Native American Arts and Crafts—Southwest

Tribes affected: Apache, Navajo, Pueblo (including Hopi, Zuni)

Significance: The arts and crafts of the Southwest are a thriving and coherent representation of Native American art that has continuity with its prehistoric cultural roots

Southwest Native American art can be traced back to prehistoric groups that lived in the area. The prehistoric groups developed pottery, basketry, weaving, and jewelry making, and the contemporary Pueblo groups have continued the designs and techniques inherited in those media. The Navajos and Apaches have a different history, having entered the area only six hundred to eight hundred years ago. Although they originally practiced basketry, they acquired weaving from the Pueblo people and, later, silversmithing from the Spanish.

Eastern Pueblos

The Eastern Pueblo tribes live on or near the Rio Grande River near Santa Fe, and they were most affected by the Spanish. They have had commercial success with arts and crafts in the twentieth century. The Eastern Pueblos have the richest pottery tradition, but they also make jewelry, baskets, and weaving.

Pueblo pottery is made with the prehistoric techniques of coil building, slip painting, and open-air firing. The pots are elaborately painted, usually iron oxide red, white, or black colors. Pueblo designs may use geometric forms or stylized figures of animals, birds, or plants. Border lines are usually drawn as a frame to define the area to be decorated. The designs frequently play back and forth between positive and negative fields, resulting in complex symmetries, and they are usually subdivided into smaller and smaller units. Women are the traditional makers of pottery, but men may paint it and fire it. The most common types of pots are water jars, dough bowls, and storage pots. Although each type was originally made for functional purposes, in the twentieth century they were made primarily for artistic purposes. The pottery tradition from this area is divided into a number of styles, including blackware, redware, and polychrome ware.

Blackware pottery was traditionally made in the Pueblos north and west of Santa Fe, especially Santa Clara, San Juan, and San Ildefonso, where the tradition was made famous by María Antonía Martínez and Julián Martínez. Santa Clara Pueblo is famous for both blackware and redware pottery, and it is well known for the deep carving of designs in the surface of pots. Rain serpents and the bear paw are popular designs. Polychrome pottery is most associated with the pueblos located to the south and west of Santa Fe, most notably Zia and Acoma. The colors are typically red and/or black on a white background. Border lines frame the painted areas of the pots, and within those borders designs may include floral patterns, animal figures (especially deer), birds, and geometric forms. Cochiti is the only pueblo to make figurative pieces, and in the last half of the twentieth century it was particularly known for the storyteller figure.

The most traditional jewelry of the Southwest is made by people of the Eastern Pueblos, particularly Santo Domingo, and it characteristically includes strings of turquoise for necklaces and other pieces made of mosaics of turquoise. Although weaving and basketry were traditionally important, they have largely disappeared among these pueblos.

Western Pueblos

The Zuni and the Hopi were more isolated than the Eastern Pueblos and continued many of their traditions until the twentieth century. These Pueblos make polychrome ware, and Zuni pottery is distinguished by the motif of the deer with a red heart-line going from the mouth into the torso and the rosette design. Hopi pottery is made primarily on the First Mesa by Hopi-Tewa descendants, and it is noted for the flat, broad shape of its pots. Surface designs are geometric and in the twentieth century have largely followed the designs of the Sikytki revival pottery.

The Western Pueblo tribes are most known for jewelry making. The Zunis do lapidary work and silversmithing, while the Hopis focus primarily on silver work. The Zunis are famous for carving fetishes in stone which are sometimes made into necklaces of turquoise, coral, and other stones. These fetishes depict bears, mountain lions, foxes, frogs, and owls among other animals. They also set turquoise and other fine stones in silver, sometimes in complex patterns called clusterwork, and they do stone inlay jewelry.

The Hopi make jewelry with overlay designs in silver, sometimes including stones. They are most known, however, for making kachina dolls, which are carved, painted, and dressed. The kachinas incorporate rain and cloud symbols and represent the hope for well-being and plenty, and they are used to teach children about the supernatural. The Hopi also do basketry and weaving.

Navajos and Apaches

Although the Eastern and Western Pueblos do weaving, the Navajos have most excelled in this media. The designs are primarily geometric and include stepped frets, crosses, and butterflies. There are complex patterns of repetition and contrasts of positive-negative fields. A number of regional styles exist throughout the Navajo area. Occasionally, the Navajo weaving incorporated designs from sand paintings, which have special ritual and healing significance. The Navajo are also famous for turquoise and silver jewelry, especially the squash blossom necklace. The wide range of Apache baskets includes trays, carrying baskets, and pitch-sealed water bottles. The designs include geometric and highly stylized figures.

Bibliography

Eaton, Linda B. Native American Art of the Southwest. Lincolnwood, Ill.: Publications International, 1993.

Furst, Peter T., and Jill L. Furst. North American Indian Art. New York: Rizzoli International, 1982.

Wade, Edwin L., ed. The Arts of the North American Indian: Native Traditions in Evolution. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1986.

Whiteford, Andrew Hunter. Southwestern Indian Baskets: Their History and Their Makers. Santa Fe, N. Mex: School of American Research Press, 1988.

Wyckoff, Lydia L. Designs and Factions: Politics, Religion, and Ceramics on the Hopi Third Mesa. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990.