Bonita Wa Wa Calachaw Nuñez (December 25, 1888 May 12, 1972), also known as Wa Wa Chaw, Princess Wa Wa Chaw, and Wawa Calac Chaw or "Keep From the Water," was a Native American artist, activist, and writer. She was active in the Pan-Indian Movement in the early 1900s and was close friends with the Apache scholar, Dr. Carlos Montezuma. Nuñez donated 20 of her paintings to the National Museum of the American Indian before her death, where they're still held today. After her death, Stan Steiner compiled her writings and published the book Spirit Woman: The Diaries and Paintings of Bonita Wa Wa Calachaw Nuñez.
Early life and education
Nuñez was born on Christmas Day in 1888 in the Southern California desert, near the town of Valley Center. She was most likely from the Rincon band of the Luiseño tribe, although she was never able to confirm this. She was adopted by an unmarried, wealthy, Irish American woman named Mary Duggan, and she was raised by Mary and her brother, the prominent New York physician, Dr. Cornelius Duggan.
Nuñez was raised in the wealthy and exclusive Riverside Drive neighborhood in New York City. There, she was often dressed up in "Indian dress" of buckskins and beads, and then shown off to her adoptive parent's important friends, who included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Sir Oliver Lodge.
She had a sheltered childhood and was brought up isolated and lonely. Mary Duggan guarded her closely and attempted to insulate her from shocks, as she saw Nuñez as having "nervous susceptibility." Perhaps because of this, Nuñez never attended school, and she was instead educated by her parents and private teachers. She is often described as a child prodigy, and her adoptive parents nurtured and encouraged her artistic talents. Indeed, much of her early artistic training was gained by creating medical illustrations of Dr. Duggan's specimens. Her illustrations of cancerous bones, anatomical drawings, and radium experiments contributed to Dr. Duggan's research, and he was deeply impressed with her ability to understand complex aspects of cellular structures. Nuñez briefly studied art with Albert Pinkham Ryder.
When Nuñez was older, Mary Duggan attempted to get her into Barnard College, but she was refused admittance due to her race. Nuñez later wrote about this rejection stating, "I have not forgotten I was denied the of a college education."
Marriage
Nuñez married Manuel Carmonia-Nuñez, a Puerto Rican businessman and labor organizer for the Cigar Workers' Union in New York City. This marriage was approved of by Mary, although, in the book Women Imagine Change, it states that Nuñez wrote about her husband with varying emotions, "from tenderness to passion to ambivalence." Nuñez wrote that she was "more interested in ". During their marriage, Nuñez felt that she was stuck between her adoptive parents and her husband, and that they each were attempting to pull her in different directions. Nuñez and Carmonia-Nuñez had one child together. But their daughter, Tee Tee Chaw, died at the age of three. The marriage didn't last very long, and they eventually separated.
Activism
Mary Duggan was a staunch activist and feminist who was particularly involved in uplifting the rights of Native Americans, and she included Nuñez in her activism from a young age. Indeed, when Nuñez was eight or ten years old, using a statement that was prewritten by her adoptive mother, she addressed a Convention on Women's Rights on the topic of "the suffering of Indian women." In 1898, when Nuñez was ten years old, she also attended one of the first meetings of what would one day become the Indian revival movement of the twentieth century.
As an adult, and beginning around World War I, Nuñez became active in the Pan-Indian Movement and fought for the rights of Native Americans to join the armed forces. This fight led to her close friendship with the Apache scholar, Dr. Carlos Montezuma. After this, she fought tirelessly for the rights of Native Americans. She often received letters from Native Americans from all over the country, and she would respond with letters of her own as well as money from her welfare checks to help them.