Kawīdi

Kawīdi

T E X A S

V I S I O N

Gold and diamonds are commonly considered among the rarest and most precious minerals on Earth. Yet, we need only look beyond our planet to find them in abundance in the cosmic space. In stark contrast, wood is commonly perceived as an ordinary material of less value compared to gold and diamonds. Yet, it is not merely rare, but absolutely unique within the known universe. Exclusive to our planet, forests, trees, and wood are a cosmic luxury of the planet Earth. No other part of the known universe has yet shown neither an evidence nor a clue of them. Nothing.

H I S T O R I C A L   C O N T E X T

From this perspective, any historical culture with a tree-centric spirituality and wood-based architecture possessed an innate sensitivity to the singularity and sacredness of forests as a supreme source of life, energy, resilience, and wood as the most effective construction material. They were spiritually and culturally connected to a cosmic tree-centric cosmology, and so was their architecture.

In medieval Europe, Norse wooden architecture was the most iconic expression of this cosmic alliance between Man and Nature. In pre-Columbian America, its corrsponding culture was Kaddo of Texas.

M I S S I O N

Kawīdi is an international research and editorial project by MWA aimed at exploring Kaddo wooden architecture and to promote it as an archetype of Native American architecture. The project is in collaboration with the Texas-born fine art photographer Jill Mathis who will direct the photographic research and production. The project is under definition.

N A M E

The name Kawīdi stems from applying the Norse composition technique called "kenning", used by the skalds in poems and sagas for metaphores, to the words "Kaddo" meaning the Caddo people, "Di-wi" meaning the spirit of Nature, and "Dinnih" meaning the place, the village, the house, architecture. Kawīdi is an invented word for meaning the Kaddo architecture, keeping in the name the shamanic feature of being conceived and built in tight connection with the spirit of Nature.