Adawe is a word in our tribal language which means many things: to heed; to give heed to; to pay attention to; to attend to; to watch; to watch on/over; to take care of.

…Ho is not a command, but an exhortation, a hope and a wish, for the one who listens to do what needs to be done, what is good to do. This work is a representation of the connection between Ni dhi (the Yellow River) and ni tanra (the Great River, the Mississippi) here at Effigy Mounds. This is a connecting corridor, a travel path for animals and plants, along the river systems, like branches that connect to larger branches all the way to the trunk, the largest river. The corridor connects the cores, the places of refuge and reproduction for plants and animals, many of these often at the connecting points along the rivers. These are places where the animals and plants disperse from and to, to keep the land healthy. And then there are the Bears moving along the river, representing the top carnivores which are only supported by the healthiest of lands, the ones closest to the original ecosystems they have always been a part of.

The grid is how the land was divided up by the Jeffersonian grid of townships and sections, and it is fragmented by human farming, residences, and utilities, which obliterated the original land and its refuges, and even block the flow of life along its corridors.

It is a question people need to ask. Is it possible to have both land that is healthy with its cores, corridors and carnivores as the original communities, and human community needs as well? The hand represents this decision, to harm or to help, red for life and black for death, because it is the same hand of humanity that does both.