The McReavy House Museum of Hood Canal will welcome guest, Henry Quintero, to discuss the role of songs in the peyote culture of the Apache and other Native American nations. Quintero will discuss the origin of the songs, how they are adopted by singers and preserved within an oral tradition, and the work of these songs in Native American Church ceremonies.
As a translator and archivist of these songs he has brought many to the page, a complicated and sometimes controversial task considering the nature of the songs, which often cross out of distinct fields of language into sounds and “non-signifying” vocables. The songs, most often, are accompanied by a single drum; its beat is meant to recall the heart’s beat.
Apache and Mexican, Quintero spends his time between the Southwest and the rest of the world, traveling to perform Native American Church ceremonies and also to honor his duties as a Tibetan Buddhist. He received his Masters in Fine Arts, Poetry, at Arizona State University.
The McReavy House members are currently in the process of renovating the mansion of John McReavy, located in Union. Built in 1890, the house overlooks Hood Canal, where McReavy watched his timber come and go. The railroads that he imagined would converge never arrived, but in the ‘20’s another generation of dreamers imagined a different way of living with the resources, inviting guests to share the inspiring mountain scenery and the warm summer tides.
For nearly two decades, Orre Nobles entertained guests at his Olympus Manor. Its campus reflected his affection for a diversity of experiences, featuring a Torii gate like those he had seen traveling in the Far East and Native American canoes like those of the Skokomish which plied the waters. His friends included popular poet Don Blanding, heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney, and political writer and correspondent Upton Close. Guests relaxed to plays and classical concerts.
Along with preserving the artifacts that tell Hood Canal’s stories, the McReavy House Museum provides a gathering point for that sense of abundance, that spirit of art and culture along Hood Canal’s shores. Henry Quintero will speak and perform Sunday, May 18th at 6 PM in the Elmer and Katharine Nordstrom Great Hall at the Harmony Hill Retreat Center in Union. The event is free and open to all.
