Wikipedia
Shalako is a series of dances and ceremonies conducted by the Zuni people at the winter solstice, typically following the harvest. The Shalako ceremony and feast has been closed to non-native peoples since 1990.
The Shálako festival, on or about December 1, is a remarkable sacred drama, enacted in the open for the double purpose of invoking the divine blessing upon certain newly built houses, and of rendering thanks to the gods for the harvests of the year. The exact date of the Shálako is fixed each year by a formula of the Zuni Bow priests, which traditionally was the 49th day past the tenth full moon, but has been altered to the weekend nearest the 49th day past the tenth full moon, as many Zuni people work away from their Reservation at jobs that do not allow them weekdays off. The official publication of the date is not made until the eighth evening before the event. The immediate effect of this announcement, which is given out by ten people in the principal plazas, is to quicken the easy-going life of the old pueblo into a bustle of industry.
Shalako is a 1968 Western film directed by American Edward Dmytryk, starring Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot. The British production was filmed in Almería, Spain.
The cast also includes Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, and Honor Blackman, Connery's co-star in Goldfinger. It is based on a novel by Louis L'Amour.
Shalako may refer to:
- Shalako, an annual Native American festival
- Shalako (novel), by Louis L'Amour
- Shalako (film)
Shalako is a 1962 Western novel by Louis L'Amour and the name of a town that the author intended to build. It would have been a working town typical of those of the nineteenth-century Western frontier. Funding for the project fell through, and Shalako, which would have been named in honor of the protagonist of the novel, was never built.
Usage examples of "shalako".
Mostly Hopi, it seemed to Chee, but he noticed Zuni Mudheads and the great beaked Shalako, the messenger bird from the Zuni heavens, and the striped figures of Rio Grande Pueblo clown fraternities.
The traditional masks, as Chee had seen them at Zuni Shalako ceremonials, were round, clay-colored, and deformed with bumps.
What does it take to persuade a reader that you are showing him Zuni on a Shalako midnight?
Across the river the Shalako swoop and dip in the odd dance that the Zunis call the race.
Doll Dance coming up, and preparations for the Shalako under way in earnest.
The torch of the tiny fire god burned close to six bird-headed Shalako, each twice the height of a tall man.