The goal of a new exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum is simple: to set the record straight after the Quileute Tribe’s international exposure in the vampire-themed “Twilight” books and films, in which tribal members are depicted as teen werewolves provoked into snarling fits of temper.

QUILEUTE RESERVATION, La Push, Clallam County

Wolves that once roamed the wild Olympics, the stories say, were the first Quileute ancestors, transfigured by Kwati, a shape shifter and transformer as old and familiar here as the mist that rolls in from the Pacific.

That creation story, and much more of the Quileute culture, will be shared in a new exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum beginning Saturday.

The goal of the exhibit is simple: It’s a chance for the tribe to set the record straight after its international exposure in the vampire-themed “Twilight” books and films, in which Quileute tribal members are depicted as teen werewolves provoked into snarling fits of temper.

The works are fiction, of course. And while some members of the tribe have taken their Hollywood persona mostly in good-humored stride, some elders at Quileute are not amused. At their urging, the tribal council passed a resolution authorizing Barbara Brotherton, curator of Native American art at SAM, to work with the tribe to create the exhibit, to show the world a bit of the real Quileute culture.

“We are a lot different from Hollywood, I’ll tell you that,” said Christian Penn, 81, known as “Jiggs” on the reservation. With his carved wooden staff, he recently presided with a quiet pride over the tribe’s weekly Wednesday drum-circle gathering at the Quileute community center, where comfort food and traditional song and dance are on offer to anyone.

“We are from the wolf clan, we carry it down from generation to generation, it lifts our spirit up, and it’s been with us for years and years,” Penn said.

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Our sister is doing a contest and we wanted to help them out

QWP is happy to announce that we are quickly approaching our 1000th follower on Twitter!! In fact, we’re so tickled that we have decided to reward one of our lucky Twitter followers with a prize!

Once we reach our 1000th follower, we will select a fan at random and reward you with the following prizes:

Bella’s Bracelet- The winner will recieve their very own Bella’s charm bracelet. The bracelet is a silver chain which comes complete with a polymer rust-colored clay Werewolf charm and a genuine Swarovski crystal heart.

The winners will also receive two Werewolf tattoo’s that were featured in the Fire & Ice video by ReelzChannel.com…

QWP appreciates all it’s loyal Twitterers and want to show you just how much.
So become a QWP Twitter follower today for your chance to win!

The winners will be announced after we reach the lucky number–1000!

soucre

Via the Lex

Chaske Spencer, Julia Jones, and Alex Meraz talk about their views on why the films have such appeal.

Kellan Lutz, Ashley Greene, and Jackson Rathbone talk about the potential male appeal.

Dakota Fanning, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Xavier Samuel cover their characters and conflict.

Peter Facinelli, Nikki Reed, and Liz Reaser also chime in on the male aspect.

This is a contest-winning photo of First Beach in La Push by Daniel Kelley of Mercer Island.

Source

From Twilight Examiner:

(When visiting Forks and the La Push, Washington area), it’s very important for fans to acknowledge and respect the policy of this (the Quileute) community, particularly when it comes to photographs and videos of the area.

The Quileute Nation recently issued a press release detailing those policies, and here are a few important points traveling Twilight fans should know about.

* Only the Quileute Nation can authorize the capture of images and sounds not intended strictly for personal use. Personal videography and sound recordings aren’t permitted, and neither are photographs of singing or dancing performances.
* All artwork is copyrighted and should not be photographed, sketched, or videotaped without the creator or owner’s permission.

These policies are important to know, especially for those creating commercial products from their visits to the area, because there have been incidences of violation in the past.

Notably, there was an infraction made by MSN of the video policy earlier this year, for which they issued an apology.

So, when visiting La Push and the Quileute Nation, please know that they are very welcoming to Twilight fans and new guests of all origins, but the tribe does have this important policy in place and fans should know of and respect it.

TwilightExaminer via QuileuteWolfPack

Is the Native theme in ‘Twilight’ films racist?
Apparently some professors at the University of Victoria in British Columbia think so.

A forum (at the University of Victoria in British Columbia) in a couple of weeks will examine the question, according to this story by the Victoria Times Colonist:

The [April 21] gathering will look at whether the portrayal of the indigenous character Jacob, who turns into a werewolf, is a breakthrough or perpetuates stereotypes about native men.

“He doesn’t have feathers in his hair and doesn’t live in teepee,” said Janni Aragon, a University of Victoria political science professor.

“So just the fact there are indigenous men in this book and movie is a big thing. We could say that’s a win. But the next step is to say is how are these men portrayed.”

The insanely popular movies, “Twlight,” and “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” are based on the insanely popular teen vampire books by Stephenie Meyer.

Werewolves in the series are ostensibly members of the Quileute tribe, and are played in the movie by Native American actors.

As the story notes, the main Quileute character, Jacob Black, is ” muscular, hotheaded, passionate and often dressed in cutoff-style jeans or shorts. That’s in contrast to the very white vampire Edward, who is well-groomed, elegant and rational.”

And, says Sikata Banerjee, a University of Victoria women’s studies professor and associate dean of humanities, Jacob is also portrayed as somewhat childlike – “irrational and emotive, and not really equal in citizenship.”

That, she says, is dangerous, in the way that it reinforces negative stereotypes about indigenous men. What do you think?

Source via Source

QuileuteWolf Pack.com and CullenBoysAnonymous feel strongly about helping the Quileute tribe, so we want to be sure to get the word out about the new, authentic Quileute store – online!

You can purchase authentic items made by members of the Quileute Nation, including hats, shirts, accessories, art, Quileute baskets, and much more!

For more information, go to QWP or to QuileuteStore.com.

As pointed out by this article in the New York Times by Angela R. Riley, artwork by Neil Swaab,  the Quileute people are get lost in all the Twilight mania.   We hear a lot about the effect of Twilight on the town of Forks, but how has their new found fame affected the Quileute Tribe?

ALL the world, it seems, has been bitten by “Twilight.” Conservative estimates place revenue generated from Stephenie Meyer’s vampire chronicles — the books, movies and merchandise — in the billion-dollar range. Scarcely mentioned, however, is the effect that “Twilight” has had on the tiny Quileute Nation, situated on a postage stamp of a reservation, just one square mile, in remote La Push, Wash.

To millions of “Twilight” fans, the Quileute are Indians whose (fictional) ancient treaty transforms young males of the tribe into vampire-fighting wolves. To the nearly 700 remaining Quileute Indians, “Twilight” is the reason they are suddenly drawing extraordinary attention from the outside — while they themselves remain largely excluded from the vampire series’ vast commercial empire.

Just last month, MSN.com issued an apology to the Quileute for intruding on its territory while videotaping a “Twilight” virtual tour in September. MSN.com sought permission from the Chamber of Commerce in nearby Forks, Wash., but didn’t pay the same courtesy to the Quileute. The video team trespassed onto a reservation cemetery and taped Quileute graves, including those of esteemed tribal leaders. These images were then set to macabre music and, in November, posted on MSN.com. The tribe quickly persuaded MSN.com to remove the Quileute images.

Read the rest of the article here.

From Dazzled by Twilight’s website:

When Jacob says “kwopkalawo’li” (pronunced quo-p-kah-lah-WOH-oh-lee) to Bella, he is saying “I Love You” in Quileute.

Listen here:

i-love-you-in-quileute

Listen to the end for a Christmas wish from Dazzled by Twilight and CBA as well!  (Dazzled by Twilight is a wonderful shop in downtown Forks.)

The Quileute legends in Twilight have a basis in the actual tales, Quileute stories do included descending from wolves – but definately not werewolves. In order to give fans a taste of the true culture, the tribe has begin to have storytelling on special fan weekends and events such as weekly healing drum circles (Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. at the Community Center) to entertain and teach. If you get to Forks, you don’t want to miss that.
From the Peninsula Daily News

Chris Morganroth III was raised by his grandmother, who spoke the Quileute language, told the stories and made baskets and food in traditional ways.
He tells the story of the origin of the Quileute:

Quileute beginnings

If you begin to look into the stories and how we got to be here, they go back to the beginnings of time.
Before that, Spirit beings could transform themselves into animals or people at will. There were even living beings in outer space, such as the sun. They called those people the fire sky people.
After some time, the Spirit beings had to choose what they would be and were no longer able to transform.
After this, K’wati came into the area of LaPush and found that there were no humans. He went to the mouth of the river and there were wolves, timber wolves.
Now these wolves always travel in pairs and they mate for life.
K’wati saw that there were no people in this area near LaPush. So he transformed that pair of wolves into the Quileute people.

K’wati is a supernatural figure in Quileute stories who transforms people or objects. K’wati wasn’t a “sorcerer” or “witch king,” as Meyer’s has it.  “He wasn’t really a god, but a transformer — he was put on Earth to make things better,” Morganroth said.   Although Meyer’s teen werewolves are not part of Quileute legends, she draws from the tribal connection to wolves.

Even in present times, the wolf is often referred to as a brother of the tribe, as is the orca — which also is said to have descended from the wolf, Morganroth said.

The New Moon werewolves aren’t your average, hairy-faced cross between a man and a wolf. The boys “phase” into bear-sized wolves with enough superpowers to kill vampires.  And they developed out of a need to protect the people of Forks and LaPush from vampires.  The Quileute have no such legend.

Morganroth said it doesn’t bother him much when he hears how the stories are changed and used in the books.

“People are always telling me how my stories are not the real way things happened — science is the main one — but I think of them as ways to explain things that happened,” Morganroth said.  “We have stories in LaPush that explain events going back to the Ice Age, but science and history people claim that we came across the land bridge much later than that.

“And her book is a work of fiction. If she needed to make some changes to make it more exciting that is up to her.”

He went on to say that one legend talks about the fire of the sun being captured in leaves and used to keep the plant living — a legend which perfectly parallels the scientific process of photosynthesis.  “So we have our story to explain how that works,” he said.

“If Ms. Meyer wanted to make up a story about werewolves, that is her thing — it helped make the characters more interesting.”

Source

Here is a second clip of ReelzChannel’s Quileute special on Twilight Weekly: Spotlight. This clip features actress Tinsel Korey as she talks about the time she spent with the tribe to both learn from them and give back to the community.

See Part 1 here.

Source