SES 'goes Outback'

Students get legendary lessons from 'Down Under'

Paul Taylor, an artist and educator based in Laramie, gives multicultural interdisciplinary workshops that incorporate music, art, storytelling and dance into an Australian Aboriginal style product for all ages to enjoy and learn from.

Taylor is originally from the Adelaide area in Australia. Two months a year, he goes back to his native land and learns from "mentors" of an Aborigine group that he calls the "Bush University".

Taylor teaches all over the country at many different schools, but Saratoga enjoys being a school he has been coming to for decades.

From Jan. 8-11 all grades at the Saratoga Elementary School participated in making a school mural that told a story that combines aspects of Australian and Native American folklore while also learning indigenous dance steps and how to play the didgeridoo.

A didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by indigenous northern Australians in the last 1,500 years. The instrument is still in widespread use today in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet because a person has to blow into it for the instrument to make it's distinctive low sound.

Taylor told students to make a noise like a horse blowing air through its lips in an exhale.

Sixth graders face painted the other grades on Thursday, so the mural was not the only art Taylor supervised.

The mural follows elements of Australian Aborigine legend of the Rainbow Serpent as the Mother of Life, who created animals, birds, fish and plants. The Rainbow Serpent also made all bodies of water.

"The snake moves like water, so Aborigine culture looked at the snake being a metaphor for water and life," Taylor said. "When I start teaching the symbolism to the grades, I am explaining to them what a metaphor is."

The sky is the Father of Life, making moisture to sustain life and giving stars for guidance.

Taylor said during the week, his emphasis is on topography, history, natural resources and landmarks.

Linda Fisher-Perue, former Saratoga Middle/Senior High School teacher, said the mural's base tale comes from the Wyoming Shoshone-Bannock tribe that resided in the Eastern Snake River Basin. Some of the tribe did settle in the Valley area according to Fisher-Perue.

"The wolf, the fox, the bobcat and the panther can be seen at the top of the left side of the mural," Fisher-Perue pointed out. "Our rainbow serpent has the head of a panther, the school mascot, with Indian facial features and human hands."

Taylor explained meanings of the foundation colors and what they signified to the Aborigine culture as the children painted the mural. He said the Shoshone-Bannock story would be featured in it's entirety.

The tale on the mural has the Shoshone living in a village happily in the forest when bad little men/warriors that represented all the evils of the world drove the Shoshone out of their home.

The tribe had a council and sent a wise medicine man to the deep forest to try and figure out how to rid the Shoshone of these evil men. The medicine man followed a star that led him to the wolf, the fox, the bobcat and the panther. This panther had an Indian head and its paws were human hands.

The panther agreed to help the tribe if the Shoshone promised not to hunt, kill or eat the bobcat, fox, wolf and panther. The medicine man went back to the tribe and told them the conditions. The tribe agreed, so four spirits shot lightning into the forest where the vicious men were and killed them.

To this day, the Shoshone-Bannock will not kill or eat the wolf, fox, bobcat or cougar because they are still upholding their promise.

The mural has this legend in it, mixing in the rainbow serpent as the mother of life from Australian folklore.

"Paul brings in all the Aborigine legends, which are all about life, connections and ridding the world of evil," Fisher-Perue said. "This is why this legend we have is so perfect."

There is a special touch the students of Saratoga put in as their own: A large glittery sun is prominent in father sky. That star is dedicated to Annette Mason, a teacher who recently passed away.

"She was a legend in our community, and is now a star, looking down on us all and reminding us to never give up and to always be kind to others," Perue-Fisher said. "Like the example she set for us to follow."

 

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