With the de Koning family’s permission, I have decided to share the final ceremony we conducted to scatter Ineke’s ashes on Saturday, March 2, 2013.
One of Ineke’s most defining traits was her exceptional creative eye and sense of artistry. She took up pottery upon moving to Utah in early 2002, since the Kayenta community they moved to has an art village with a pottery studio and other creative facilities. She had always held an interest in pottery and ceramics, but never really focused her attention upon it until she left California for Utah. But once she did, her skills rapidly advanced well beyond the expected basic glazed pots and bowls into complex shapes and designs, as well as figurines and masks.
In the summers of 2007 and 2008, before she became ill, Ineke attended a couple of Native American Primitive Pottery Workshop in Escalante, Utah, located about a two hour drive from their home in Ivins in the slickrock canyon country of the Colorado Plateau. The classes were different in that they focused upon using entirely handcrafted methods of making pottery. Participants gathered the clay themselves directly from the wash channels and canyons, cured it to the proper working consistency, and then threw the pots using coils built from the base upwards to the rim. Ineke created a complex corrugated design on the pot’s surface resembling fish scales, and inscribed it with her name on the side rather than upon the base, where artists usually sign it. When it came time to fire the pots, they made a fire out of wood rather than using a modern-day gas or electrical kiln, and at the end created a patina with the smoke of a low-temperature, low-oxygen fire that resulted in burn marks and an ashy-gray finish that would have been similar to what Native Peoples would have used. No mechanical devices or electrical appliances were employed to make this pot. It is a modern-day replica of the same style used in the Anasazi/Pueblo period between 900 – 1050 A.D.
Ineke intended that this particular pot be used as her cremation urn to contain her ashes when that time came. But rather than having them sit upon the mantelpiece or in some closet hidden away, Ineke wished that the pot with her remains be tossed off of a cliff somewhere. Her concept was that the rain and wind would eventually scatter the ashes into oblivion, and that the broken potsherds would rest randomly strewn amidst the stones and bushes at the cliff base, for however long until they someday might be discovered by a random traveler far into the future. That person would then be thrilled to find a genuine Native American pot, not knowing that in fact it was created by a then-66-year-old Dutch woman, albeit using the same methods as the ancestors that long preceded her used.
In the oral history traditions of many Southwestern US Tribes, the Trickster is an important figure. Often represented by a coyote, but also taking other forms depending upon the culture involved, the Trickster sometimes uses sleight-of-hand and humor to tell a story or make a critical moral point. Ineke, in adopting the Trickster role as her final departing act, has taught us something important about the value of humor, love, and non-attachment. And for this we thank her.
May your ashes be scattered to the Four Sacred Peaks of the Navajo, and may the potsherds bring excitement and wonder to whomever may find them next, dear Ineke.
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Yesterday two families, the de Konings and the Emmings, held a mutual gathering in Utah to scatter the remains of both mothers amongst the red cliffs that both women loved. My mother, Ris Emming, passed away in March 2000, less than two years after retiring with my father to the St George region. Ineke de Koning passed away in late February 2013 after moving here in 2001 following the death of her husband.
Our four parents have known one-another for nearly 50 years, so we have a long association spanning many decades and two continents. Yesterday we laid the two mothers of each clan to final rest overlooking the valley of coral sand and silver sage, backed by steep ramparts of the reddest sandstone imaginable.
Each of the six children, three on each side, did a small personal ritual of their choice in scattering some of the ashes. I decided to distribute some amidst the yuccas, because I live near a town named Yucca, Arizona, and my mother passed away too soon for her to see what I have managed to do with my life since I bought the property I love. She only managed to see my beloved land two or three times before she fell ill, and I know she worried about whether I could make it, and make my dreams come true, even as she was fully supportive.
Well, mother, I have come a long way. Ineke was able to see my life progress over the 13 years since you passed away, and if you can now see one-another, I hope that she will tell you that I am doing fine. May you both rest in peace. Love, Jan
