Chinook Jargon in the news: John Rhoden’s sculpture
This one is Chinuk Wawa in the news in a roundabout way!
The well-known sculptor, John Rhoden (1918-2001), created a sculpture he titled “Nesaika” in 1976.
I cam across this in a recent Philadelphia Inquirer article, “What is the Sculpture outside Philadelphia’s African-American Museum?” It’s behind a paywall, so you might not get to read the full text.
Image credit: Association for Public Art
So here’s some good information from another site on how an intentionally African-American statue got a Chinook Jargon name:
An official project of the bicentennial celebration, the African American Museum in Philadelphia opened to the public in 1976, a few days after the unveiling of John Rhoden’s Nesaika. Rhoden, a Black American sculptor, wanted to express both the African and the American aspects of the museum’s theme. The forms of Nesaika clearly suggest the traditional sculptures of Africa; the title, however, derives from a word meaning “we,” “us,” or “our” in the Chinook trade language of America’s West Coast.
Nesaika was commissioned as part of the Redevelopment Authority’s Percent for Art program. The bronze was cast by the age-old cire perdue (lost wax) process known on the western coast of Africa. According to Rhoden, the mask-like image at the top symbolizes “the wholeness of the shape of the universe.”
