Tales Take the Honors at Exhibit : Art: Abenaki Indian stories polished by generations of tellers are ultimately more engrossing than the objects on view.

“Welcome the Caribou Man,” a show of Abenaki Indian art at the San Diego Museum of Man, is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to view without dwelling on the differences between the Abenaki culture and that of mainstream America. Although not a dazzler visually, the show abounds with rich cosmological beliefs that can’t help but make us mourn what we’ve lost by denying Native Americans a central role in society.

Against the backdrop of our regimented, confrontational culture and our population’s practice of sucking up the planet’s resources and spitting them back as trash, the Abenakis’ intimate, familial regard for the Earth and its fellow creatures has tremendous appeal. A culture that senses power in the dried, tissue-thin skin of a snake, a fragile seashell or a small carved turtle makes the American love of weapons and brute force seem all the more crude.

If one of the museum’s fundamental roles is to act as a forum for the mingling of ideas and approaches to life, the Museum of Man has done well by this show. It lets Gerard Rancourt Tsonakwa and Yolaikia Wapitaska, who are married and members of the tribe, present their masks and carvings with texts in their own words. Their tales are never mediated by the authoritative, paternalistic tone common to museum education departments. The show, therefore, stays fresh and alive, seducing its guests with the charm and wisdom of Abenaki lore.

Tsonakwa, a storyteller as well as an artist, supplies the tales ( Wapapi , or records) that fill in for the non-Native viewer what the Abenaki, who live in the Northeastern United States and Quebec, carry as part of their cultural memory.

These stories, polished by generations of storytellers and rich with humor, surprise and insight, are ultimately more engrossing than the objects on view. Tsonakwa’s carved wood masks and figures are attractive but unremarkable, with their broad, generalized forms and adornments of fur, stone, beads or horn. Yolaikia’s small stone and antler carvings range from delicate, visionary works to well-modeled cliches. Both artists’ works serve better here as illustrations to the texts than vice versa.

“The Creator is like a magician, everything is coming and going from his magic box,” one label reads, and this notion of the world as a container full of surprises threads through the show. Caribou Man, a spirit seen in a dream by Tsonakwa’s father, explains the relationship between the human and spiritual orders with a metaphor: “When you walk in the light of day, you cast a shadow. We in the spirit world are like your shadow except sometimes it is the shadow that moves. Sometimes it is the shadow that casts the man.”

The bond between hunter and deer is described more concretely, in terms of necessity and mutual respect. “To preserve the population of Deer, the hunting must be reasonable and an account must be kept with the Spirit of the Deer.” Not only must all parts of the deer be used, but the hunter must follow a prescribed ritual to show respect for the deer’s heart and spirit. He must shed tears, bury the heart in the ground, “his Mother the Earth,” where it can be warmed under “his Father, the Sky.” Whenever the hunter returns to that spot, he should not only give thanks to the deer for its meat, he “should pinch his side and show how fat he got from the meals. This is the beginning of another arrangement in time and place, the beginning of a new account.”

Yolaikia’s carved “Deer Spirit Vessel” transforms a deer skull with antlers into a spectacular vision of the symbiosis of humans and animals. Each literally springs from the other as snakes metamorphose into turtles, then human figures, then birds along the graceful arch of the deer’s antlers.

Tsonakwa’s painted deerskin also pays homage to the deer, the Abenakis’ most important food source, a nourishing and nurturing creature that is regarded as female generally. Painted on the skin in red and black is the “Abenaki Creation Star,” a spiral whose outermost band serves as the base for four points, aligned in the four directions. Circling the star is a continuous band of red waves. The central spiral, representing “the birth canal of creation” becomes a symbol of the birth of individuals and the universe, both of which emerge from a primordial ocean of water and blood.

The texts provide a captivating introduction to Abenaki culture, but they fail to discuss why the works on view were really made. The objects, displayed as discrete works of art, feel slightly incongruous in an institution charged with exploring the history of humankind through artifact and context. Whether these masks, sculptures and vessels are used in specific rituals or as decoration is an issue that neither the wall labels nor the show’s catalogue addresses.

Tsonakwa comes closest to describing the function of these works when he discusses the value they have in invoking the presence of spirits. When the Caribou Man came to Tsonakwa’s father in his dreams, the spirit told him things that were to happen in the future. Tsonakwa’s father would remember these things when he carved Caribou Man’s face. The process of carving would awaken a memory, even a subconscious one from a dream, and give it a new clarity.

Now that Tsonakwa’s father has died and gone on to the spirit world, Tsonakwa attempts to communicate with Caribou Man and through him, to his father: “Now, I carve Caribou Man’s face in hopes that I will see him one day. If I approach him calmly so as not to frighten him away, maybe he will stop to tell me how my father is doing. I want him to know he is welcome in my dreams.”

* “Welcome the Caribou Man,” San Diego Museum of Man, Balboa Park. Through Jan. 17. Museum hours are 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. daily.

ART NOTES

People with experience in the visual arts, design, planning or community development are encouraged to apply to serve on the Art in Public Places Advisory Committee by contacting the city of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture. Up to 10 community members will be appointed to the committee. Applicants should send a resume and statement of qualification to the commission by Aug. 17. Call 533-3050 for more information. . . .

The David Lewinson Gallery will relocate from Del Mar to downtown San Diego later this summer, occupying 3,300 square feet in a historic building at 7th Avenue and J Street. . . .

The Mingei International Museum of World Folk Art has appointed James R. Pahl as assistant director. Pahl has worked at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe and the Museum of New Mexico. Most recently, he was executive director of the Children’s Museum of San Diego.