Leader of the Fisherman
Maynard Johnny Jr.
1999
L010.3.311

(excerpt from interview with Shelby Richardson 10 August, 2011)

Well I think I kind of, I mean everything I do has some kind of meaning to me. But this one was meaningful to me personally because it’s called Leader of the Fisherman and it’s an eagle with a human in the body and you know the eagle’s talons are the arms at the same time. And it’s making, they’re holding a salmon. So, I remember one day my dad and I were fishing and I was about twelve or so, maybe thirteen, and we were walking up and down the river, just trying to fish. And we couldn’t catch anything at all. So we ended up walking down the river and further down, up on the tree, was an eagle. And we’re like, ‘Oh wow, check it out, an eagle,’ you know, being amazed by this bird, and we’re looking up and all of sudden he swoops down and catches a fish. And you know, it kind of like blew us away. We’re like ‘Wow that’s really cool.’ My dad’s like, “Well let’s fish here,” and we caught three fish that day.

[Johnny in Interview, 10 August, 2011]