Around this time each year I plan a vacation for myself. Usually it’s just a trip to my sister’s house in North Carolina where I get to laze about on her couch, eat her food, and watch copious amounts of cable television while shooting the shit with my three nephews. But this year I’m in need of an adventure: television and the emotional obligations of family simply will not do. Also, in keeping with my culturally curious nature, I feel I should go somewhere I’ve never been - lands where native people live in peace with nature, even if it’s rugged inaccessibility means renting a car to get there even after I’ve traveled by plane. That would be remote, and nothing signifies “remote” like an Indian reservation.

After all I did create this website for the sole purpose of supporting indigenous artists here in North America and beyond, so visiting them at the source of their creativity, their homelands, seems the most logical and economically efficient thing to do for a vacation. I get to visit a place I’ve never been, and perhaps meet an indigenous artist to feature here in these web pages of NAICA. I’m a multi-tasker and thrifty!

There are so many reservations here in the U.S. to choose from. It was difficult to decide but for my first trip, and perhaps there will be others if this one goes well, the high desert lands of the Southwest are where I must go. Besides there resides a tribe of people grossly under-represented in main-stream media, and as I have stated before, NAICA is all about providing a much needed platform for these people, the Chero-kilmers. They are a little known tribe with few members. Research shows they have either miscegenated themselves out of existence or they are not as hardy as they look - diseases may have taken their toll. But still, a few remain. They reside in the Pecos River valley a few miles northeast of Santa Fe in what is now called New Mexico, but sources say they may have migrated from California, Malibu, to be exact. This makes sense as they have settled along the Pecos River, and, well, as we know Malibu is a beachfront community. Thus we can surmise the Chero-kilmers like water. They are a people of watery worship. There is some indication they worship the brown trout that flow through the river’s streams and eddies. They are also fond of bears, as their chief, at times, has resembled one. I’ve read that he prowls the ranch/village at night in his bear form growling and baying his tribal songs to the moon. Chilling thought, I know, but I am also excited to perhaps catch him on film for the readers of NAICA.

About their physiognomy it is said they are a hardy people of tall-ish stature, with red skin the color of a sauced up Irish man. They speak an odd dialect that is hard to decipher unless you are standing very close to one of them. But close proximity is something they shun, as they prefer to live in relative seclusion far away from people outside their tribe. That is, unless you have about $300.00 for a night’s stay in their ranch/village, commonly referred to as the “ranchavation,” along the Pecos. If you do, as I will, then you can live among them observing their ways and perhaps, becoming one with them, if not one of them.

Yes, for $300.00 a night which does not include airfare, transportation to and from the airport, surcharges, taxes, guided nature excursions, fishing licenses and amenities, food, or gratuities for staff (yes the Chero-kilmers have their own staff, and no they are not members of the tribe), you can stay at their rustic “ranchavation” which remains unspoiled by a post-modern world. See, not all Indians own casinos! In their eco-friendly fishing and hiking crazy village there is no TV, DVDs, or CDs. No Internet, no satellite, no wireless anything because there are no wires anywhere. There is no cell phone reception either. It truly is like stepping back in time, a time before the white man came and installed his ugly singing wires and iron horse tracks along the beautiful low desert landscape bringing small pox, alcohol, and commodity food to those who never wanted it.

Al of this sounds wonderful! I am smitten with the idea of roughing it out in the Pecos wilderness with the Chero-kilmers. What a respite from the stresses of my world it will be. And, if I am lucky I will get to meet the great chief of this tribe who is said to be a great orator and singer and poet and dater of famous women who at times were really much older than himself (Cher) and sometimes his exact age (Daryl Hannah) and sometimes just a few years younger (Cindy Crawford) and then some other times obscenely too young (one night in Paris Hilton’s mouth), but hey, he was drunk that one time at the Château, and generally he is a great man who thinks of nothing but the integrity of his tribe, so we are asked to let that one slide, and I think we here at NAICA will. I would love to sit, at length, or lounge, in a bed, or hammock - no a bed is better -with the great chief and “interview” him about his tribe, his art, his philosophy of art as related to his native identity. I’d ask him about enrollment and whether the federal government has a say and if they don’t can I become an enrolled member? What are the perks of the membership? Are there ancillary fees to consider? What if we were to marry, the great chief and I, would our children be qualified for the Chero-kilmer roll? I mean, I think I may even have a little Chero-kilmer in me from way back when. A great great grandfather perhaps? I have so many questions and they will be answered for I make my trip to the great ranchavation just as soon as I win the New York Lottery or the Mega Millions.