By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Local artist Matt Miller has begun a downtown Hays mural that will depict a Native American buffalo dance.
The mural is being painted on the north side of State Glass Co., 421 Main. It is part of the Brush the Bricks — a Mural Movement, which is a series of murals being painted or mounted on the Bricks in Hays.
This is the second mural in the series. The first, "The Three Amigos," by Hays Artist Dennis Schiel is on the north side of the S&W Supply building at Eighth and Allen streets.
Work on a mural depicting members of the local intellectually and developmentally disabled population will be starting soon on the side of the Arc building at 600 Main in Hays.
Miller said he wanted the mural on the State Glass building to depict the landscape and people who lived in the Hays area before it was settled by Europeans.
Multiple Native American tribes used the plains of northwest Kansas for hunting grounds. As the tribes in the east and Great Lakes regions were pressured out of their homelands, they moved south to the Great Plains< Miller said. Two of these tribes were the Cheyenne and the Arapaho.
Other tribes that would have likely hunted and traded in this area included the Pawnee, Kanza and Kiowa.
The Pawnee made their homes in earthen lodges along the Platte River in Nebraska but likely hunted in northwest Kansas. The Kiowa lived in southwest Kansas, but also would have hunted in the area that is now Hays.
Records indicate the Kanza people camped along the Smoky Hill River, which runs north and west of Schoenchen.
The tribes would have likely competed for the same resources, traded, and in some instances intermarried, Miller said.
Miller said he is trying to depict a time period when the horse was reintroduced to the Americas. During this time, many of these tribes that hunted in this area staged bison dances prior to hunts.
"I wanted to have this bison scene to celebrate the presence of people before Europeans got here," he said. ...
"I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out things about the dance, the customs, their dress, their movements, their languages ..."
The bottom of the mural will depict shields representing the various plains tribes who frequented this area, as well as their languages. Miller also plans to incorporate a water monster at the bottom of the mural.
His research indicated a water monster was part of the mythology of some plains tribes. Miller said it is difficult to know, but he wondered if the integration of the monster into the native people's stories may have been born from ancient fossils they could have encountered in this region.
Unlike the tree-lined city streets of Hays today, prior to European settlement, Hays would have been a vast expanse of shortgrass prairie with few or no trees. Miller, who is primarily a landscape painter, uses this as the backdrop for his mural.
"These areas were so ecologically stable and lush with resources — the bison, grasslands and the pronghorn," he said. "Everything has changed so much."
Miller said he hopes to be finished with the mural in the next two weeks.
The Brush the Bricks project is being funded through donations and grants. The project will cost an estimated $150,000. You can donate online through the Brush the Bricks Facebook page. You can also donate from the DHDC website.
