, having composed scores for many of his films including Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Porco Rosso (1992),Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), Howl's Moving Castle (2004) and Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (2008). He is also recognized for the soundtracks he has provided for filmmaker 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, including A Scene at the Sea (1991), Dolls (2002),Kikujiro (1999), Hana-bi (1997), Kids Return (1996), Ocean Heaven (2010) and Sonatine(1993).

Indigenous People Video: Saami music videos, reindeer herding, documentaries on their sustainable challenges, land rights

About the Saami

The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway - areas also known as Lapland or Laponian territory. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost and the Nordic countries’ only officially indigenous people. Sami ancestral lands span an area of approximately 388,350 km² (150,000 sq. mi), which is approximately the size of Sweden in the Nordic countries. Their traditional languages are the Sami languages and are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family. The Sami languages are endangered. * I am still adding to and editing this page. Sorry for missing some artists, competition winners and facts, email me if you have suggestions or links you feel are important Saami news.

Saami Grand Prix 2011 (Saami version of Eurovision Song Contest)
- Sámi Grand Prix is an annual Sámi song contest organized by the Sami Music Festival and held in Kautokeino, Norway. The first annual Sámi Grand Prix was held in 1990. The winner of the contest goes on to compete in Liet International, a music competition for European minority languages. The Sámi Grand Prix consists of two separate parts: a yoik part and a song part. 


- Music Video for the group rOlfFa singing and playing the winning song of Sami Grand Prix 2011, "Gulatgo Mu" (Can You Hear Me?).  


- Music video for the  Saami Grand Prix 2011 Yoik Competition winner Jan Ole Hermansen yoiking his daughter "Inga Karita" from Máze, Norway.

- Music Video Saami Grand Prix 2011 3rd place winners Sara Helene Oskal and Espen Ekeberg singing their own song  "Niehkogovva"


- Music Video Sáami artist Alias Ellen (Elle Márjá P. Eira) performing in Sami Grand Prix 2009 in Kautokeino, but not as a part of the competition. She is singing/yoiking "Ruoššajievja"

- Music Video  Berit Margrethe Oskal singing Ancient Forces (official music video) 

 - Music Video Saami Hip Hop music in the Kautokeino Sami Festival 


- Music Video Saami rapper Slincraze & Aimen performing two songs one in Saami "Rahkivouhtta Lea Artet" and "Kick It" (It's A Good Day) in English.

- Heltpaavidda - Saami Music and Film YouTube Channel

- Saami Yoik (Saami Joik) and music online guide to mp3 and video

- Discovery Channel short film featuring a young Saami reindeer herder ~ Our Souls Overlap

- Documentary: The Last of the Reindeers Herders (Part 1 & 2) very good.

- Saami Blog - a very nice blog that I follow with many photos, music and art about the Saami

- UNESCO World Heritage page on Laponian Area of the world, which includes a Google Earth Map

Indigenous People Video: Kamchatka Peninsula, Камчатка Music and Dance (northern far east Russia)

Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia. The pink area is the Kamchatka Krai which includes some of the mainland to the north.

Koryaks practice a form of belief system especially via Shamanism. Koryak mythology centers around the supernatural shaman Quikil (Big-Raven) who was the first human and protector of the Koryak. Big Raven myths are also found in the Tlingit, Tsimshian, and other Northwest Coast Amerindians in present day territory called Canada and the United States of America. 
Dance video   Culture and music documentary   

About the Kamchatka Peninsula  

Photos   

Kamchatka First Nations people   

Indigenous Film Trailer ~ The Whale

photo credit: Zoe Nature .org 

Description of the movie-film is taken from the filmmakers website. The Whale tells the true story of a young, wild killer whale - an orca - nicknamed Luna, who lost contact with his family on the coast of British Columbia and turned up alone in a narrow stretch of sea between mountains, a place called Nootka Sound. Orcas are social. They live with their families all their lives. An orca who gets separated usually just fades away and dies. Luna was alone, but he didn’t fade away. There weren’t any familiar orcas in Nootka Sound, but there were people, in boats and on the shore. So he started trying to make contact. And people welcomed him. Most of them.

This contact did not turn out to be simple. It was as if we humans weren’t ready for him.

Inspired by myths, we look into the sky, not the depths, for others who might think and dream like us. We train radio telescopes on the stars, and listen for code in the static of space. But maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. So far, space just crackles, but the sea whistles back. And, in Nootka Sound, it sent us an open-hearted child.

This story is about what happened then.

For many years we have been curious about what it will be like when an extraterrestrial appears among us. Will things be chaotic? Will they be exciting? Will they be dangerous? Will there be controversy? How will we recognize this stranger? What will we share? Will this be joyful? Will it be sad? Will it be the best thing that ever happened? Maybe it will be all those things. Maybe it will be just like what happened when a little lonely whale tried to make friends with us lonely humans in a place called Nootka Sound.

THE WHALE celebrates the life of a smart, friendly, determined, transcendent being from the other world of the sea who appeared among us like a promise out of the blue: that the greatest secrets in life are still to be discovered.

More links:

- Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nations website and this link
- Zoe Nature blog post about Luna
- Luna Stewardship Collective blog
- Smithsonian article about the feature film: THE WHALE
- Nootka Sound.com
- Orca Network