between the basswoods
Long before any concrete grain elevator stood on the south shore of the Buffalo River–even longer before the elevators were abandoned and reclaimed and transformed into Buffalo’s Silo City–the land there was called Došyowëh–“between the basswoods”–by the Seneca villagers who called it home.
Today, visitors to Silo City are invited to connect with that history through Seneca faithkeeper and artist Bill Crouse’s Gastowë’, the stainless steel sculptural interpretation of a traditional Seneca headdress he unveiled last spring. The headdress is more than a piece of art–it’s a statement of identity, resilience, and vitality for the Seneca Nation, and a sort of container for the history of the land on which it sits.
Crouse, a member of the Hawk Clan of the Seneca Nation of Indians, is a self-taught painter and sculptor and a passionate advocate for the preservation of Seneca culture through visual arts, music, dance, and language. In all of his work–from paintings and sculptures to digital language learning materials to song and dance performances with the Allegany River Indian Dancers–Crouse aims to keep the centuries-old Seneca traditions he grew up with alive in our modern age.
The idea for Crouse’s Gastowë’ began before the coronavirus pandemic, when he submitted his original artwork for a show that projected native artists’ work onto Silo City’s grain elevators. Between conversations with Rick Smith–the silos’ owner and president of Rigidized Metals–and a tour of the ecologically revitalized Silo City land, rich with Seneca history, Crouse saw an opportunity and seized it.
With Rigidized Metals’ materials fresh in his mind, Bill envisioned a headdress–a traditional symbol of Seneca identity, a visual representation of cultural pride–a tribute to the legacy of the Seneca people.
Through the pandemic, as projects like his were put on pause and material costs skyrocketed, Bill honed his vision. When the time was finally right, he collaborated closely with the team at Rigidized to bring Gastowë’ to life. The result of the wait and the work is a sleek, stainless steel translation of the traditional headdress situated on the Došyowëh trailhead.
Of course, the location of the installation lends another layer of significance to Crouse’s sculpture. While the Seneca Nation villagers who named the land around Buffalo Creek for its towering basswood trees–Došyowëh–no longer reside there, a spiritual and cultural legacy is palpable in the air today. Now, with the installation of Crouse’s work, that legacy is tangible.
Crouse hopes to remind both indigenous and non-indigenous visitors to Silo City that the Seneca Nation is still today a living, breathing community and culture.
“I want people to understand that we’re not from the past,” Bill says. “We’re still here. And we’re able to adapt, to use modern materials, and to make them our own. We are a people of two worlds.”
Gastowë’ is the bridge between those two worlds.
Crouse’s commitment to preserving Seneca culture extends further than the reflective feathers of the headdress. As an active faithkeeper, he leads his own community in spiritual ceremonies; as a group leader and singer with the Allegany River Indian Dancers, he shares traditional Seneca and Haudenosaunee songs and dances with native and non-native communities around New York State and beyond; and as a native speaker, he’s spent decades teaching the Seneca language, preserving it for generations to come.
That passion for Seneca language advocacy and preservation is shared by his family.
His mother–once punished in her English-speaking school for speaking her native Seneca–taught at Salamanca High School before helping to found the Faithkeepers School Montessori Seneca Language Nest, where young children learn to speak Seneca and to carry on other cultural and spiritual traditions. Crouse’s children teach at the
school today.
The work of language preservation is urgent–dozens of Native American languages are extinct or near-extinct, largely because of systemic efforts throughout the 19th and 20th centuries to stifle Native culture and force assimilation.
But Crouse, his family, and their community have no intention of losing the Seneca language or its profound significance: “The animals and the natural world understand Seneca because it’s from here,” he says. “It’s native.”
Crouse is optimistic. He sees a revitalized interest in Seneca culture, from the Seneca language learners he and his family teach, and also from non-Seneca communities interested in exploring the cultural history of Western New York. With the installation at Silo City, Crouse has given visitors a new way to engage with Seneca culture through art and nature.
Gastowë’ itself, forged in steel and built to last on sacred land, is an embodiment of the resilience of the Seneca, bright and enduring.