Conquistadors: Native Arts of the Americas after 1300
    
       
  Mesoamerica :: South America :: North America
  
       
       
  NORTH AMERICA

Southwest

Before the Spanish:

By the time of the first European contact in the sixteenth century, the ancient peoples of the Southwest had evolved into the "Pueblo Indians." The Pueblo Indians include a linguistically diverse, but culturally similar, group of peoples from the Hopi of northern Arizona to the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico. The Apache and Navajo, descendants of nomadic hunters from northwestern Canada, also adopted many features of Pueblo life.

30-7: Detail of a kiva mural from Kuaua Pueblo (Coronado State Monument), Anasazi, New Mexico, late fifteenth to early sixteenth century. Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe.
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Pueblo Indians:

When the first Europeans came into contact with the ancient peoples of the Southwest, they called them "Pueblo Indians."

Navajo sand paintings:

The Navajo transformed sand painting, borrowed from Pueblo culture, into a complex ritual art form. The temporary sand paintings, made under the supervision of shamans, depict the gods and mythological heroes whose help is sought.

Navajo weaving:

By mid-17th century, the Navajo had also learned how to weave from their Hopi and other Pueblo neighbors, quickly adapting to new materials such as sheep's wool and synthetic dyes introduced by Spanish settlers and, later, by Anglo-Americans.

Hopi Katsinas:

Another art form from the Southwest, the Kachina doll, also has deep roots in the area. Kachinas are benevolent supernatural spirits personifying natural elements. Kachina dolls are miniature representations of the masked dancers who impersonate Kachinas during festivals. The Kachina of a rain-bringing deity wears a mask symbolic of water and agricultural fertility.

30-8: OTTO PENTEWA, Kachina figurine (Niman or Uemis), Hopi, New Oraibi, Arizona, carved before 1959. Cottonwood root, about 1' high. Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson.
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Pueblo Pottery:

Southwest potters coiled shapes that were slipped, polished, and fired. Decorative motifs dealt largely with forces of nature. MARÍA MARTINEZ (ca.1881-1980) and her husband JULIAN MARTINEZ revived old techniques to produce forms of striking shape, proportion, and texture. Her black-on-black pieces feature matte designs on surfaces achieved by polishing and firing in an oxygen-poor atmosphere.

30-9: MARÍA MONTOYA MARTÍNEZ, jar, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, ca. 1939. Blackware, 11 1/8" x 1' 1". National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. (gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Hollachy).
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Northwest Coast

Among the Northwest Coast tribes are the Kwakiutl of southern British Columbia, the Haida who live on the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of the province, and the Tlingit of southern Alaska. In the Northwest, a class of professional artists developed, in contrast to the more typical Native American pattern of part-time artisans.

Masks and war helmuts:

The Northwest Coast artists carved masks for healing rites and dramatic ceremonial performances. The animals and mythological creatures celebrate the mythological origins and inherited privileges of high-ranking families. The Kwakiutl mask could be transformed from human to eagle and back again.

30-10: Eagle transformation mask, closed and open views, Kwakiutl, Alert Bay, late nineteenth century. Wood, feathers, and string, approx. 1' 10" x 11". American Museum of Natural History, New York.
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An intimidating war helmet:

A wooden Tlingit war helmet is carved in a naturalistic style. Although the helmet mask may be an actual portrait, it also might represent a spirit being from the dead whose powers enhance the wearer's strength.

30-11: War helmet, Tlingit, collected 1888-1893. Wood, 1' high. American Museum of Natural History, New York.
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Haida totem poles:

Haida house frontal poles, displaying totemic emblems of clan groups, are important expressions of social status. The nineteenth-century example is from a Haida village reconstructed by BILL REID (1920-1998, Haida) and his assistant DOUG KRANMER (b. 1917, Kwakiutl). Each of the superimposed figures represents a crest, an animal, or a supernatural being from the clan's origin story. Additional crests also could be obtained through marriage and trade.

30-12: BILL REID (Haida), assisted by DOUG KRANMER (Kwakiutl), reconstruction of a nineteenth-century Haida village with totem poles, Queen Charlotte Island, 1962. Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
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Alaskan ceremonial blankets:

Female weavers made Chilkat blankets from templates by male designers. These robes display several recurrent characteristics of the Northwest Coast style: symmetry and rhythmic repetition, schematic abstraction of animal motifs, eye designs, a swelling and thinning line, and a tendency to round off corners.

30-13: Chilkat blanket with stylized animal motifs, Tlingit, early twentieth century. Mountain goat's wool and cedar bark, 6' x 2' 11". Southwest Museum, Los Angeles.
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Eskimo

The north wind:

The Yup'ik Eskimos also had a highly developed ceremonial life focused on attracting game animals. Shamans wore imaginative masks with moving parts, such as the mask representing the spirit of the north wind.

30-14: Mask, Yup'ik Eskimo, Alaska, early twentieth century. Wood and feathers, approx. 3' 9" high. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
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Great Plains

After the Europeans introduced the horse to North America, a new mobile Native American culture flourished on the Great Plains. Artists worked in materials and styles quite different from those of the Northwest. Leather was decorated with quill designs and beadwork. Artists also painted tipis, tipi linings, and buffalo-skin robes with geometric and stiff figural designs. After about 1830, they introduced naturalistic scenes in styles adapted from those of visiting European artists.

Hidatsa regalia:

Because, at least in later periods, most Plains peoples were nomadic, they focused their aesthetic attention on their bodies, clothing, and other portable objects. The Swiss KARL BODMER accurately portrayed the personal decoration of Two Ravens, symbolic of the Hidatsa warrior's affiliations and military accomplishments.

30-15: KARL BODMER, Hidatsa Warrior Pehriska-Ruhpa (Two Ravens), 1833. Watercolor, 1' 3 7/8" x 11 1/2". Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha (gift of the Enron Art Foundation).
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Ledger paintings:

After confinement to reservations, Plains artists began to record not only their heroic past and vanished lifestyle but also their reactions to their new surroundings. These ledger paintings document a time of great turmoil and change. In a painting by Kiowa artist, a group of men and women, possibly Comanches, appear to dance an honoring song before three tipis.

30-17: Honoring song at painted tipi, in Julian Scott Ledger, Kiowa, 1880. Pencil, ink, and colored pencil, 7 1/2" x 1'. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Diker Collection.
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