In 1983 and 1993, American Indian Art Magazine featured articles – and photographs – connecting the Native American peoples of California and the California condor. Here’s a look.
American Indian Art Magazine
Tag: Native American
Native American cultural objects
The theme of this blog is “California condors and humans through time”. That condor-human relationship began, of course, with Native American peoples.
In this post I show 6 published images of Native American cultural objects associated with the California condor.
Canyon John
The April 1948 issue of The American Girl magazine features Margaret Leighton’s short story “The Legacy of Canyon John”. A California condor is the heart of this story and one can be seen in Roy Clinker’s accompanying illustrations.
Five years later, “The Legacy of Canyon John” was reprinted in a collection of short stories and with new art work by Robert Sinnott. This multi-volume story collection, edited by Marjorie Barrows, was titled The Children’s Hour (Spencer, 1953). Leighton’s short story is in volume 7: Favorite Mystery Stories.
In this post, I describe Leighton’s story (avoiding spoilers), show the condor illustrations of Clinker and Sinnott, and note how I found the two versions of “The Legacy of Canyon John”.
Thank you, Governor Schwarzenegger
Many coin designs incorporate images of birds. Several of the US Mint’s state quarters feature birds, including the peregrine falcon for Idaho, scissor-tailed flycatcher for Oklahoma, and Caroline wren for South Carolina. More recently, quarter dollar coins honoring the El Yunque National Forest, Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge, and Everglades National Park have included the Puerto Rican parrot, great blue heron, great egret, anhinga, and roseate spoonbill.
Several South American countries feature the Andean condor on coins, some going back to at least the 19th century.
But I know of only one “real” coin with a California condor on it: the 2005 California state quarter.
Pseudogryps 