Native American art
Encyclopedia
Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual art
istic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas
from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America, Mesoamerica, North America including Greenland
, as well as Siberian Yup'ik peoples who have great cultural overlap with Native Alaskan Yup'iks.
or Paleo-indian period is defined as approximately 18,000–8000 BCE. The period from around 8000–800 BCE is generally referred to as the Archaic period. The production of bannerstone
s, Projectile point
, Lithic reduction
styles and pictographic cave paintings are some of the art that remains from this time period.
Belonging in the Lithic stage, the oldest known art in the Americas is the Vero Beach
bone, possibly a mammoth bone, etched with a profile of walking mammoth that dates back to 11,000 BCE. The oldest known painted object in North American is the Cooper Bison Skull from 10,900–10,200 BCE. Lithic age art in South America includes Monte Alegre culture rock paintings created at Caverna da Pedra Pintada dating back to 9250–8550 BCE. Guitarrero Cave
in Peru has the earliest known textiles in South America, dating to 8000 BCE.
The southwestern United States and certain regions of the Andes have the highest concentration of pictographs (painted images) and Petroglyph
s (carved images) from this period. Both pictographs and petroglyphs are known as rock art
.
for use in shamanic
rituals. Indigenous peoples of the Canadian arctic have produced objects that could be classified as art since the time of the Dorset culture
. While the walrus ivory carvings of the Dorset were primarily shamanic, the art of the Thule people
who replaced them ca. 1000 CE was more decorative in character. With European contact the historic period of Inuit art began. In this period, which reached its height in the late 19th century, Inuit artisans created souvenirs for the crews of whaling ships and explorers. Common examples include cribbage
boards. Modern Inuit art began in the late 1940s, when with the encouragement of the Canadian government they began to produce prints and serpentine
sculptures for sale in the south.
Greenlandic Inuit, or Kalaallit
have a unique textile tradition intregrating skin-sewing, furs, and appliqué of small pieces of brightly dyed marine mammal organs. Women create elaborate netted beadwork collars. They have strong mask-making tradition and also are known for an art form called tupilaq
or an "evil spirit object." Traditional art making practices thrive in the Ammassalik
. Sperm whale
ivory remains a valued medium for carving.
are Subarctic peoples. While humans have lived in the region far longer, the oldest known surviving Subartic art is a petroglyph site in northwest Ontario
, dated to 5000 BCE. Caribou, and to a lesser extent moose
, are major resources, providing hides, antlers, sinew, and other artistic materials. Porcupine quillwork
embellishes hides and birchbark. After European contact with the influence of the Grey Nuns
, moosehair tufting
and floral glass beadwork became popular through the Subarctic.
The art of the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian
and other smaller tribes living in the coastal areas of Washington State, Oregon
, and British Columbia
, is characterized by an extremely complex stylistic vocabulary expressed mainly in the medium of woodcarving. Famous examples include Totem pole
s, Transformation mask
s, and canoes.
at least since 2500 BCE. While there were many regionally distinct cultures, trade between them was common and they shared the practice of burying their dead in earthen mounds, which has preserved a large amount of their art. Because of this trait the cultures are collectively known as the Mound builders.
The Woodland Period
(1000 BCE–1000 CE) is divided in to early, middle, and late periods, and consisted of cultures that relied mostly on hunting and gathering for their subsistence. Ceramics made by the Deptford culture
(2500 BCE-100 CE) are the earliest evidence of an artistic tradition in this region. The Adena culture
are another well-known example of an early Woodland culture. They carved stone tablets with zoomorphic
designs, created pottery
, and fashioned costumes from animal hides and antlers for ceremonial rituals. Shellfish was a mainstay of their diet, and engraved shells have been found in their burial mounds.
The Middle Woodland Period was dominated by cultures of the Hopewell tradition (200-500). Their artwork encompassed a wide variety of jewelry and sculpture in stone, wood, and even human bone.
The Late Woodland Period (500-1000 CE) saw a decline in trade and in the size of settlements, and the creation of art likewise declined.
From the 12th century onward, the Iroquois
and nearby coastal tribes fashioned wampum
from shells and string; these were mnenomic devices, currency, and records of treaties.
Iroquois people carve False Face masks for healing rituals, but the traditional representatives of the tribes, the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee, are clear that these masks are not for sale or public display. The same can be said for Iroquois Corn Husk Society masks.
inhabited portions of the state of Louisiana
from 2000–1000 BCE during the Archaic period. Many objects excavated at Poverty Point sites were made of materials that originated in distant places, including chipped stone projectile points and tools, ground stone plummets, gorgets and vessels, and shell and stone beads. Stone tools found at Poverty Point were made from raw materials which originated in the relatively nearby Ouachita and Ozark Mountains and from the much further away Ohio
and Tennessee River
valleys. Vessels were made from soapstone
which came from the Appalachian foothills
of Alabama
and Georgia
. Hand-modeled lowly fired clay objects occur in a variety of shapes including anthropomophic figurines and cooking balls.
The Mississippian culture
flourished in what is now the Midwestern
, Eastern
, and Southeastern United States
from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally. After adopting maize
agriculture the Mississippian culture became fully agrarian, as opposed to the hunting and gathering supplemented by part-time agriculture practiced by preceding woodland cultures. They built platform mound
s larger and more complex than those of their predecessors, and finished and developed more advanced ceramic techniques, commonly using ground mussel
shell as a tempering agent. Many were involved with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
, a pan-regional and pan-linguistic religious and trade network. The majority of the information known about the S.E.C.C. is derived from examination of the elaborate artworks left behind by its participants, including elaborate pottery
, shell gorget
s and cups, stone statuary
and Long-nosed god maskette
s. By the time of European contact the Mississippian societies were already experiencing severe social stress, and with the social upsets and diseases introduced by Europeans many of the societies collapsed and ceased to practice a Mississippian lifestyle, with an exception being the Natchez people
. Other tribes descended from Mississippian cultures include the Caddo
, Choctaw
, Muscogee Creek, Wichita
, and many other southeastern peoples.
The Calusa
peoples occupied the southern areas of Florida before European contact, and created carvings of animals.
The Seminoles are best known for their textile creations, especially patchwork clothing. Doll-making is another notable craft.
for thousands of years. Early Plains cultures are commonly divided into four periods: Paleoindian (at least ca. 10,000–4000 BCE), Plains Archaic (ca. 4000–250 BCE), Plains Woodland (ca. 250 BCE–950 CE), Plains Village (ca. 950-1850 CE). The oldest known painted object in North American was found in the southern plains, the Cooper Bison Skull, found in Oklahoma and dated 10,900-10,200 BCE. It's painted with a red zizzag.
In the Plains Village period, the cultures of the area settled in enclosed clusters of rectangular houses and cultivated maize
. Various regional differences emerged, including Southern Plains, Central Plains, Oneota
, and Middle Missouri. Tribes were both nomadic hunters and semi-nomadic farmers. During the Plains Coalescent period (1400-European contact) some change, possibly drought, caused the mass migration of the population to the Eastern Woodlands region, and the Great Plains were sparsely populated until pressure from American settlers drove tribes into the area again.
The advent of the horse revolutionized the cultures of many historical Plains tribes. Horse culture
enabled tribes to live a completely nomadic existence, hunting buffalo. Buffalo hide clothing was decorated with porcupine quill embroidery
and beads – dentalium shells and elk teeth were prized materials. Later coins and glass beads acquired from trading were incorporated into Plains art. Plains beadwork
has flourished into contemporary times.
Buffalo was the preferred material for Plains hide painting
. Men painted narrative, pictorial designs recording personal exploits or visions. They also painted pictographic historical calendars known as Winter count
s. Women painted geometric designs on tanned robes and rawhide parfleche
s, which sometimes served as maps.
During the Reservation Era of the late 19th century, buffalo herds were systematically destroyed by non-native hunters. Due to the scarcity of hides, Plains artists adopted new painting surfaces, such as muslin or paper, giving birth to Ledger art
, so named for the ubiquitous ledger books used by Plains artists.
and upper Great Basin
, had been a center of trade. Plateau people traditionally settled near major river systems. Because of this, their art carries influences from other regions – from the Pacific Northwest coasts and Great Plains. Nez Perce, Yakama
, Umatilla
, and Cayuse
women weave flat, rectangular corn husks or hemp dogbane bags, which are decorated with "bold, geometric designs" in false embroidery. Plateau beadworkers are known for their contour-style beading and their elaborate horse regalia.
Great Basin tribes
have a sophisticated basket making tradition, as exemplified by Louisa Keyser (Washoe
), Lucy Telles
, Carrie Bethel
and Nellie Charlie
. After being displaced from their lands by non-Native settlers, Washoe wove baskets for the commodity market, especially 1895 to 1935. Paiute
, Shoshone
and Washoe basketmakers are known for their baskets that incorporate seed beads on the surface and for waterproof baskets.
arts. In the late 19th century Californian basket
s by artists in the Cahuilla
, Chumash, Pomo, Miwok
, Hupa
and many other tribes became popular with collectors, museums, and tourists. This resulted in great innovation in the form of the baskets. Many pieces by Native American basket weavers from all parts of California are in museum collections, such as the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
at Harvard University
, the Southwest Museum
, and the Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of the American Indian
.
California has a large number of pictographs and petroglyphs rock art
. One of the largest densities of petroglyphs in North America, by the Coso People
, is in Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons
in the Coso Rock Art District
of the northern Mojave Desert
in California.
The most elaborate pictographs in the U.S are considered to be the rock art of the Chumash people
, found in cave painting
s in present day Santa Barbara
, Ventura
, and San Luis Obispo Counties
. The Chumash cave painting
includes examples at Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park
and Burro Flats Painted Cave
.
numerous pictographs and petroglyphs were created. The Fremont culture
and Ancient Pueblo Peoples
and later tribes' creations, in the Barrier Canyon Style
and others, are seen at present day Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel
and Horseshoe Canyon
, amongst other sites. Petroglyphs by these and the Mogollon culture's artists are represented in Dinosaur National Monument
and at Newspaper Rock
.
The Ancestral Pueblo
, or Anasazi, (1000 BCE–700 CE) are the ancestors of today's Pueblo tribes. Their culture formed in the American southwest, after the cultivation of corn was introduced from Mexico around 1200 BCE. People of this region developed an agrarian lifestyle, cultivating food, storage gourds, and cotton with irrigation or xeriscaping
techniques. They lived in sedentary towns, so pottery, used to store water and grain, was ubiquitous.
For hundreds of years, Ancestral Pueblo created utilitarian grayware and black-on-white pottery and occasionally orange or red ceramics. In historical times, Hopi
created olla
s, dough bowls, and food bowls of different sizes for daily use, but they also made more elaborate ceremonial mugs, jugs, ladles, seed jars and those vessels for ritual use, and these were usually finished with polished surfaces and decorated with black painted designs. At the turn of the 20th century, Hopi potter Nampeyo
famous revived Sikyatki
-style pottery, originated on First Mesa in the 14th to 17th centuries.
Southwest architecture includes Cliff dwellings, multi-story settlements carved from living rock; pit houses; and adobe
and sandstone
pueblo
s. One of the most elaborate and largest ancient settlements is Chaco Canyon in New Mexico
, which includes 15 major complexes of sandstone and timber. These are connected by a network of roads. Construction for the largest of these settlements, Pueblo Bonito
, began 1080 years before present
. Pueblo Bonito contains over 800 rooms.
Turquoise
, jet, and spiny oyster shell have been traditionally used by Ancestral Pueblo for jewelry, and they developed sophisticated inlay
techniques centuries ago.
Around 200 CE the Hohokam
culture developed in Arizona. They are the ancestors of the Tohono O'odham
and Akimel O'odham or Pima tribes. The Mimbres, a subgroup of the Mogollon culture, are especially notable for the narrative paintings on their pottery.
Within the last millennium, Athabaskan peoples emigrated from northern Canada in the southwest. These include the Navajo
and Apache
. Sandpainting
is an aspect of Navajo healing ceremonies that inspired an art form. Navajos learned to weave on upright looms from Pueblos and wove blankets that were eagerly collected by Great Basin
and Plains tribes
in the 18th and 19th centuries. After the introduction of the railroad in the 1880s, imported blankets became plentiful and inexpensive, so Navajo weavers switched to producing rugs
for trade.
In the 1850s, Navajos adopted silversmith
ing from the Mexicans. Atsidi Sani
(Old Smith) was the first Navajo silversmith, but he had many students, and the technology quickly spread to surrounding tribes. Today thousands of artists produce silver jewelry with turquoise. Hopi are renowned for their overlay
silver work and cottonwood carvings. Zuni artists are admired for their cluster work jewelry, showcasing turquoise designs, as well as their elaborate, pictorial stone inlay in silver.
The cultural development of ancient Mesoamerica
was generally divided along east and west. The stable Maya culture was most dominant in the east, especially the Yucatán Peninsula, while in the west more varied developments took place in subregions. These included West Mexican
(1000-1), Teotihuacan (1-500), Mixtec (1000–1200), and Aztec (1200-1521).
Central America
n civilizations generally lived to the regions south of modern-day Mexico, although there was some overlap.
The most famous artistic creations of the Olmec are colossal basalt heads, believed to be portraits of rulers that were erected to advertise their great power. The Olmec also sculpted votive figurines
that they buried beneath the floors of their houses for unknown reasons. These were most often modeled in terracotta, but also occasionally carved from jade
or serpentine
.
was a city built in the Valley of Mexico
, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian
Americas. Established around 200 BCE, the city fell between the 7th and 8th century CE. Teotihuacan has numerous well-preserved mural
s.
speaks of Remojadas' "magnificent hollow figures with expressive faces, in majestic postures and wearing elaborate paraphernalia indicated by added clay elements."
, in present-day Oaxaca
, Mexico. The Monte Alban periods are divided into I, II, and III, which range from 200 BCE to 600 CE.
occupied the south of Mexico
, all of Guatemala
and Belize
, and the western portions of Honduras
and El Salvador
.
Greater Nicoya
The ancient peoples of the Nicoya Peninsula
in present day Costa Rica traditionally sculpted birds in jade
, which were used for funeral ornaments. Around 500 CE gold ornaments replaced jade, possibly because of the depletion of jade resources.
istic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas
from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America, Mesoamerica, North America including Greenland
, as well as Siberian Yup'ik peoples who have great cultural overlap with Native Alaskan Yup'iks.
or Paleo-indian period is defined as approximately 18,000–8000 BCE. The period from around 8000–800 BCE is generally referred to as the Archaic period. The production of bannerstone
s, Projectile point
, Lithic reduction
styles and pictographic cave paintings are some of the art that remains from this time period.
Belonging in the Lithic stage, the oldest known art in the Americas is the Vero Beach
bone, possibly a mammoth bone, etched with a profile of walking mammoth that dates back to 11,000 BCE. The oldest known painted object in North American is the Cooper Bison Skull from 10,900–10,200 BCE. Lithic age art in South America includes Monte Alegre culture rock paintings created at Caverna da Pedra Pintada dating back to 9250–8550 BCE. Guitarrero Cave
in Peru has the earliest known textiles in South America, dating to 8000 BCE.
The southwestern United States and certain regions of the Andes have the highest concentration of pictographs (painted images) and Petroglyph
s (carved images) from this period. Both pictographs and petroglyphs are known as rock art
.
File:MtnSheepPetroglyph.jpg|A petroglyph of a caravan of bighorn sheep
near Moab, Utah
, USA; a common theme in glyphs from the southwestern desert
File:Coso archaic.jpg|Archaic abstract curvilinear style petroglyphs, Coso Rock Art District
, California
Image:Petroglyphs in the Columbia River Gorge.jpg|Petroglyph from Columbia River Gorge
, Washington, USA
Image:Folsom point.png|Folsom
spear-point.
File:Bannerstone.jpg|Archaic bannerstone
, Ohio
File:Archaic point.jpg|Desert Archaic arrowhead
, Wilson Butte Cave
, Idaho
for use in shamanic
rituals. Indigenous peoples of the Canadian arctic have produced objects that could be classified as art since the time of the Dorset culture
. While the walrus ivory carvings of the Dorset were primarily shamanic, the art of the Thule people
who replaced them ca. 1000 CE was more decorative in character. With European contact the historic period of Inuit art began. In this period, which reached its height in the late 19th century, Inuit artisans created souvenirs for the crews of whaling ships and explorers. Common examples include cribbage
boards. Modern Inuit art began in the late 1940s, when with the encouragement of the Canadian government they began to produce prints and serpentine
sculptures for sale in the south.
Greenlandic Inuit, or Kalaallit
have a unique textile tradition intregrating skin-sewing, furs, and appliqué of small pieces of brightly dyed marine mammal organs. Women create elaborate netted beadwork collars. They have strong mask-making tradition and also are known for an art form called tupilaq
or an "evil spirit object." Traditional art making practices thrive in the Ammassalik
. Sperm whale
ivory remains a valued medium for carving.
Image:Yupik mask Branly 70-1999-1-2.jpg|Yupik fish Mask. Wood, Yukon/Kuskokwim region, Alaska, early 20th century.
File:KiAs 1.jpg|Giant Destroying Iglu, serpentine and leather sculpture by Kiugak Ashoona (Inuit
), Cape Dorset, Nunavat, 1999
Image:Inuitbasket.jpg|Baleen
basket with carved walrus ivory finial, woven by Kinguktuk (1871-1941), Barrow, Alaska
Image:Indian hard carved articles 1900.jpg|Various turn-of-the-century Inuit carvings, including cribbage boards and knives. Photo circa 1900
Image:Resolute Bay, Nunavut (2008) A Photo A Day (July 19, 2008).jpg|An Inuksuk ("Like a man") from Resolute Bay
. Photo July 2008.
File:Tupilak 1.jpg|Kalaallit
Tupilak from Greenland
are Subarctic peoples. While humans have lived in the region far longer, the oldest known surviving Subartic art is a petroglyph site in northwest Ontario
, dated to 5000 BCE. Caribou, and to a lesser extent moose
, are major resources, providing hides, antlers, sinew, and other artistic materials. Porcupine quillwork
embellishes hides and birchbark. After European contact with the influence of the Grey Nuns
, moosehair tufting
and floral glass beadwork became popular through the Subarctic.
File:Ak moosehair tufting.jpg|21st century Athabaskan moosehair tufting on beaded hide box, Fairbanks, Alaska
File:Assinaitappi.jpg|Tsuu T'ina painted hide tipi, Alberta, Canada
The art of the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian
and other smaller tribes living in the coastal areas of Washington State, Oregon
, and British Columbia
, is characterized by an extremely complex stylistic vocabulary expressed mainly in the medium of woodcarving. Famous examples include Totem pole
s, Transformation mask
s, and canoes.
Image:Tsimshian mask Louvre MH 51-35-3.jpg|Tsimshian
halait mask depicting a mosquito, British Columbia, 19th century. Louvre Museum.
Image:Casco y collera tlingit (M.A.N. Inv. 13909 y 13912) 01.jpg|Helmet and collar, wood, copper, leather and shell, 18th century, Tlingit. Museo de América, Madrid, Spain.
Image:Ketchican totem pole 2 stub.jpg|A totem pole
in Ketchikan, Alaska, in the Tlingit style.
File:Chilkat blanket univ alaska museum.jpg|Chilkat blanket, University of Alaska Museum, Fairbanks
File:Haida argillite carving BC 1850 nmai13-1875.jpg|Haida argillite carving, Haida Gwai, ca. 1850-1900, National Museum of the American Indian
Image:Sombrero de jefe de balleneros Nutka (M. América Inv.13570) 01.jpg|Cedar bark hat, Nuu-chah-nulth. Museo de América, Madrid, Spain.
at least since 2500 BCE. While there were many regionally distinct cultures, trade between them was common and they shared the practice of burying their dead in earthen mounds, which has preserved a large amount of their art. Because of this trait the cultures are collectively known as the Mound builders.
The Woodland Period
(1000 BCE–1000 CE) is divided in to early, middle, and late periods, and consisted of cultures that relied mostly on hunting and gathering for their subsistence. Ceramics made by the Deptford culture
(2500 BCE-100 CE) are the earliest evidence of an artistic tradition in this region. The Adena culture
are another well-known example of an early Woodland culture. They carved stone tablets with zoomorphic
designs, created pottery
, and fashioned costumes from animal hides and antlers for ceremonial rituals. Shellfish was a mainstay of their diet, and engraved shells have been found in their burial mounds.
The Middle Woodland Period was dominated by cultures of the Hopewell tradition (200-500). Their artwork encompassed a wide variety of jewelry and sculpture in stone, wood, and even human bone.
The Late Woodland Period (500-1000 CE) saw a decline in trade and in the size of settlements, and the creation of art likewise declined.
From the 12th century onward, the Iroquois
and nearby coastal tribes fashioned wampum
from shells and string; these were mnenomic devices, currency, and records of treaties.
Iroquois people carve False Face masks for healing rituals, but the traditional representatives of the tribes, the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee, are clear that these masks are not for sale or public display. The same can be said for Iroquois Corn Husk Society masks.
File:Mound City Chillicothe Ohio HRoe 2008.jpg|Hopewell
mounds from the Mound City Group
in Ohio
File:Hopewell culture nhp raven effigy pipe chillicothe ohio 2006.jpg|Carved soapstone pipe depicting a raven
, Hopewell tradition
Image:Hand Hopewell mica.jpg|Hand carved in mica
, Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
File:Hopewell culture falcon.jpg|Copper falcon from the Mound City Group
site of the Hopewell culture
File:Adena SerpMd gorget points HRoe 2009.jpg|Gorget
and spear points on display at the Serpent Mound
, Adena culture
File:Wampum William Penn Great Treaty.jpg|Great Treaty wampum belt given from the Lenape
to William Penn
, Pennsylvania
, 1682
File:JingleDress1.jpg|Modern jingle dress from Ojibwa tradition
File:Kanawha-Madonna.jpg|Kanawha Madonna
, a honey locust wood carving, West Virginia, ca. 1440—1600
inhabited portions of the state of Louisiana
from 2000–1000 BCE during the Archaic period. Many objects excavated at Poverty Point sites were made of materials that originated in distant places, including chipped stone projectile points and tools, ground stone plummets, gorgets and vessels, and shell and stone beads. Stone tools found at Poverty Point were made from raw materials which originated in the relatively nearby Ouachita and Ozark Mountains and from the much further away Ohio
and Tennessee River
valleys. Vessels were made from soapstone
which came from the Appalachian foothills
of Alabama
and Georgia
. Hand-modeled lowly fired clay objects occur in a variety of shapes including anthropomophic figurines and cooking balls.
File:Poverty Point clay utensils HRoe 2009.jpg|Clay cooking utensils, Poverty Point
File:Poverty Point female figurines HRoe 2009.jpg|Clay female figurines, Poverty Point
File:Poverty Point gorgets atlatl weights HRoe 2009.jpg|Carved gorgets and atlatl
weights, Poverty Point
The Mississippian culture
flourished in what is now the Midwestern
, Eastern
, and Southeastern United States
from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally. After adopting maize
agriculture the Mississippian culture became fully agrarian, as opposed to the hunting and gathering supplemented by part-time agriculture practiced by preceding woodland cultures. They built platform mound
s larger and more complex than those of their predecessors, and finished and developed more advanced ceramic techniques, commonly using ground mussel
shell as a tempering agent. Many were involved with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
, a pan-regional and pan-linguistic religious and trade network. The majority of the information known about the S.E.C.C. is derived from examination of the elaborate artworks left behind by its participants, including elaborate pottery
, shell gorget
s and cups, stone statuary
and Long-nosed god maskette
s. By the time of European contact the Mississippian societies were already experiencing severe social stress, and with the social upsets and diseases introduced by Europeans many of the societies collapsed and ceased to practice a Mississippian lifestyle, with an exception being the Natchez people
. Other tribes descended from Mississippian cultures include the Caddo
, Choctaw
, Muscogee Creek, Wichita
, and many other southeastern peoples.
The Calusa
peoples occupied the southern areas of Florida before European contact, and created carvings of animals.
The Seminoles are best known for their textile creations, especially patchwork clothing. Doll-making is another notable craft.
Image:Spiro engraved hero twins HRoe 2005.jpg|Engraved shell gorget
, Spiro Mounds
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Spiro ceremonial mace HRoe 2005.jpg|Ceremonial stone mace, Spiro Mounds
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Hampson effigypot HRoe 2006.jpg|Effigy head pot, Nodena Site
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Moundville stone pallette HRoe 2003.jpg|Engraved stone palette, Moundville Site
, back used for mixing paint (Mississippian culture)
Image:Spiro Lucifer Pipe HRoe 2005.jpg|Stone effigy pipe, Spiro Mounds
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Etowah statues HRoe 2007.jpg|Stone effigies, Etowah Site
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Mississippian Underwater Panther ceramic.JPG|Ceramic underwater panther
jug, Rose Mound (Mississippian culture)
Image:Calusa carved gator head.jpg|Alligator effigy, wood carving, Calusa
, Florida
for thousands of years. Early Plains cultures are commonly divided into four periods: Paleoindian (at least ca. 10,000–4000 BCE), Plains Archaic (ca. 4000–250 BCE), Plains Woodland (ca. 250 BCE–950 CE), Plains Village (ca. 950-1850 CE). The oldest known painted object in North American was found in the southern plains, the Cooper Bison Skull, found in Oklahoma and dated 10,900-10,200 BCE. It's painted with a red zizzag.
In the Plains Village period, the cultures of the area settled in enclosed clusters of rectangular houses and cultivated maize
. Various regional differences emerged, including Southern Plains, Central Plains, Oneota
, and Middle Missouri. Tribes were both nomadic hunters and semi-nomadic farmers. During the Plains Coalescent period (1400-European contact) some change, possibly drought, caused the mass migration of the population to the Eastern Woodlands region, and the Great Plains were sparsely populated until pressure from American settlers drove tribes into the area again.
The advent of the horse revolutionized the cultures of many historical Plains tribes. Horse culture
enabled tribes to live a completely nomadic existence, hunting buffalo. Buffalo hide clothing was decorated with porcupine quill embroidery
and beads – dentalium shells and elk teeth were prized materials. Later coins and glass beads acquired from trading were incorporated into Plains art. Plains beadwork
has flourished into contemporary times.
Buffalo was the preferred material for Plains hide painting
. Men painted narrative, pictorial designs recording personal exploits or visions. They also painted pictographic historical calendars known as Winter count
s. Women painted geometric designs on tanned robes and rawhide parfleche
s, which sometimes served as maps.
During the Reservation Era of the late 19th century, buffalo herds were systematically destroyed by non-native hunters. Due to the scarcity of hides, Plains artists adopted new painting surfaces, such as muslin or paper, giving birth to Ledger art
, so named for the ubiquitous ledger books used by Plains artists.
Image:Sioux-Womendress.jpg|Sioux
dress with fully beaded yoke.
Image:Bags and pouches of Sioux.jpg|Sioux beaded and painted rawhide parfleches.
Image:Blackhawk-spiritbeing.jpg|Ledger drawing of Haokah
(ca. 1880) by Black Hawk
(Lakota).
Image:Ledger-sm2.jpg|Kiowa
ledger art, possibly of the 1874 Buffalo Wallow battle, Red River War
.
Image:Peace pipe.jpg|Lakota (Sioux) chanunpa
pipestem from a ritual pipe
and upper Great Basin
, had been a center of trade. Plateau people traditionally settled near major river systems. Because of this, their art carries influences from other regions – from the Pacific Northwest coasts and Great Plains. Nez Perce, Yakama
, Umatilla
, and Cayuse
women weave flat, rectangular corn husks or hemp dogbane bags, which are decorated with "bold, geometric designs" in false embroidery. Plateau beadworkers are known for their contour-style beading and their elaborate horse regalia.
Great Basin tribes
have a sophisticated basket making tradition, as exemplified by Louisa Keyser (Washoe
), Lucy Telles
, Carrie Bethel
and Nellie Charlie
. After being displaced from their lands by non-Native settlers, Washoe wove baskets for the commodity market, especially 1895 to 1935. Paiute
, Shoshone
and Washoe basketmakers are known for their baskets that incorporate seed beads on the surface and for waterproof baskets.
Image:Wishram Petroglyphs.jpg|Wishram
petroglyphs, Columbia River, Oregon
Image:NEPE9896 Beaded-Bag.jpg|Nez Perce bag with contour beadwork, ca. 1850-60
Image:Nez Perce Shirt.jpg|Nez Perce man's beaded and quilled buckskin shirt with eagle feathers and ermine pelts, ca. 1880-5
Image:Beadedmoccasins.jpg|Shoshone
beaded men's moccasins, ca. 1900, Wyoming
Image:Datsolalee2.jpg|Washoe
artist Louisa Keyser (Datsolalee), with several of her baskets, c.1900.
Image:Lucy telles Paiute in Yosemite.jpg|Lucy Telles
(Yosemite–Mono Lake Paiute in Yosemite, California, 1933 displaying one of the large baskets for which she is known.
Image:Carrie Bethel basket.jpg|Basket by Carrie Bethel
(Mono Lake Paiute), California, 30" diam., ca. 1931-5
Image:UteBeadwork1.jpg|Ute
beadwork
arts. In the late 19th century Californian basket
s by artists in the Cahuilla
, Chumash, Pomo, Miwok
, Hupa
and many other tribes became popular with collectors, museums, and tourists. This resulted in great innovation in the form of the baskets. Many pieces by Native American basket weavers from all parts of California are in museum collections, such as the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
at Harvard University
, the Southwest Museum
, and the Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of the American Indian
.
California has a large number of pictographs and petroglyphs rock art
. One of the largest densities of petroglyphs in North America, by the Coso People
, is in Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons
in the Coso Rock Art District
of the northern Mojave Desert
in California.
The most elaborate pictographs in the U.S are considered to be the rock art of the Chumash people
, found in cave painting
s in present day Santa Barbara
, Ventura
, and San Luis Obispo Counties
. The Chumash cave painting
includes examples at Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park
and Burro Flats Painted Cave
.
image:2009 07 09 camino cielo paradise 137.jpg|Chumash rock art at Painted Cave
Image:Pomo 19th century basket 2 CAC.JPG|A basket made by the Pomo people
of northern California.
Image:Pomo Basket Bowl.jpg|Pomo beaded, coiled basket, sedgeroot, willow, glass beads, abalone, ca. 1880
Image:Yurok 20061109192219.jpg|Yurok baskets, Redwood National Park
Image:Yurok dance skirt 1 CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Yurok dance skirt, buckskin with abalone, pine nuts, beads, and metal, Stanford University
image:Hupa woman's cap CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Hupa
woman's cap, bear grass and conifer root, Stanford University
image:Hupa moccasins CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Hupa moccasins, Stanford
numerous pictographs and petroglyphs were created. The Fremont culture
and Ancient Pueblo Peoples
and later tribes' creations, in the Barrier Canyon Style
and others, are seen at present day Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel
and Horseshoe Canyon
, amongst other sites. Petroglyphs by these and the Mogollon culture's artists are represented in Dinosaur National Monument
and at Newspaper Rock
.
The Ancestral Pueblo
, or Anasazi, (1000 BCE–700 CE) are the ancestors of today's Pueblo tribes. Their culture formed in the American southwest, after the cultivation of corn was introduced from Mexico around 1200 BCE. People of this region developed an agrarian lifestyle, cultivating food, storage gourds, and cotton with irrigation or xeriscaping
techniques. They lived in sedentary towns, so pottery, used to store water and grain, was ubiquitous.
For hundreds of years, Ancestral Pueblo created utilitarian grayware and black-on-white pottery and occasionally orange or red ceramics. In historical times, Hopi
created olla
s, dough bowls, and food bowls of different sizes for daily use, but they also made more elaborate ceremonial mugs, jugs, ladles, seed jars and those vessels for ritual use, and these were usually finished with polished surfaces and decorated with black painted designs. At the turn of the 20th century, Hopi potter Nampeyo
famous revived Sikyatki
-style pottery, originated on First Mesa in the 14th to 17th centuries.
Southwest architecture includes Cliff dwellings, multi-story settlements carved from living rock; pit houses; and adobe
and sandstone
pueblo
s. One of the most elaborate and largest ancient settlements is Chaco Canyon in New Mexico
, which includes 15 major complexes of sandstone and timber. These are connected by a network of roads. Construction for the largest of these settlements, Pueblo Bonito
, began 1080 years before present
. Pueblo Bonito contains over 800 rooms.
Turquoise
, jet, and spiny oyster shell have been traditionally used by Ancestral Pueblo for jewelry, and they developed sophisticated inlay
techniques centuries ago.
Around 200 CE the Hohokam
culture developed in Arizona. They are the ancestors of the Tohono O'odham
and Akimel O'odham or Pima tribes. The Mimbres, a subgroup of the Mogollon culture, are especially notable for the narrative paintings on their pottery.
Within the last millennium, Athabaskan peoples emigrated from northern Canada in the southwest. These include the Navajo
and Apache
. Sandpainting
is an aspect of Navajo healing ceremonies that inspired an art form. Navajos learned to weave on upright looms from Pueblos and wove blankets that were eagerly collected by Great Basin
and Plains tribes
in the 18th and 19th centuries. After the introduction of the railroad in the 1880s, imported blankets became plentiful and inexpensive, so Navajo weavers switched to producing rugs
for trade.
In the 1850s, Navajos adopted silversmith
ing from the Mexicans. Atsidi Sani
(Old Smith) was the first Navajo silversmith, but he had many students, and the technology quickly spread to surrounding tribes. Today thousands of artists produce silver jewelry with turquoise. Hopi are renowned for their overlay
silver work and cottonwood carvings. Zuni artists are admired for their cluster work jewelry, showcasing turquoise designs, as well as their elaborate, pictorial stone inlay in silver.
Image:Basket of Basketmaker Pueblo people.jpg|Basket, Basketmaker Culture
, Ancestral Pueblo
Image:RochesterPanel 01 2008.JPG|Rochester Rock Art Panel
in the San Rafael Swell
in Utah
, USA
File:Hohokam cliff dwelling (Montezuma Castle), Arizona.jpg|Montezuma Castle
, a Sinagua
cliff dwelling in Arizona
, ca. 700 CE–1425 CE
Image:Hohokam shell etched.jpg|Etched shell, Hohokam
Image:Chaco Anasazi canteen NPS.jpg|Ancestral Pueblo canteen, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
, ca. 700 CE–1100 CE
Image:Mimbres p1070222.jpg|Mimbres bowls at Stanford University
Image:Navajo rug.jpg|A Navajo rug
.
Image:Navajo sandpainting.jpg|Navajo
Sandpainting
.
File:The Childrens Museum of Indianapolis - Storyteller Under Sunny Skies clay sculpture.jpg|"Storyteller Under Sunny Skies," by Rose Pecos-SunRhodes, Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico (1993), a clay sculpture in the permanent collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
The cultural development of ancient Mesoamerica
was generally divided along east and west. The stable Maya culture was most dominant in the east, especially the Yucatán Peninsula, while in the west more varied developments took place in subregions. These included West Mexican
(1000-1), Teotihuacan (1-500), Mixtec (1000–1200), and Aztec (1200-1521).
Central America
n civilizations generally lived to the regions south of modern-day Mexico, although there was some overlap.
The most famous artistic creations of the Olmec are colossal basalt heads, believed to be portraits of rulers that were erected to advertise their great power. The Olmec also sculpted votive figurines
that they buried beneath the floors of their houses for unknown reasons. These were most often modeled in terracotta, but also occasionally carved from jade
or serpentine
.
Image:Mexico.Tab.OlmecHead.01.jpg|Monument 1, one of the four Olmec colossal heads at La Venta
. This one is nearly 3 metres (9 ft) tall.
Image:San Martin Pajapan Monument 1 retouched.jpg|Not all monumental art was associated with towns or villages - The San Martin Pajapan Monument 1
was found at the peak of a dormant volcano.
Image:Olmec figurine, serpentine.jpg|An "elongated man" figurine, dark green serpentine
.
Image:The Wrestler (Olmec) by DeLange.jpg|The Wrestler
(1500-400 BCE) is an Olmec
basalt
statuette, likely a personal portrait.
Image:Las Limas Monument 1 (O Cadena).jpg|Las Limas Monument 1
. Greenstone, Middle Formative Period (1000 – 600 BCE). Discovered 1965 near Jesús Carranza, Veracruz, Mexico. Xalapa Museum of Anthropology, Veracruz
Image:Harvestermountainlord.jpg|Left side image of La Mojarra Stela 1 showing a person identified as "Harvester Mountain Lord" (Epi-Olmec culture
)
Image:British Museum Olmec jade votive axe.jpg|An Olmec jade votive axe in the British Museum. 1200-400 BCE.
File:Olmec celt 801.jpg|Olmec celt.
File:Olmec mask 802.jpg|Jade Olmec warriors mask
File:Olmec fish vessel.jpg|Black granite fish vessel
File:Olmecmask.jpg|Jade ceremonial mask
File:Olmeken - Menschenkopf 1.jpg|Iron mask
was a city built in the Valley of Mexico
, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian
Americas. Established around 200 BCE, the city fell between the 7th and 8th century CE. Teotihuacan has numerous well-preserved mural
s.
Image:Teotihuacan_mask_Louvre_MH_78-1-187.jpg|Marble mask, 3rd - 7th century
Image:Teotimask2.jpg|Serpentine mask, 3rd-6th century
Image:teotihuacanmask.jpg|Turquoise mask pendent, 3rd-6th
Image:Great Goddess of Teotihuacan (T Aleto).jpg|A mural showing what has been identified as the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan.
Image:Facade of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent (Teotihuacán).jpg|Restored partion of Teotihucan architecture showing the typical Mesoamerican use of red paint complemented on gold and jade decoration upon marble and granite.
Image:British Museum Teotihuacan jaguar.jpg|Jaguar sculpture (150 BCE – 750 CE).
Image:Teotihuacán - Tlaloc-Maske.jpg|Iron Tlaloc mask
Image:Teotihuacán - Palacio de Atetelco Wandmalerei 3.jpg|Wall design in the palace of Atetelco
File:Tapadera de incensario teotihuacana (M. América Inv.91-11-45) 01.jpg|Teotihuacan incense burner
File:Teotihuacan mask 802.jpg|White polished marble mask
File:QuetzalTeotihuacan.JPG|Stone carving of the feathered dragon Quetzalcoatl
File:Teotihuacan mask 801.jpg|Marble mask
speaks of Remojadas' "magnificent hollow figures with expressive faces, in majestic postures and wearing elaborate paraphernalia indicated by added clay elements."
Image:Remojadas Chieftain 1 Art Institute.jpg|A large terracotta figurine of a young chieftain in the Remojadas style. 300–600 CE; Height: 31 in (79 cm).
File:HeadScuptureYTajin.JPG|Limestone head sculpture
File:Male-female duality figure from Remojadas.jpg|Male-female duality figure from Remojadas
, 200–500 CE. Note the feminine breast and birds on the right side of the figure.
File:El Tajin Ballcourt Mural (Tom Aleto).jpg|One of a series of murals from the South Ballcourt
at El Tajin
, showing the sacrifice of a ballplayer.
File:Puebla - Museo Amparo - Flûte de Romojadan en céramique, Veracruz 600 dC.JPG|Intricate multichambered Remojada flute
File:Altar urn Collection H Law 53 n1.jpg|Veracruz altar urn
File:WLA lacma 700 ceramic ocarina.jpg|Ceramic frog ocarina
File:Veracruz El Tajin head.jpg|Stone head of a woman from El Tajin
, in present-day Oaxaca
, Mexico. The Monte Alban periods are divided into I, II, and III, which range from 200 BCE to 600 CE.
File:MonteAlbanMaskMusJadeSanCri.JPG |Jade Zapotec warriors mask
Image:Jaguar trouvé à Oaxaca.jpg|Clay jaguar statue, Monte Alban
, 200 BCE–600 CE. H 22" (56 cm). American Museum of Natural History.
File:Dios Cocijo.jpg|Seated Zapotec religious priest
Image:Monte Alban - Fledermaus.jpg|Clay bat statue, Monte Alban.
Image:British Museum Zapotec funerary urn 1.jpg|Ceramic urn, 200 BCE-800 CE, British Museum.
File:WLA lacma 1300 ceramic vessel.jpg|Ceramic Zapotec vessel
File:Puebla - Museo Amparo - Statuette des états théocratiques, période classique, Zapoteca.JPG|Zapotec warrior sculpture
File:Monte alban oaxaca mask.jpg|Zapotec mask from Monte Alban
File:Monte Alban - Goldenes Ohrgehänge.jpg|Golden ornamentation worn by Zapotec government officials
File:Schmuckscheibe Monte Alban.jpg|Jade inlaid Zapotec jewelery
File:Monte Alban - Keramik 1.jpg|Zapotec ceramic vessel from Zaachila
File:Zapotec Urn Cociyo Kimbell.jpg|Urn in the form of the rain god Cociyo
occupied the south of Mexico
, all of Guatemala
and Belize
, and the western portions of Honduras
and El Salvador
.
Image:Maya eccentric.jpg|Classic Period Maya eccentric flint, possibly from Copán
or Quiriguá
, Musées Roayaux d'art et d'Histoire, Brussels.
Image:Jaguar vase.jpg|Maya court
scene painting on Lord of the Jaguar Pelt Throne vase, 700-800 CE.
File:Palenque - Pakal - Grabbeigabe.jpg|Jade mask from Palenque
File:Urna funeraria maya Kinich Ahau (M. América Inv.91-11-12) 01.jpg|Maya funery urn from Kinich Ahau
File:Cancuenpanel3.jpg|The third Cancuen panel depicting King T'ah 'ak' Cha'an
File:Jaina Figurine 1 (T Aleto).jpg|Jaina Island ceramic male figurine, 650-800 CE.
File:Maya jade plaque.jpg|Maya jade plaque
File:Maya Räuchergefäss Sonnengott 2 EthnM.jpg|Sun god sculpture made of clay
File:Maya flask DYM 92.166.23.JPG|Maya flask for holding alcoholic beverages
Image:K'inich Janaab Pakal I v2.jpg|Portrait of K'inich Janaab Pakal I (603-683 CE), Palenque king, stucco, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City.
File:Maya Vessel with an enthroned Lord Kimbell.jpg|Mayan cups detailed with ink inscriptions
File:Codex at Copan.jpg|Maya codex from Copan
File:Olmeca-Xicalana murals from Cacaxtla.jpg|Murals from Cacaxtla
File:MayaCampecheMask1.JPG|Jade Maya ceremonial mask
File:WLA metmuseum Maya Double Chambered Vessel 5th C.jpg|Double chambered Iron vessel
File:Mayan clothing - Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde München - DSC08519.JPG|Maya robe and tunic from the Kiche Maya
File:Piedrasnegrastrono.jpg|Maya bench
File:Tripod vessel with lid, Mexico, Campeche, Classic Myan period, c. 450-500 C.E., brown pottery with burnished brown slip, Honolulu Academy of Arts.jpg|Classical period Tripod vessel c.450-500 C.E.
File:WLA lacma Mayan deity head.jpg|Maya warrior helmet
File:Nobleman offering cocoa paste.jpg|Maya nobleman offering cocoa
File:Old God vase Collection Henry Law 155.jpg|Maya vessel
File:Takalik Abaj obsidian 1.jpg|Raw obsidian and obsidian blades used by Maya soldiers
File:Maya Flöten Slg Ebnöther.jpg|Maya flutes
File:ElPetenMask1JadeSanCris.JPG|Jade Maya warriors mask from Peten
Image:Telamones Tula.jpg|The Atlantes — columns in the form of Toltec warriors in Tula
.
Image:Toltec-style Vessel 1.jpg|An expressive orange-ware clay vessel in the Toltec style.
File:Tula birdman.jpg|Toltec bird carving in granite at Tula
File:TulaPlumbatei.jpg|Toltec turtle vessel
Image:Oaxaca ocho venado.png|Mixtec king and warlord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw
(right) Meeting with Four Jaguar, in a depiction from the precolumbian Codex Zouche-Nuttall
.
Image:Snailshellpend-mixtec.jpg|Snail shell pendant, 900-1520 CE, gold, Dumbarton Oaks
Museum, Washington, DC
File:CloseUp-Mitla-Oaxaca-Mexico.jpg|Closeup view of Mixtec
stone mosaic-work at Mitla
. This was an inspiration for similar mosaics by Frank Lloyd Wright
.
File:12-05oaxaca077.jpg|Another view of the extraordinary Mixtec mosaics at Mitla
File:Escudo de Yanhuitlán.jpg|Mixtec warrior seal
File:Slate mask of Tlaloc (the rain god), Mixtec people, Valley of Oaxaca, c. 900-1200 CE.JPG|Slate mask of Tlaloc, god of rain c. 900-1200 CE
File:Mixtec pendant.jpg|Gold Mixtec pendant
File:Sahumador mixteco.jpg|Mixtec incense burner
Image:Huastec statue Tampico Inv D94-20-600.jpg
File:HPIM2116.JPG
Image:Huaxtèque Auch 1.jpg
Image:Huaxtèque Auch 2.jpg
File:Double Headed Turquoise Serpent.jpg|Double-headed serpent
- Turquoise, red and white mosaic on wood. H 20cm x L 43cm (8" x 17"). Possibly Mixtec. 1400-1521, British Museum
File:Aztecheaddress.jpg|Aztec headdress
File:Chalchiuhtlicue Maske.jpg|Marble mask of Chalchiuhtlicue, Aztec god of water
File:Cultura mixteca-azteca, ornamento labiale a forma di testa d'aquila in oro, 1200-1521 ca..JPG|Gold eagles head ornament worn by Aztec Eagle knights
File:Aztec ear flares, Art Institute.jpg|Aztec gold earings
File:MictlantecuhtliByPhilKonstantin.jpg|Granite statue of Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of the underworld
Image:Aztec or Mixtec sacrificial knife 2.jpg|Ceremonial, sacrificial knife, Aztec/Mixtec, Late Post-classic (1400-1500s), British Museum
File:Aztec wooden drum.jpg|Wooden Aztec drum
File:Aztec statue of Coatlicue, the earth goddess.jpg|Statue of Coatlicue, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City
File:Wooden Aztec sun stone.jpg|Wooden Aztec sun stone
File:20041229-Ocelotl-Cuauhxicalli (Museo Nacional de Antropología) MQ.jpg|Granite jaguar carving
File:Aztec vulture vessel.jpg|Aztec turtle vessel
File:Mexico - Museo de antropologia - Tonatiuh en jarre rouge.JPG|Vase of Tonatiuh
File:Monkeyjar.jpg|Monkey jar carved from onyx marble
File:Quetzalcoatl 801.jpg|Stone bust of the god Quetzalcoatl
File:Dvasijatemplomayor.JPG|Aztec ceramic vessel
Greater Nicoya
The ancient peoples of the Nicoya Peninsula
in present day Costa Rica traditionally sculpted birds in jade
, which were used for funeral ornaments. Around 500 CE gold ornaments replaced jade, possibly because of the depletion of jade resources.
Image:Metate Costa Rica.jpg|Metate
, Costa Rica, 300-700 CE
Image:Tolita-Tumaco ceramic sculpture from Ecuador.jpg|Tolita or Tumaco ceramic sculpture, Ecuador, 100 BCE-100 CE
Image:Figura masculina cultura Bahía (M.Am. Madrid) 01.jpg|Bahía Culture ceramic sculpture, Ecuador, 500 BCE-500 CE
File:Masked_Figure_Pendant_1.jpg|Masked figure pendant in jade, Costa Rica, 300-700 CE
istic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas
from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America, Mesoamerica, North America including Greenland
, as well as Siberian Yup'ik peoples who have great cultural overlap with Native Alaskan Yup'iks.
or Paleo-indian period is defined as approximately 18,000–8000 BCE. The period from around 8000–800 BCE is generally referred to as the Archaic period. The production of bannerstone
s, Projectile point
, Lithic reduction
styles and pictographic cave paintings are some of the art that remains from this time period.
Belonging in the Lithic stage, the oldest known art in the Americas is the Vero Beach
bone, possibly a mammoth bone, etched with a profile of walking mammoth that dates back to 11,000 BCE. The oldest known painted object in North American is the Cooper Bison Skull from 10,900–10,200 BCE. Lithic age art in South America includes Monte Alegre culture rock paintings created at Caverna da Pedra Pintada dating back to 9250–8550 BCE. Guitarrero Cave
in Peru has the earliest known textiles in South America, dating to 8000 BCE.
The southwestern United States and certain regions of the Andes have the highest concentration of pictographs (painted images) and Petroglyph
s (carved images) from this period. Both pictographs and petroglyphs are known as rock art
.
File:MtnSheepPetroglyph.jpg|A petroglyph of a caravan of bighorn sheep
near Moab, Utah
, USA; a common theme in glyphs from the southwestern desert
File:Coso archaic.jpg|Archaic abstract curvilinear style petroglyphs, Coso Rock Art District
, California
Image:Petroglyphs in the Columbia River Gorge.jpg|Petroglyph from Columbia River Gorge
, Washington, USA
Image:Folsom point.png|Folsom
spear-point.
File:Bannerstone.jpg|Archaic bannerstone
, Ohio
File:Archaic point.jpg|Desert Archaic arrowhead
, Wilson Butte Cave
, Idaho
for use in shamanic
rituals. Indigenous peoples of the Canadian arctic have produced objects that could be classified as art since the time of the Dorset culture
. While the walrus ivory carvings of the Dorset were primarily shamanic, the art of the Thule people
who replaced them ca. 1000 CE was more decorative in character. With European contact the historic period of Inuit art began. In this period, which reached its height in the late 19th century, Inuit artisans created souvenirs for the crews of whaling ships and explorers. Common examples include cribbage
boards. Modern Inuit art began in the late 1940s, when with the encouragement of the Canadian government they began to produce prints and serpentine
sculptures for sale in the south.
Greenlandic Inuit, or Kalaallit
have a unique textile tradition intregrating skin-sewing, furs, and appliqué of small pieces of brightly dyed marine mammal organs. Women create elaborate netted beadwork collars. They have strong mask-making tradition and also are known for an art form called tupilaq
or an "evil spirit object." Traditional art making practices thrive in the Ammassalik
. Sperm whale
ivory remains a valued medium for carving.
Image:Yupik mask Branly 70-1999-1-2.jpg|Yupik fish Mask. Wood, Yukon/Kuskokwim region, Alaska, early 20th century.
File:KiAs 1.jpg|Giant Destroying Iglu, serpentine and leather sculpture by Kiugak Ashoona (Inuit
), Cape Dorset, Nunavat, 1999
Image:Inuitbasket.jpg|Baleen
basket with carved walrus ivory finial, woven by Kinguktuk (1871-1941), Barrow, Alaska
Image:Indian hard carved articles 1900.jpg|Various turn-of-the-century Inuit carvings, including cribbage boards and knives. Photo circa 1900
Image:Resolute Bay, Nunavut (2008) A Photo A Day (July 19, 2008).jpg|An Inuksuk ("Like a man") from Resolute Bay
. Photo July 2008.
File:Tupilak 1.jpg|Kalaallit
Tupilak from Greenland
are Subarctic peoples. While humans have lived in the region far longer, the oldest known surviving Subartic art is a petroglyph site in northwest Ontario
, dated to 5000 BCE. Caribou, and to a lesser extent moose
, are major resources, providing hides, antlers, sinew, and other artistic materials. Porcupine quillwork
embellishes hides and birchbark. After European contact with the influence of the Grey Nuns
, moosehair tufting
and floral glass beadwork became popular through the Subarctic.
File:Ak moosehair tufting.jpg|21st century Athabaskan moosehair tufting on beaded hide box, Fairbanks, Alaska
File:Assinaitappi.jpg|Tsuu T'ina painted hide tipi, Alberta, Canada
The art of the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian
and other smaller tribes living in the coastal areas of Washington State, Oregon
, and British Columbia
, is characterized by an extremely complex stylistic vocabulary expressed mainly in the medium of woodcarving. Famous examples include Totem pole
s, Transformation mask
s, and canoes.
Image:Tsimshian mask Louvre MH 51-35-3.jpg|Tsimshian
halait mask depicting a mosquito, British Columbia, 19th century. Louvre Museum.
Image:Casco y collera tlingit (M.A.N. Inv. 13909 y 13912) 01.jpg|Helmet and collar, wood, copper, leather and shell, 18th century, Tlingit. Museo de América, Madrid, Spain.
Image:Ketchican totem pole 2 stub.jpg|A totem pole
in Ketchikan, Alaska, in the Tlingit style.
File:Chilkat blanket univ alaska museum.jpg|Chilkat blanket, University of Alaska Museum, Fairbanks
File:Haida argillite carving BC 1850 nmai13-1875.jpg|Haida argillite carving, Haida Gwai, ca. 1850-1900, National Museum of the American Indian
Image:Sombrero de jefe de balleneros Nutka (M. América Inv.13570) 01.jpg|Cedar bark hat, Nuu-chah-nulth. Museo de América, Madrid, Spain.
at least since 2500 BCE. While there were many regionally distinct cultures, trade between them was common and they shared the practice of burying their dead in earthen mounds, which has preserved a large amount of their art. Because of this trait the cultures are collectively known as the Mound builders.
The Woodland Period
(1000 BCE–1000 CE) is divided in to early, middle, and late periods, and consisted of cultures that relied mostly on hunting and gathering for their subsistence. Ceramics made by the Deptford culture
(2500 BCE-100 CE) are the earliest evidence of an artistic tradition in this region. The Adena culture
are another well-known example of an early Woodland culture. They carved stone tablets with zoomorphic
designs, created pottery
, and fashioned costumes from animal hides and antlers for ceremonial rituals. Shellfish was a mainstay of their diet, and engraved shells have been found in their burial mounds.
The Middle Woodland Period was dominated by cultures of the Hopewell tradition (200-500). Their artwork encompassed a wide variety of jewelry and sculpture in stone, wood, and even human bone.
The Late Woodland Period (500-1000 CE) saw a decline in trade and in the size of settlements, and the creation of art likewise declined.
From the 12th century onward, the Iroquois
and nearby coastal tribes fashioned wampum
from shells and string; these were mnenomic devices, currency, and records of treaties.
Iroquois people carve False Face masks for healing rituals, but the traditional representatives of the tribes, the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee, are clear that these masks are not for sale or public display. The same can be said for Iroquois Corn Husk Society masks.
File:Mound City Chillicothe Ohio HRoe 2008.jpg|Hopewell
mounds from the Mound City Group
in Ohio
File:Hopewell culture nhp raven effigy pipe chillicothe ohio 2006.jpg|Carved soapstone pipe depicting a raven
, Hopewell tradition
Image:Hand Hopewell mica.jpg|Hand carved in mica
, Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
File:Hopewell culture falcon.jpg|Copper falcon from the Mound City Group
site of the Hopewell culture
File:Adena SerpMd gorget points HRoe 2009.jpg|Gorget
and spear points on display at the Serpent Mound
, Adena culture
File:Wampum William Penn Great Treaty.jpg|Great Treaty wampum belt given from the Lenape
to William Penn
, Pennsylvania
, 1682
File:JingleDress1.jpg|Modern jingle dress from Ojibwa tradition
File:Kanawha-Madonna.jpg|Kanawha Madonna
, a honey locust wood carving, West Virginia, ca. 1440—1600
inhabited portions of the state of Louisiana
from 2000–1000 BCE during the Archaic period. Many objects excavated at Poverty Point sites were made of materials that originated in distant places, including chipped stone projectile points and tools, ground stone plummets, gorgets and vessels, and shell and stone beads. Stone tools found at Poverty Point were made from raw materials which originated in the relatively nearby Ouachita and Ozark Mountains and from the much further away Ohio
and Tennessee River
valleys. Vessels were made from soapstone
which came from the Appalachian foothills
of Alabama
and Georgia
. Hand-modeled lowly fired clay objects occur in a variety of shapes including anthropomophic figurines and cooking balls.
File:Poverty Point clay utensils HRoe 2009.jpg|Clay cooking utensils, Poverty Point
File:Poverty Point female figurines HRoe 2009.jpg|Clay female figurines, Poverty Point
File:Poverty Point gorgets atlatl weights HRoe 2009.jpg|Carved gorgets and atlatl
weights, Poverty Point
The Mississippian culture
flourished in what is now the Midwestern
, Eastern
, and Southeastern United States
from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally. After adopting maize
agriculture the Mississippian culture became fully agrarian, as opposed to the hunting and gathering supplemented by part-time agriculture practiced by preceding woodland cultures. They built platform mound
s larger and more complex than those of their predecessors, and finished and developed more advanced ceramic techniques, commonly using ground mussel
shell as a tempering agent. Many were involved with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
, a pan-regional and pan-linguistic religious and trade network. The majority of the information known about the S.E.C.C. is derived from examination of the elaborate artworks left behind by its participants, including elaborate pottery
, shell gorget
s and cups, stone statuary
and Long-nosed god maskette
s. By the time of European contact the Mississippian societies were already experiencing severe social stress, and with the social upsets and diseases introduced by Europeans many of the societies collapsed and ceased to practice a Mississippian lifestyle, with an exception being the Natchez people
. Other tribes descended from Mississippian cultures include the Caddo
, Choctaw
, Muscogee Creek, Wichita
, and many other southeastern peoples.
The Calusa
peoples occupied the southern areas of Florida before European contact, and created carvings of animals.
The Seminoles are best known for their textile creations, especially patchwork clothing. Doll-making is another notable craft.
Image:Spiro engraved hero twins HRoe 2005.jpg|Engraved shell gorget
, Spiro Mounds
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Spiro ceremonial mace HRoe 2005.jpg|Ceremonial stone mace, Spiro Mounds
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Hampson effigypot HRoe 2006.jpg|Effigy head pot, Nodena Site
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Moundville stone pallette HRoe 2003.jpg|Engraved stone palette, Moundville Site
, back used for mixing paint (Mississippian culture)
Image:Spiro Lucifer Pipe HRoe 2005.jpg|Stone effigy pipe, Spiro Mounds
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Etowah statues HRoe 2007.jpg|Stone effigies, Etowah Site
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Mississippian Underwater Panther ceramic.JPG|Ceramic underwater panther
jug, Rose Mound (Mississippian culture)
Image:Calusa carved gator head.jpg|Alligator effigy, wood carving, Calusa
, Florida
for thousands of years. Early Plains cultures are commonly divided into four periods: Paleoindian (at least ca. 10,000–4000 BCE), Plains Archaic (ca. 4000–250 BCE), Plains Woodland (ca. 250 BCE–950 CE), Plains Village (ca. 950-1850 CE). The oldest known painted object in North American was found in the southern plains, the Cooper Bison Skull, found in Oklahoma and dated 10,900-10,200 BCE. It's painted with a red zizzag.
In the Plains Village period, the cultures of the area settled in enclosed clusters of rectangular houses and cultivated maize
. Various regional differences emerged, including Southern Plains, Central Plains, Oneota
, and Middle Missouri. Tribes were both nomadic hunters and semi-nomadic farmers. During the Plains Coalescent period (1400-European contact) some change, possibly drought, caused the mass migration of the population to the Eastern Woodlands region, and the Great Plains were sparsely populated until pressure from American settlers drove tribes into the area again.
The advent of the horse revolutionized the cultures of many historical Plains tribes. Horse culture
enabled tribes to live a completely nomadic existence, hunting buffalo. Buffalo hide clothing was decorated with porcupine quill embroidery
and beads – dentalium shells and elk teeth were prized materials. Later coins and glass beads acquired from trading were incorporated into Plains art. Plains beadwork
has flourished into contemporary times.
Buffalo was the preferred material for Plains hide painting
. Men painted narrative, pictorial designs recording personal exploits or visions. They also painted pictographic historical calendars known as Winter count
s. Women painted geometric designs on tanned robes and rawhide parfleche
s, which sometimes served as maps.
During the Reservation Era of the late 19th century, buffalo herds were systematically destroyed by non-native hunters. Due to the scarcity of hides, Plains artists adopted new painting surfaces, such as muslin or paper, giving birth to Ledger art
, so named for the ubiquitous ledger books used by Plains artists.
Image:Sioux-Womendress.jpg|Sioux
dress with fully beaded yoke.
Image:Bags and pouches of Sioux.jpg|Sioux beaded and painted rawhide parfleches.
Image:Blackhawk-spiritbeing.jpg|Ledger drawing of Haokah
(ca. 1880) by Black Hawk
(Lakota).
Image:Ledger-sm2.jpg|Kiowa
ledger art, possibly of the 1874 Buffalo Wallow battle, Red River War
.
Image:Peace pipe.jpg|Lakota (Sioux) chanunpa
pipestem from a ritual pipe
and upper Great Basin
, had been a center of trade. Plateau people traditionally settled near major river systems. Because of this, their art carries influences from other regions – from the Pacific Northwest coasts and Great Plains. Nez Perce, Yakama
, Umatilla
, and Cayuse
women weave flat, rectangular corn husks or hemp dogbane bags, which are decorated with "bold, geometric designs" in false embroidery. Plateau beadworkers are known for their contour-style beading and their elaborate horse regalia.
Great Basin tribes
have a sophisticated basket making tradition, as exemplified by Louisa Keyser (Washoe
), Lucy Telles
, Carrie Bethel
and Nellie Charlie
. After being displaced from their lands by non-Native settlers, Washoe wove baskets for the commodity market, especially 1895 to 1935. Paiute
, Shoshone
and Washoe basketmakers are known for their baskets that incorporate seed beads on the surface and for waterproof baskets.
Image:Wishram Petroglyphs.jpg|Wishram
petroglyphs, Columbia River, Oregon
Image:NEPE9896 Beaded-Bag.jpg|Nez Perce bag with contour beadwork, ca. 1850-60
Image:Nez Perce Shirt.jpg|Nez Perce man's beaded and quilled buckskin shirt with eagle feathers and ermine pelts, ca. 1880-5
Image:Beadedmoccasins.jpg|Shoshone
beaded men's moccasins, ca. 1900, Wyoming
Image:Datsolalee2.jpg|Washoe
artist Louisa Keyser (Datsolalee), with several of her baskets, c.1900.
Image:Lucy telles Paiute in Yosemite.jpg|Lucy Telles
(Yosemite–Mono Lake Paiute in Yosemite, California, 1933 displaying one of the large baskets for which she is known.
Image:Carrie Bethel basket.jpg|Basket by Carrie Bethel
(Mono Lake Paiute), California, 30" diam., ca. 1931-5
Image:UteBeadwork1.jpg|Ute
beadwork
arts. In the late 19th century Californian basket
s by artists in the Cahuilla
, Chumash, Pomo, Miwok
, Hupa
and many other tribes became popular with collectors, museums, and tourists. This resulted in great innovation in the form of the baskets. Many pieces by Native American basket weavers from all parts of California are in museum collections, such as the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
at Harvard University
, the Southwest Museum
, and the Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of the American Indian
.
California has a large number of pictographs and petroglyphs rock art
. One of the largest densities of petroglyphs in North America, by the Coso People
, is in Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons
in the Coso Rock Art District
of the northern Mojave Desert
in California.
The most elaborate pictographs in the U.S are considered to be the rock art of the Chumash people
, found in cave painting
s in present day Santa Barbara
, Ventura
, and San Luis Obispo Counties
. The Chumash cave painting
includes examples at Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park
and Burro Flats Painted Cave
.
image:2009 07 09 camino cielo paradise 137.jpg|Chumash rock art at Painted Cave
Image:Pomo 19th century basket 2 CAC.JPG|A basket made by the Pomo people
of northern California.
Image:Pomo Basket Bowl.jpg|Pomo beaded, coiled basket, sedgeroot, willow, glass beads, abalone, ca. 1880
Image:Yurok 20061109192219.jpg|Yurok baskets, Redwood National Park
Image:Yurok dance skirt 1 CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Yurok dance skirt, buckskin with abalone, pine nuts, beads, and metal, Stanford University
image:Hupa woman's cap CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Hupa
woman's cap, bear grass and conifer root, Stanford University
image:Hupa moccasins CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Hupa moccasins, Stanford
numerous pictographs and petroglyphs were created. The Fremont culture
and Ancient Pueblo Peoples
and later tribes' creations, in the Barrier Canyon Style
and others, are seen at present day Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel
and Horseshoe Canyon
, amongst other sites. Petroglyphs by these and the Mogollon culture's artists are represented in Dinosaur National Monument
and at Newspaper Rock
.
The Ancestral Pueblo
, or Anasazi, (1000 BCE–700 CE) are the ancestors of today's Pueblo tribes. Their culture formed in the American southwest, after the cultivation of corn was introduced from Mexico around 1200 BCE. People of this region developed an agrarian lifestyle, cultivating food, storage gourds, and cotton with irrigation or xeriscaping
techniques. They lived in sedentary towns, so pottery, used to store water and grain, was ubiquitous.
For hundreds of years, Ancestral Pueblo created utilitarian grayware and black-on-white pottery and occasionally orange or red ceramics. In historical times, Hopi
created olla
s, dough bowls, and food bowls of different sizes for daily use, but they also made more elaborate ceremonial mugs, jugs, ladles, seed jars and those vessels for ritual use, and these were usually finished with polished surfaces and decorated with black painted designs. At the turn of the 20th century, Hopi potter Nampeyo
famous revived Sikyatki
-style pottery, originated on First Mesa in the 14th to 17th centuries.
Southwest architecture includes Cliff dwellings, multi-story settlements carved from living rock; pit houses; and adobe
and sandstone
pueblo
s. One of the most elaborate and largest ancient settlements is Chaco Canyon in New Mexico
, which includes 15 major complexes of sandstone and timber. These are connected by a network of roads. Construction for the largest of these settlements, Pueblo Bonito
, began 1080 years before present
. Pueblo Bonito contains over 800 rooms.
Turquoise
, jet, and spiny oyster shell have been traditionally used by Ancestral Pueblo for jewelry, and they developed sophisticated inlay
techniques centuries ago.
Around 200 CE the Hohokam
culture developed in Arizona. They are the ancestors of the Tohono O'odham
and Akimel O'odham or Pima tribes. The Mimbres, a subgroup of the Mogollon culture, are especially notable for the narrative paintings on their pottery.
Within the last millennium, Athabaskan peoples emigrated from northern Canada in the southwest. These include the Navajo
and Apache
. Sandpainting
is an aspect of Navajo healing ceremonies that inspired an art form. Navajos learned to weave on upright looms from Pueblos and wove blankets that were eagerly collected by Great Basin
and Plains tribes
in the 18th and 19th centuries. After the introduction of the railroad in the 1880s, imported blankets became plentiful and inexpensive, so Navajo weavers switched to producing rugs
for trade.
In the 1850s, Navajos adopted silversmith
ing from the Mexicans. Atsidi Sani
(Old Smith) was the first Navajo silversmith, but he had many students, and the technology quickly spread to surrounding tribes. Today thousands of artists produce silver jewelry with turquoise. Hopi are renowned for their overlay
silver work and cottonwood carvings. Zuni artists are admired for their cluster work jewelry, showcasing turquoise designs, as well as their elaborate, pictorial stone inlay in silver.
Image:Basket of Basketmaker Pueblo people.jpg|Basket, Basketmaker Culture
, Ancestral Pueblo
Image:RochesterPanel 01 2008.JPG|Rochester Rock Art Panel
in the San Rafael Swell
in Utah
, USA
File:Hohokam cliff dwelling (Montezuma Castle), Arizona.jpg|Montezuma Castle
, a Sinagua
cliff dwelling in Arizona
, ca. 700 CE–1425 CE
Image:Hohokam shell etched.jpg|Etched shell, Hohokam
Image:Chaco Anasazi canteen NPS.jpg|Ancestral Pueblo canteen, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
, ca. 700 CE–1100 CE
Image:Mimbres p1070222.jpg|Mimbres bowls at Stanford University
Image:Navajo rug.jpg|A Navajo rug
.
Image:Navajo sandpainting.jpg|Navajo
Sandpainting
.
File:The Childrens Museum of Indianapolis - Storyteller Under Sunny Skies clay sculpture.jpg|"Storyteller Under Sunny Skies," by Rose Pecos-SunRhodes, Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico (1993), a clay sculpture in the permanent collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
The cultural development of ancient Mesoamerica
was generally divided along east and west. The stable Maya culture was most dominant in the east, especially the Yucatán Peninsula, while in the west more varied developments took place in subregions. These included West Mexican
(1000-1), Teotihuacan (1-500), Mixtec (1000–1200), and Aztec (1200-1521).
Central America
n civilizations generally lived to the regions south of modern-day Mexico, although there was some overlap.
The most famous artistic creations of the Olmec are colossal basalt heads, believed to be portraits of rulers that were erected to advertise their great power. The Olmec also sculpted votive figurines
that they buried beneath the floors of their houses for unknown reasons. These were most often modeled in terracotta, but also occasionally carved from jade
or serpentine
.
Image:Mexico.Tab.OlmecHead.01.jpg|Monument 1, one of the four Olmec colossal heads at La Venta
. This one is nearly 3 metres (9 ft) tall.
Image:San Martin Pajapan Monument 1 retouched.jpg|Not all monumental art was associated with towns or villages - The San Martin Pajapan Monument 1
was found at the peak of a dormant volcano.
Image:Olmec figurine, serpentine.jpg|An "elongated man" figurine, dark green serpentine
.
Image:The Wrestler (Olmec) by DeLange.jpg|The Wrestler
(1500-400 BCE) is an Olmec
basalt
statuette, likely a personal portrait.
Image:Las Limas Monument 1 (O Cadena).jpg|Las Limas Monument 1
. Greenstone, Middle Formative Period (1000 – 600 BCE). Discovered 1965 near Jesús Carranza, Veracruz, Mexico. Xalapa Museum of Anthropology, Veracruz
Image:Harvestermountainlord.jpg|Left side image of La Mojarra Stela 1 showing a person identified as "Harvester Mountain Lord" (Epi-Olmec culture
)
Image:British Museum Olmec jade votive axe.jpg|An Olmec jade votive axe in the British Museum. 1200-400 BCE.
File:Olmec celt 801.jpg|Olmec celt.
File:Olmec mask 802.jpg|Jade Olmec warriors mask
File:Olmec fish vessel.jpg|Black granite fish vessel
File:Olmecmask.jpg|Jade ceremonial mask
File:Olmeken - Menschenkopf 1.jpg|Iron mask
was a city built in the Valley of Mexico
, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian
Americas. Established around 200 BCE, the city fell between the 7th and 8th century CE. Teotihuacan has numerous well-preserved mural
s.
Image:Teotihuacan_mask_Louvre_MH_78-1-187.jpg|Marble mask, 3rd - 7th century
Image:Teotimask2.jpg|Serpentine mask, 3rd-6th century
Image:teotihuacanmask.jpg|Turquoise mask pendent, 3rd-6th
Image:Great Goddess of Teotihuacan (T Aleto).jpg|A mural showing what has been identified as the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan.
Image:Facade of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent (Teotihuacán).jpg|Restored partion of Teotihucan architecture showing the typical Mesoamerican use of red paint complemented on gold and jade decoration upon marble and granite.
Image:British Museum Teotihuacan jaguar.jpg|Jaguar sculpture (150 BCE – 750 CE).
Image:Teotihuacán - Tlaloc-Maske.jpg|Iron Tlaloc mask
Image:Teotihuacán - Palacio de Atetelco Wandmalerei 3.jpg|Wall design in the palace of Atetelco
File:Tapadera de incensario teotihuacana (M. América Inv.91-11-45) 01.jpg|Teotihuacan incense burner
File:Teotihuacan mask 802.jpg|White polished marble mask
File:QuetzalTeotihuacan.JPG|Stone carving of the feathered dragon Quetzalcoatl
File:Teotihuacan mask 801.jpg|Marble mask
speaks of Remojadas' "magnificent hollow figures with expressive faces, in majestic postures and wearing elaborate paraphernalia indicated by added clay elements."
Image:Remojadas Chieftain 1 Art Institute.jpg|A large terracotta figurine of a young chieftain in the Remojadas style. 300–600 CE; Height: 31 in (79 cm).
File:HeadScuptureYTajin.JPG|Limestone head sculpture
File:Male-female duality figure from Remojadas.jpg|Male-female duality figure from Remojadas
, 200–500 CE. Note the feminine breast and birds on the right side of the figure.
File:El Tajin Ballcourt Mural (Tom Aleto).jpg|One of a series of murals from the South Ballcourt
at El Tajin
, showing the sacrifice of a ballplayer.
File:Puebla - Museo Amparo - Flûte de Romojadan en céramique, Veracruz 600 dC.JPG|Intricate multichambered Remojada flute
File:Altar urn Collection H Law 53 n1.jpg|Veracruz altar urn
File:WLA lacma 700 ceramic ocarina.jpg|Ceramic frog ocarina
File:Veracruz El Tajin head.jpg|Stone head of a woman from El Tajin
, in present-day Oaxaca
, Mexico. The Monte Alban periods are divided into I, II, and III, which range from 200 BCE to 600 CE.
File:MonteAlbanMaskMusJadeSanCri.JPG |Jade Zapotec warriors mask
Image:Jaguar trouvé à Oaxaca.jpg|Clay jaguar statue, Monte Alban
, 200 BCE–600 CE. H 22" (56 cm). American Museum of Natural History.
File:Dios Cocijo.jpg|Seated Zapotec religious priest
Image:Monte Alban - Fledermaus.jpg|Clay bat statue, Monte Alban.
Image:British Museum Zapotec funerary urn 1.jpg|Ceramic urn, 200 BCE-800 CE, British Museum.
File:WLA lacma 1300 ceramic vessel.jpg|Ceramic Zapotec vessel
File:Puebla - Museo Amparo - Statuette des états théocratiques, période classique, Zapoteca.JPG|Zapotec warrior sculpture
File:Monte alban oaxaca mask.jpg|Zapotec mask from Monte Alban
File:Monte Alban - Goldenes Ohrgehänge.jpg|Golden ornamentation worn by Zapotec government officials
File:Schmuckscheibe Monte Alban.jpg|Jade inlaid Zapotec jewelery
File:Monte Alban - Keramik 1.jpg|Zapotec ceramic vessel from Zaachila
File:Zapotec Urn Cociyo Kimbell.jpg|Urn in the form of the rain god Cociyo
occupied the south of Mexico
, all of Guatemala
and Belize
, and the western portions of Honduras
and El Salvador
.
Image:Maya eccentric.jpg|Classic Period Maya eccentric flint, possibly from Copán
or Quiriguá
, Musées Roayaux d'art et d'Histoire, Brussels.
Image:Jaguar vase.jpg|Maya court
scene painting on Lord of the Jaguar Pelt Throne vase, 700-800 CE.
File:Palenque - Pakal - Grabbeigabe.jpg|Jade mask from Palenque
File:Urna funeraria maya Kinich Ahau (M. América Inv.91-11-12) 01.jpg|Maya funery urn from Kinich Ahau
File:Cancuenpanel3.jpg|The third Cancuen panel depicting King T'ah 'ak' Cha'an
File:Jaina Figurine 1 (T Aleto).jpg|Jaina Island ceramic male figurine, 650-800 CE.
File:Maya jade plaque.jpg|Maya jade plaque
File:Maya Räuchergefäss Sonnengott 2 EthnM.jpg|Sun god sculpture made of clay
File:Maya flask DYM 92.166.23.JPG|Maya flask for holding alcoholic beverages
Image:K'inich Janaab Pakal I v2.jpg|Portrait of K'inich Janaab Pakal I (603-683 CE), Palenque king, stucco, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City.
File:Maya Vessel with an enthroned Lord Kimbell.jpg|Mayan cups detailed with ink inscriptions
File:Codex at Copan.jpg|Maya codex from Copan
File:Olmeca-Xicalana murals from Cacaxtla.jpg|Murals from Cacaxtla
File:MayaCampecheMask1.JPG|Jade Maya ceremonial mask
File:WLA metmuseum Maya Double Chambered Vessel 5th C.jpg|Double chambered Iron vessel
File:Mayan clothing - Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde München - DSC08519.JPG|Maya robe and tunic from the Kiche Maya
File:Piedrasnegrastrono.jpg|Maya bench
File:Tripod vessel with lid, Mexico, Campeche, Classic Myan period, c. 450-500 C.E., brown pottery with burnished brown slip, Honolulu Academy of Arts.jpg|Classical period Tripod vessel c.450-500 C.E.
File:WLA lacma Mayan deity head.jpg|Maya warrior helmet
File:Nobleman offering cocoa paste.jpg|Maya nobleman offering cocoa
File:Old God vase Collection Henry Law 155.jpg|Maya vessel
File:Takalik Abaj obsidian 1.jpg|Raw obsidian and obsidian blades used by Maya soldiers
File:Maya Flöten Slg Ebnöther.jpg|Maya flutes
File:ElPetenMask1JadeSanCris.JPG|Jade Maya warriors mask from Peten
Image:Telamones Tula.jpg|The Atlantes — columns in the form of Toltec warriors in Tula
.
Image:Toltec-style Vessel 1.jpg|An expressive orange-ware clay vessel in the Toltec style.
File:Tula birdman.jpg|Toltec bird carving in granite at Tula
File:TulaPlumbatei.jpg|Toltec turtle vessel
Image:Oaxaca ocho venado.png|Mixtec king and warlord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw
(right) Meeting with Four Jaguar, in a depiction from the precolumbian Codex Zouche-Nuttall
.
Image:Snailshellpend-mixtec.jpg|Snail shell pendant, 900-1520 CE, gold, Dumbarton Oaks
Museum, Washington, DC
File:CloseUp-Mitla-Oaxaca-Mexico.jpg|Closeup view of Mixtec
stone mosaic-work at Mitla
. This was an inspiration for similar mosaics by Frank Lloyd Wright
.
File:12-05oaxaca077.jpg|Another view of the extraordinary Mixtec mosaics at Mitla
File:Escudo de Yanhuitlán.jpg|Mixtec warrior seal
File:Slate mask of Tlaloc (the rain god), Mixtec people, Valley of Oaxaca, c. 900-1200 CE.JPG|Slate mask of Tlaloc, god of rain c. 900-1200 CE
File:Mixtec pendant.jpg|Gold Mixtec pendant
File:Sahumador mixteco.jpg|Mixtec incense burner
Image:Huastec statue Tampico Inv D94-20-600.jpg
File:HPIM2116.JPG
Image:Huaxtèque Auch 1.jpg
Image:Huaxtèque Auch 2.jpg
File:Double Headed Turquoise Serpent.jpg|Double-headed serpent
- Turquoise, red and white mosaic on wood. H 20cm x L 43cm (8" x 17"). Possibly Mixtec. 1400-1521, British Museum
File:Aztecheaddress.jpg|Aztec headdress
File:Chalchiuhtlicue Maske.jpg|Marble mask of Chalchiuhtlicue, Aztec god of water
File:Cultura mixteca-azteca, ornamento labiale a forma di testa d'aquila in oro, 1200-1521 ca..JPG|Gold eagles head ornament worn by Aztec Eagle knights
File:Aztec ear flares, Art Institute.jpg|Aztec gold earings
File:MictlantecuhtliByPhilKonstantin.jpg|Granite statue of Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of the underworld
Image:Aztec or Mixtec sacrificial knife 2.jpg|Ceremonial, sacrificial knife, Aztec/Mixtec, Late Post-classic (1400-1500s), British Museum
File:Aztec wooden drum.jpg|Wooden Aztec drum
File:Aztec statue of Coatlicue, the earth goddess.jpg|Statue of Coatlicue, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City
File:Wooden Aztec sun stone.jpg|Wooden Aztec sun stone
File:20041229-Ocelotl-Cuauhxicalli (Museo Nacional de Antropología) MQ.jpg|Granite jaguar carving
File:Aztec vulture vessel.jpg|Aztec turtle vessel
File:Mexico - Museo de antropologia - Tonatiuh en jarre rouge.JPG|Vase of Tonatiuh
File:Monkeyjar.jpg|Monkey jar carved from onyx marble
File:Quetzalcoatl 801.jpg|Stone bust of the god Quetzalcoatl
File:Dvasijatemplomayor.JPG|Aztec ceramic vessel
Greater Nicoya
The ancient peoples of the Nicoya Peninsula
in present day Costa Rica traditionally sculpted birds in jade
, which were used for funeral ornaments. Around 500 CE gold ornaments replaced jade, possibly because of the depletion of jade resources.
Image:Metate Costa Rica.jpg|Metate
, Costa Rica, 300-700 CE
Image:Tolita-Tumaco ceramic sculpture from Ecuador.jpg|Tolita or Tumaco ceramic sculpture, Ecuador, 100 BCE-100 CE
Image:Figura masculina cultura Bahía (M.Am. Madrid) 01.jpg|Bahía Culture ceramic sculpture, Ecuador, 500 BCE-500 CE
File:Masked_Figure_Pendant_1.jpg|Masked figure pendant in jade, Costa Rica, 300-700 CE
Image:Duho.jpg|Duho (Ceremonial wooden stool), Hispaniola
. Taíno
, 1000-1500 CE, carved lignum vitae
Image:Zemi figure Metropolitan.jpg|Taíno zemi
, ironwood with shell inlay, Dominican Republic
, 15th-16th c. Bowl used for cohoba
rituals Native American art history is a new and highly contested academic discipline, and these Eurocentric benchmarks are followed today less and less today. Many media considered appropriate for easel art were employed by Native artists for centuries, such as stone and wood sculpture and mural painting. Ancestral Pueblo artists painted with tempera on woven cotton fabric, at least 800 years ago. Certain Native artists used non-Indian art materials as soon as they became available. For example, Texcocan artist Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl
painted with ink and watercolor on paper in the late 16th century. Bound together in the Codex
Ixtlilxochitl, these portraits of historical Texcocan leaders are rendered with shading, modeling and anatomic accuracy. The Cuzco School
of Peru featured Quechua easel painters in the 17th and 18th centuries. The first cabinets of curiosities
in the 16th century, precursors to modern museums, featured Native American art.
It should be noted that the notion that fine art cannot be functional has not gained widespread acceptance in the Native American art world, as evidenced by the high esteem and value placed upon rugs, blankets, basketry, weapons, and other utilitarian items in Native American art shows. A dichotomy between fine art
and craft
is not commonly found in contemporary Native art. For example, the Cherokee Nation
honors its greatest artists as Living Treasures, including frog- and fish-gig
makers, flint knappers, and basket weavers
, alongside sculptors, painters, and textile artists. Art historian Dawn Ades writes, "For from being inferior, or purely decorative, crafts like textiles or ceramics, have always had the possibility of being the bearers of vital knowledge, beliefs and myths."
Recognizable art markets between Natives and non-Natives emerged upon contact, but the 1820-1840s were a highly prolific time. In the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes region, tribes dependent upon the rapidly diminishing fur trade adopted art production a means of financial support. A painting movement known as the Iroquois Realist School emerged among the Haudenosaunee in New York
in the 1820s, spearheaded by the brothers David
and Dennis Cusick
.
African-Ojibwe sculptor, Edmonia Lewis
maintained a studio in Rome, Italy and carved Neoclassicist
marble sculptors from the 1860s-1880s. Her mother belonged to the Mississauga
band of the Credit River Indian Reserve. Lewis exhibited widely, and a testament to her popularity during her own time was that President Ulysses S. Grant
commissioned her to carve his portrait in 1877.
Ho-Chunk
artist, Angel DeCora was the best known Native American artist before World War I. She was taken from her reservation and family to the Hampton Institute
, where she began her lengthy formal art training. Active in the Arts and Crafts Movement
, DeCora exhibited her paintings and design widely and illustrated books by Native authors. She strove to be tribally specific in her work and was revolutionary for portraying Indians in contemporary clothing of the early 20th century. She taught art to young Native students at Carlisle Indian Industrial School
and was an outspoken advocate of art as a means for Native Americans to maintain cultural pride, while finding a place in mainstream society.
The Kiowa Five
or Kiowa Six, a group of Kiowa painters from Oklahoma, met with international success when their mentor, Oscar Jacobson, showed their paintings in First International Art Exposition in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1928. They also participated in the 1932 Venice Biennale
, where their art display, according to Dorothy Dunn
, “was acclaimed the most popular exhibit among all the rich and varied displays assembled.”
The Santa Fe Indian Market
began in 1922. John Collier
became Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1933 and temporarily reversed the BIA's assimilationist policies by encouraging Native American arts and culture. By this time, Native American art exhibits and the art market increased, gaining wider audiences. In the 1920s and 30s, Indigenist art movements flourished in Peru
, Ecuador
, Bolivia
, and Mexico
, most famously with the Mexican Muralist movements
.
Basket weaving
is one of the ancient and most-widespread art forms in the Americas. From coiled sea lyme grass
baskets in Nunavut to bark baskets in Tierra del Fuego, Native artists weave baskets from a wide range of materials. Typically baskets are made of vegetable fibers, but Tohono O'odham are known for their horsehair baskets and Inupiaq artists weave baskets from baleen
, filtering plates of certain whales. Grand Traverse Band Kelly Church
, Wasco-Wishram
Pat Gold, and Eastern Band Cherokee Joel Queen all weave baskets from copper sheets or wire, and Mi'kmaq-Onondaga
conceptual artist Gail Tremblay
weaves baskets in the traditional fancywork patterns of her tribes from exposed film. Basketry can take many forms. Haida artist Lisa Telford uses cedar bark to weave both traditional functional baskets and impractical but beautiful cedar evening gowns and high-heeled shoes.
A range of native grasses provides material for Arctic baskets, as does baleen, which is a 20th century development. Baleen baskets are typically embellished with walrus ivory carvings. Cedar bark is often used in northwest coastal baskets. Throughout the Great Lakes and northeast, black ash and sweetgrass are woven into fancy work, featuring "porcupine" points, or decorated as strawberries. Bark baskets are traditional for gathering berries. Rivercane
is the preferred material in the Southeast, and Chitimacha
s are regarded as the finest rivercane weavers. In Oklahoma, rivercane is prized but rare so baskets are typically made of honeysuckle or buckbrush runners. Coiled baskets are popular in the southwest and the Hopi and Apache in particular are known for pictorial coiled basketry plaques. The Tohono O'odham are well known for their basket-weaving prowess, and evidenced by the success of Annie Antone
and Terrol Dew Johnson
.
California and Great Basin tribes are considered some of the finest basket weavers in the world. Juncus
is a common material in southern California, while sedge, willow, redbud, and devil's claw are also used. Pomo basket weavers are known to weave 60-100 stitches per inch and their rounded, coiled baskets adorned with quail's topknots, feathers, abalone, and clamshell discs are known as "treasure baskets." Three of the most celebrated Californian basket weavers were Elsie Allen
(Pomo), Laura Somersal (Wappo
), and the late Pomo-Patwin
medicine woman, Mabel McKay
, known for her biography, Weaving the Dream. Louisa Keyser
was a highly influential Washoe
basket weaver.
A complex technique called "doubleweave," which involves continuously weaving both an inside and outside surface is shared by the Choctaw
, Cherokee, Chitimacha, Tarahumara
, and Venezuelan tribes. Mike Dart
, Cherokee Nation
, is a contemporary practitioner of this technique. The Tarahumara, or Raramuri, of Copper Canyon
, Mexico typically weave with pine needles and sotol
. Yanomamo basket weavers of the Venezuelan Amazon paint their woven tray and burden baskets with geometric designs in charcoal and onto, a red berry. While in most tribes the basket weavers are often women, among the Waura tribe in Brazil, men weave baskets. They weave a wide range of styles, but the largest are called mayaku, which can be two feet wide and feature tight weaves with an impressive array of designs.
Today basket weaving often leads to environmental activism. Indiscriminate pesticide spraying endangers basket weavers' health. The black ash tree, used by basket weavers from Michigan to Maine, is threatened by the emerald ash borer
. Basket weaver Kelly Church has organized two conferences about the threat and teaches children how to harvest black ash seeds. Many native plants that basket weavers use are endangered. Rivercane only grows in 2% of its original territory. Cherokee basket weaver and ethnobotanist, Shawna Cain is working with her tribe to form the Cherokee Nation Native Plant Society. Tohono O'odham
basket weaver Terrol Dew Johnson
, known for his experimental use of gourds, beargrass, and other desert plants, took his interest in native plants and founded Tohono O'odham Community Action, which provides traditional wild desert foods for his tribe.
Beadwork
is a quintessentially Native American art form, but ironically uses beads imported from Europe and Asia. Glass beads have been in use for almost five centuries in the Americas. Today a wide range of beading styles flourish.
In the Great Lakes, Ursuline nuns introduced floral patterns to tribes, who quickly applied them to beadwork. Great Lakes tribes are known for their bandolier bags, that might take an entire year to complete. During the 20th century the Plateau tribes, such as the Nez Perce perfected contour-style beadwork, in which the lines of beads are stitch to emphasize the pictorial imagery. Plains tribes are master beaders, and today dance regalia for man and women feature a variety of beadwork styles. While Plains and Plateau tribes are renowned for their beaded horse trappings, Subarctic tribes such as the Dene
bead lavish floral dog blankets. Eastern tribes have a completely different beadwork aesthetic, and Innu
, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, and Haudenosaunee tribes are known for symmetrical scroll motifs in white beads, called the "double curve." Iroquois are also known for "embossed" beading in which strings pulled taunt force beads to pop up from the surface, creating a bas-relief. Tammy Rahr (Cayuga) is a contemporary practitioner of this style. Zuni artists have developed a tradition of three-dimensional beaded sculptures.
Huichol Indians of Jalisco
and Nayarit
, Mexico have a completely unique approach to beadwork. They adhere beads, one by one, to a surface, such as wood or a gourd, with a mixture of resin and beeswax.
Most Native beadwork is created for tribal use but beadworkers also create conceptual work for the art world. Richard Aitson
(Kiowa
-Apache
) has both an Indian and non-Indian audience for his work and is known for his fully beaded cradleboards. Another Kiowa beadworker, Teri Greeves
has won top honors for her beadwork, which consciously integrates both traditional and contemporary motifs, such as beaded dancers on Converse high-tops. Greeves also beads on buckskin and explores such issues as warfare or Native American voting rights.
Marcus Amerman
, Choctaw
, one of today's most celebrated bead artists, pioneered a movement of highly realistic beaded portraits. His imagery ranges from 19th century Native leaders to pop icons such as Janet Jackson and Brook Shields.
Roger Amerman, Marcus' brother, and Martha Berry
, Cherokee
, have effectively revived Southeastern beadwork, a style that had been lost because of forced removal from tribes to Indian Territory. Their beadwork commonly features white bead outlines, an echo of the shell beads or pearls Southeastern tribes used before contact.
Jamie Okuma (Luiseño-Shoshone
-Bannock
) was won top awards with her beaded dolls, which can include entire families or horses and riders, all with fully beaded regalia. The antique Venetian beads she uses can as small as size 22°, about the size of a grain of salt. Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty
, Rhonda Holy Bear, and Charlene Holy Bear are also prominent beaded dollmakers.
The widespread popularity of glass beads does not mean aboriginal bead making is dead. Perhaps the most famous Native bead is wampum
, a cylindrical tube of quahog or whelk shell. Both shells produce white beads, but only parts of the quahog produce purple. These are ceremonially and politically important to a range of Eastern tribes. Elizabeth James Perry (Aquinnah Wampanoag-Eastern Band Cherokee) creates wampum jewelry today, including wampum belts.
Ceramics have been created in the Americas for the last 8000 years, as evidenced by pottery found in Caverna da Pedra Pintada in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. The Island of Marajó
in Brazil remains a major center of ceramic art today. In Mexico, Mata Ortiz
ceramics continue the ancient Casas Grandes
tradition of polychrome pottery. Juan Quezada is one of the leading potters from Mata Ortiz.
In the Southeast, the Catawba
tribe is known for its tan-and-black mottled pottery. Eastern Band Cherokees' pottery has Catawba influences. In Oklahoma, Cherokees lost their pottery traditions until revived by Anna Belle Sixkiller Mitchell. The Caddo
tribe's centuries-long pottery tradition had died out in the early 20th century, but has been effectively revived by Jereldine Redcorn.
Pueblo people are particularly known for their ceramic traditions. Nampeyo
(ca. 1860–1942) was a Hopi
potter who collaborated with anthropologists to revive traditional pottery forms and designs, and many of her relatives are successful potters today. Maria
and Julian Martinez
, both San Ildefonso Pueblo revived their tribe's blackware tradition in the early 20th century. Julian invented a gloss-matte blackware style for which his tribe is still known today. Lucy Lewis (1898–1992) of Acoma Pueblo
gained recognition for her black-on-white ceramics in the mid-20th century. Cochiti Pueblo was known for its grotesque figurines at the turn-of-the-20th-century, and these have been revived by Virgil Ortiz. Cochiti potter Helen Cordero
(1915–1994) invented storyteller figures, which feature a large, single figure of a seated elder
telling stories to groups of smaller figures.
While northern potters are not as well known as their southern counterparts, ceramic arts extend as far north as the Arctic. Inuit potter, Makituk Pingwartok of Cape Dorset uses a pottery wheel to create her prizewinning ceramics.
Today contemporary Native potters create a wide range of ceramics from functional pottery to monumental ceramic sculpture. Roxanne Swentzell
of Santa Clara Pueblo is one of the leading ceramic artists in the Americas. She creates coil-built, emotionally-charged figures that comment on contemporary society. Nora Naranjo-Morse
, also of Santa Clara Pueblo is world renowned for her individual figures as well as conceptual installations featuring ceramics. Diego Romero of Cochiti Pueblo is known for his ceramic bowls, painted with satirical scenes that combine Ancestral Pueblo, Greek, and pop culture imagery. Hundreds more Native contemporary ceramic artists are taking pottery in new directions.
File:Caeser Bruce silver comb 1984 ohs.jpg|German silver hair comb, by Bruce Caeser (Pawnee-Sac and Fox), Oklahoma, 1984, Oklahoma Historical Society
File:Tommy Singer 2.jpg|Silver overlay bolo tie by Tommy Singer (Diné
), New Mexico, ca. 1980s
File:Woolaroc - Navajo Gürtelschnalle.jpg|Diné
stamped silver belt buckle, collection of Woolaroc
File:Dan townsend gorget.jpg|Shell gorget
by Dan Townsend (Muscogee Creek-Cherokee
), Florida, ca. 2000
is a new art form, emerging in the 1960s, and so does not carry the cultural baggage of many other art genres. Performance art can draw upon storytelling traditions, as well as music and dance, and often includes elements of installation, video, film, and textile design. Rebecca Belmore
, a Canadian Ojibway performance artist, has represented her country in the prestigious Venice Biennale
. James Luna
, a Luiseño-Mexican
performance artist, also participated in the Venice Biennale in 2005, representing the National Museum of the American Indian
.
Performance allows artists to confront their audience directly, challenge long held stereotypes, and bring up current issues, often in an emotionally charged manner. "[P]eople just howl in their seats, and there's ranting and booing or hissing, carrying on the in the audience," says Rebecca Belmore of the response to her work. She has created performances to call attention to violence against and many unsolved murders of First Nations women. Both Belmore and Luna create elaborate, often outlandish outfits and props for their performances and move through a range of characters. For instance, a repeating character of Luna's is Uncle Jimmy, a disabled veteran who criticizes greed and apathy on his reservation. On the other hand, Marcus Amerman
, a Choctaw
performance artist, maintains a consistent role of the Buffalo Man, whose irony and social commentary arise from the odd situations in which he finds himself, for instance a James Bond movie or lost in a desert labyrinth.
Erica Lord, Inupiaq-Athabaskan, explores her mixed-race identity and conflicts about the ideas of home through her performance art. In her words, "In order to sustain a genuine self, I create a world in which I shift to become one or all of my multiple visions of self." She has suntanned phrases into her skin, donned cross-cultural and cross-gender disguises, and incorporated songs, ranging from Inupiaq throat singing
to racist children's rhymes into her work.
A Bolivia
n anarcha-feminist
cooperative, Mujeres Creando
or "Women Creating" features many indigenous artists. They create public performances or street theater to bring attention to issues of women's, indigenous people's, and lesbian's rights, as well as anti-poverty issues. Julieta Paredes, María Galindo and Mónica Mendoza are founding members.
Performance art has allowed Native Americans access to the international art world, and Rebecca Belmore mentions that her audiences are non-Native; however, Native American audiences also respond to this genre. Bringing It All Back Home, a 1997 film collaboration between James Luna and Chris Eyre
, documents Luna's first performance at his own home, the La Jolla Indian Reservation. Luna describes the experience as "probably the scariest moment of my life as an artist ... performing for the members of my reservation in the tribal hall."
Native Americans embraced photography in the 19th century. Some even owned their own photography studios, such as Benjamin Haldane
(1874–1941), Tsimshian
of Metlakatla
Village on Annette Island, Alaska, Jennie Ross Cobb (1881–1959), Cherokee Nation of Park Hill, Oklahoma
, and Richard Throssel
(1882–1933), Cree
of Montana
. Their early photographs stand in stark contrast to the romanticized images of Edward Curtis and other contemporaries. Recent scholarship by Mique’l Askren (Tsimshian/Tlingit) on the photographs of B.A. Haldane has analyzed the functions that Haldane's photographs served for his community: as markers of success by having Anglo-style formal portraits taken, and as markers of the continuity of potlaching and traditional ceremonials by having photographs taken in ceremonial regalia. This second category is particularly significant because the use of the ceremonial regalia was against the law in Canada between 1885-1951.
Martín Chambi
(1891–1973), a Quechua photographer from Peru, was one of the pioneering indigenous photographers of South America. Peter Pitseolak
(1902–1973), Inuit
from Cape Dorset, Nunavut
, documented Inuit life in the mid-20th century while dealing with challenges presented by the harsh climate and extreme light conditions of the Canadian Arctic. He developed his film himself in his igloo, and some of his photos were shot by oil lamps. Horace Poolaw
(1906–1984), Kiowa
, shot over 2000 images of his neighbors and relatives in Western Oklahoma from the 1920s onward. Jean Fredericks
(b. 1906), Hopi
, had to carefully negotiate cultural views towards photography and made a point of not offering his portraits of Hopi people for sale to the public.
Today innumerable Native people are professional art photographers; however, acceptance to the genre has met with challenges. Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie
, Navajo
-Muscogee-Seminole
, has not only established a successful career with her own work, she has also been an advocate for the entire field of Native American photography. She has curated shows and organized conferences at the C.N. Gorman Museum at UC Davis featuring Native American photographers. Tsinhnahjinnie wrote the book, Our People, Our Land, Our Images: International Indigenous Photographers. Native photographers taking their skills into the fields of art videography, photocollage, digital photography, and digital art.
stone tablets were used for printmaking, not much is known about aboriginal American printmaking
. 20th century Native artists have borrowed techniques from Japan and Europe, such as woodcut
, linocut
, serigraphy, monotyping
, and other practices.
Printmaking has flourished among Inuit
communities in particular. European-Canadian James Houston created a graphic art program in Cape Dorset, Nunavut
in 1957. Houston taught local Inuit stone carvers how to created prints from stone-blocks and stencils. He asked local artists to draw pictures and the shop generated limited edition prints, based on the ukiyo-e
workshop system of Japan. Cooperative print shops were also established in nearby communities, including Baker Lake
, Puvirnituq
, Holman
, and Pangnirtung. These shops have experimented with etching
, engraving
, lithography
, and silkscreen. Shops produced annual catalogs advertising their collections. Local birds and animals, spirit beings, and hunting scenes are the most popular subject matter, but are allegorical in nature. Backgrounds tend to be minimal and perspective is mixed. One of the most prominent of Cape Dorset artists is Kenojuak Ashevak
(born 1927), who has received many public commissions and two honorary doctorate degrees. Other prominent Inuit printmakers and graphic artists include Parr
, Osuitok Ipeelee
, Germaine Arnaktauyok
, Pitseolak Ashoona, Tivi Etok
, Helen Kalvak
, Jessie Oonark
, Kananginak Pootoogook
, Pudlo Pudlat
, Irene Avaalaaqiaq Tiktaalaaq
, and Simon Tookoome
. Inuit printmaker Andrew Qappik
designed the coat of arms of Nunavut
.
Many Native painters transformed their paintings into fine art prints. Potawatomi
artist Woody Crumbo
created bold, screen prints and etchings in the mid-20th century that blended traditional, flat Bacone Style
with Art Deco
influences. Kiowa
-Caddo
-Choctaw
painter, T.C. Cannon traveled to Japan to study wood block printing from master printers.
In Chile, Mapuche
printmaker Santos Chávez
(1934–2001) was one of the most celebrated artists of his country – with over 85 solo exhibitions during his lifetime.
Melanie Yazzie
(Navajo
), Linda Lomahaftewa
(Hopi
-Choctaw
), and Debora Iyall
(Cowlitz
) have all built successful careers with their print and have gone on to teach the next generation of printers. Walla Walla
artist, James Lavadour
founded Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts on the Umatilla Reservation
in Oregon in 1992. Crow's Shadow features a state-of-the-art printmaking studio and offers workshops, exhibition space, and printmaking residencies for Native artists, in which they pair visiting artists with master printers.
Native Americans have created sculpture, both monumental and small, for millennia. Stone sculptures are ubiquitous through the Americas, in the forms of stelae, inuksuit, and statues. Alabaster stone carving is popular among Western tribes, where catlinite
carving is traditional in the Northern Plains and fetish-carving is traditional in the Southwest, particularly among the Zuni. The Taíno
of Puerto Rico
and the Dominican Republic
are known for their zemi
s– sacred, three-pointed stone sculptures.
Inuit art
ists sculpt with walrus ivory, caribou antlers, bones, soapstone, serpentinite, and argillite. They often represent local fauna and humans engaged in hunting or ceremonial activities.
Edmonia Lewis paved the way for Native American artists to sculpt in mainstream traditions using non-Native materials. Allan Houser
(Warms Springs Chiricahua Apache) became one of most prominent Native sculptors of the 20th century. Though he worked in wood and stone, Houser is most known for his monumental bronze sculptors, both representational and abstract. Houser influenced a generation of Native sculptors by teaching at the Institute of American Indian Arts
. His two sons, Phillip and Bob Haozous
are sculptors today. Roxanne Swentzell
(Santa Clara Pueblo) is known for her expressive, figurative, ceramic sculptures but has also branched into bronze casting, and her work is permanently displayed at the National Museum of the American Indian
.
The Northwest Coastal tribes are known for their woodcarving – most famously their monumental totem pole
s that display clan crests. During the 19th century and early 20th century, this art form was threatened but was effectively revived. Kwakwaka'wakw
totem pole carvers such as Charlie James, Mungo Martin
, Ellen Neel
, and Willie Seaweed
kept the art alive and also carved masks, furniture, bentwood boxes, and jewelry. Haida carvers include Charles Edenshaw
, Bill Reid
, and Robert Davidson
. Besides working in wood, Haida also work with argillite
. Traditional formline designs translate well into glass sculpture, which is increasingly popular thanks to efforts by contemporary glass artists such as Preston Singletary
(Tlingit), Susan Point (Coast Salish
) and Marvin Oliver (Quinault/Isleta Pueblo
).
In the Southeast, woodcarving dominates sculpture. Willard Stone
, of Cherokee descent, exhibited internationally in the mid-20th century. Amanda Crowe
(Eastern Band Cherokee) studied sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago
and returned to her reservation to teach over 2000 students woodcarving over a period of 40 years, ensuring that sculpture thrives as an art form on the Qualla Boundary.
Fiberwork dating back 10,000 years has been unearthed from Guitarrero Cave
in Peru. Cotton and wool from alpaca, llamas, and vicuñas have been woven into elaborate textiles for thousands of years in the Andes and are still important parts of Quechua and Aymara culture today. Coroma in Antonio Quijarro Province
, Bolivia
is a major center for ceremonial textile production. An Aymara elder from Coroma said, "In our sacred weavings are expressions of our philosophy, and the basis for our social organization... The sacred weavings are also important in differentiating one community, or ethnic group, from a neighboring group..."
Kuna
tribal members of Panama
and Colombia
are famous for their mola
s, cotton panels with elaborate geometric designs created by a reverse appliqué
technique. Designs originated from traditional skin painting designs but today exhibit a wide range of influences, including pop culture. Two mola panels form a blouse, but when a Kuna woman is tired of a blouse, she can dissemble it and sell the molas to art collectors.
Mayan women have woven cotton with backstrap looms for centuries, creating items such as huipil
s or traditional blouses. Elaborate Maya textiles featured representations of animals, plants, and figures from oral history. Organizing into weaving collectives have helped Mayan women earn better money for their work and greatly expand the reach of Mayan textiles in the world.
Seminole
seamstresses, upon gaining access to sewing machines in the late 19th century and early 20th centures, invented an elaborate appliqué patchwork tradition. Seminole patchwork, for which the tribe is known today, came into full flower in the 1920s.
Great Lakes and Prairie tribes are known for their ribbonwork, found on clothing and blankets. Strips of silk ribbons are cut and appliquéd in layers, creating designs defined by negative space. The colors and designs might reflect the clan or gender of the wearer. Powwow
and other dance regalia from these tribes often feature ribbonwork. These tribes are also known for their fingerwoven
sashes.
Pueblo
men weave with cotton on upright looms. Their mantas and sashes are typically made for ceremonial use for the community, not for outside collectors.
Navajo rug
s are woven by Navajo women today from Navajo-Churro sheep
or commercial wool. Designs can be pictorial or abstract, based on traditional Navajo, Spanish, Oriental, or Persian designs. 20th century Navajo weavers include Clara Sherman
and Hosteen Klah
, who co-founded the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian
.
In 1973, the Navajo Studies Department of the Diné College
in Many Farms, Arizona
, wanted to determine how long it took a Navajo weaver to create a rug or blanket from sheep shearing
to market. The study determined the total amount of time was 345 hours. Out of these 345 hours, the expert Navajo weaver needed: 45 hours to shear the sheep and process the wool; 24 hours to spin
the wool
; 60 hours to prepare the dye
and to dye the wool; 215 hours to weave
the piece; and only one hour to sell the item in their shop.
Traditional textiles of Northwest Coast tribes are enjoying a dramatic revival. Chilkat weaving
and ravenstail weaving are regarded as some of the most difficult weaving techniques in the world. A single Chilkat blanket can take an entire year to weave. In both techniques, dog, mountain goat, or sheep wool and shredded cedar bark are combined to create textiles featuring curvilinear formline designs. Tlingit weaver Jennie Thlunaut
(1982–1986) was instrumental in this revival.
Experimental contemporary textile artists include Martha Gradolf (Winnebago
), whose work is overtly political in nature. Valencia, Joseph and Ramona Sakiestewa (Hopi
) and Melissa Cody (Diné
) explore non-representational abstraction and use experimental materials in their weaving.
and Hopi
katsina
figures (tihü in Hopi
and kokko in Zuni
) and katsinam regalia are not meant to be seen by individuals who have not received instruction about that particular katsina. Many are not displayed publicly out of respect for tribal taboos.
Mide birch bark scrolls are deemed too culturally sensitive for public display, as are medicine bundle
s, certain sacred pipes and pipe bags, and other tools of medicine people.
Navajo sandpainting is a component for healing ceremonies, but sandpaintings can be made into permanent art that is acceptable to sell to non-Natives as long as actual Holy People are not portrayed. Photography of many sacred ceremonies are forbidden by various tribes. Several early photographers broke local laws and photographs of sensitive ceremonies are in circulation but tribes prefer that they not be displayed. The same can be said for photographs or sketches of medicine bundle contents.
Two Mohawk leaders sued a museum, trying to remove a False Face Society mask or Ga:goh:sah from an exhibit because "it was a medicine object intended to be seen only by community members and that its public display would cause irreparable harm to the Mohawk." The Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee are clear that these masks are not for sale or public display, nor are Corn Husk Society masks.
Tribes and individuals within tribes do not always agree about what is or is not appropriate to display to the public. In general Ghost Dance
regalia is preferably not exhibited. Among other institutions, the Brooklyn Museum
does not exhibit Plains warrior's shields or "artifacts imbued with a warrior's power" at the request of tribal leaders. Many tribes do not want grave goods or items associated with burials, such as funerary urns, in museums, and many would like these associated grave goods reinterred, a process often facilitated within the United States by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
(NAGPRA). In Canada, repatriation is negotiated between the tribes and museums or through Land Claims laws. In international situations, institutions are not always legally required to repatriate indigenous cultural items to their place of origin, some museums do so voluntarily, as with Yale University
's decision to return 5,000 artifacts and human remains to Cusco, Peru.
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
istic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America, Mesoamerica, North America including Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
, as well as Siberian Yup'ik peoples who have great cultural overlap with Native Alaskan Yup'iks.
Lithic and Archaic stage
In North America, the Lithic stageLithic stage
In the sequence of North American prehistoric cultural stages first proposed by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958, the Lithic stage was the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas, accruing during the Late Pleistocene period, to time before 8,000 B.C....
or Paleo-indian period is defined as approximately 18,000–8000 BCE. The period from around 8000–800 BCE is generally referred to as the Archaic period. The production of bannerstone
Bannerstone
Bannerstones are artifacts usually found in the Eastern United States that are characterized by a centered hole in a symmetrically shaped carved or ground stone. The holes are typically ¼” to ¾” in diameter and extend through a raised portion centered in the stone. They usually are bored all the...
s, Projectile point
Projectile point
In archaeological terms, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a projectile, such as a spear, dart, or arrow, or perhaps used as a knife....
, Lithic reduction
Lithic reduction
Lithic reduction involves the use of a hard hammer precursor, such as a hammerstone, a soft hammer fabricator , or a wood or antler punch to detach lithic flakes from a lump of tool stone called a lithic core . As flakes are detached in sequence, the original mass of stone is reduced; hence the...
styles and pictographic cave paintings are some of the art that remains from this time period.
Belonging in the Lithic stage, the oldest known art in the Americas is the Vero Beach
Vero Beach, Florida
Vero Beach is a city in Indian River County, Florida, USA. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 estimates, the city had a population of 16,939. It is the county seat of Indian River County...
bone, possibly a mammoth bone, etched with a profile of walking mammoth that dates back to 11,000 BCE. The oldest known painted object in North American is the Cooper Bison Skull from 10,900–10,200 BCE. Lithic age art in South America includes Monte Alegre culture rock paintings created at Caverna da Pedra Pintada dating back to 9250–8550 BCE. Guitarrero Cave
Guitarrero Cave
Guitarrero Cave is located in the Callejon de Huaylas valley in Yungay Province, in the Ancash region of Peru. The cave stands 50 meters above Rio Santa and 2,580 meters above sea level.-Archeological findings:...
in Peru has the earliest known textiles in South America, dating to 8000 BCE.
The southwestern United States and certain regions of the Andes have the highest concentration of pictographs (painted images) and Petroglyph
Petroglyph
Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...
s (carved images) from this period. Both pictographs and petroglyphs are known as rock art
Rock art
Rock art is a term used in archaeology for any human-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:*Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces*Pictographs - rock and cave paintings...
.
North America
Arctic
The Yupik of Alaska have a long tradition of carving masksMasks among Eskimo peoples
Masks among Eskimo peoples served a variety of functions. Masks were made out of driftwood, animal skins, bones and feathers. They were often painted using bright colors...
for use in shamanic
Shamanism among Eskimo peoples
Shamanism among Eskimo peoples refers to those aspects of the various Eskimo cultures that are related to the shamans’ role as a mediator between people and spirits, souls, and mythological beings...
rituals. Indigenous peoples of the Canadian arctic have produced objects that could be classified as art since the time of the Dorset culture
Dorset culture
The Dorset culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture that preceded the Inuit culture in Arctic North America. It has been defined as having four phases, with distinct technology related to the people's hunting and tool making...
. While the walrus ivory carvings of the Dorset were primarily shamanic, the art of the Thule people
Thule people
The Thule or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by AD 1000 and expanded eastwards across Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture that had previously inhabited the region...
who replaced them ca. 1000 CE was more decorative in character. With European contact the historic period of Inuit art began. In this period, which reached its height in the late 19th century, Inuit artisans created souvenirs for the crews of whaling ships and explorers. Common examples include cribbage
Cribbage
Cribbage, or crib, is a card game traditionally for two players, but commonly played with three, four or more, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points...
boards. Modern Inuit art began in the late 1940s, when with the encouragement of the Canadian government they began to produce prints and serpentine
Serpentinite
Serpentinite is a rock composed of one or more serpentine group minerals. Minerals in this group are formed by serpentinization, a hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth's mantle...
sculptures for sale in the south.
Greenlandic Inuit, or Kalaallit
Kalaallit
Kalaallit is the contemporary term in the Kalaallisut language for the indigenous people living in Greenland, also called the Kalaallit Nunaat. The singular term is kalaaleq. The Kalaallit are a part of the Arctic Inuit people. The language spoken by Inuit in Greenland is Kalaallisut.Historically,...
have a unique textile tradition intregrating skin-sewing, furs, and appliqué of small pieces of brightly dyed marine mammal organs. Women create elaborate netted beadwork collars. They have strong mask-making tradition and also are known for an art form called tupilaq
Tupilaq
In Greenlandic Inuit traditions, a tupilaq was an avenging monster fabricated by a practitioner of witchcraft or shamanism by using various objects such as animal parts and even parts taken from the corpses of children. The creature was given life by ritualistic chants...
or an "evil spirit object." Traditional art making practices thrive in the Ammassalik
Ammassalik
Ammassalik was one of two municipalities in Tunu, the former county of East Greenland − the other one being Illoqqortoormiut . It was located in southeastern Greenland, and with an area of 232,100 km², most of it on the ice sheet, it was the largest municipality of East Greenland, now part of the...
. Sperm whale
Sperm Whale
The sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus, is a marine mammal species, order Cetacea, a toothed whale having the largest brain of any animal. The name comes from the milky-white waxy substance, spermaceti, found in the animal's head. The sperm whale is the only living member of genus Physeter...
ivory remains a valued medium for carving.
Subarctic
Cultures of interior Alaska and Canada living south of the Arctic CircleArctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
are Subarctic peoples. While humans have lived in the region far longer, the oldest known surviving Subartic art is a petroglyph site in northwest Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, dated to 5000 BCE. Caribou, and to a lesser extent moose
Moose
The moose or Eurasian elk is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a dendritic configuration...
, are major resources, providing hides, antlers, sinew, and other artistic materials. Porcupine quillwork
Quillwork
Quillwork is a form of textile embellishment traditionally practiced by Native Americans that employs the quills of porcupines as a decorative element.-History:...
embellishes hides and birchbark. After European contact with the influence of the Grey Nuns
Grey Nuns
The Order of Sisters of Charity of Montreal, formerly called The Order of Sisters of Charity of the Hôpital Général of Montreal and more commonly known as the Grey Nuns of Montreal, is a Canadian order of Roman Catholic religious sisters...
, moosehair tufting
Tufting
Tufting is a type of textile weaving in which a thread is inserted on a primary base.It is an ancient technique for making warm garments, especially mittens. After the knitting is done, short U-shaped loops of extra yarn are introduced through the fabric from the outside so that their ends point...
and floral glass beadwork became popular through the Subarctic.
Northwest Coast
The art of the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian
Tsimshian
The Tsimshian are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Tsimshian translates to Inside the Skeena River. Their communities are in British Columbia and Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are approximately 10,000...
and other smaller tribes living in the coastal areas of Washington State, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, and British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, is characterized by an extremely complex stylistic vocabulary expressed mainly in the medium of woodcarving. Famous examples include Totem pole
Totem pole
Totem poles are monumental sculptures carved from large trees, mostly Western Red Cedar, by cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America...
s, Transformation mask
Transformation mask
A transformation mask is a type of mask used by indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast and Alaska in ritual dances. These masks usually depict an outer, animal visage, which the performer can open by pulling a string to reveal an inner, human face carved in wood...
s, and canoes.
Northeastern Woodlands
The Eastern Woodlands, or simply woodlands, cultures inhabited the regions of North America east of the Mississippi RiverMississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
at least since 2500 BCE. While there were many regionally distinct cultures, trade between them was common and they shared the practice of burying their dead in earthen mounds, which has preserved a large amount of their art. Because of this trait the cultures are collectively known as the Mound builders.
The Woodland Period
Woodland period
The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures was from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic header for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the...
(1000 BCE–1000 CE) is divided in to early, middle, and late periods, and consisted of cultures that relied mostly on hunting and gathering for their subsistence. Ceramics made by the Deptford culture
Deptford culture
The Deptford culture was characterized by the appearance of elaborate ceremonial complexes, increasing social and opolitical complexity, mound burial, permanent settlements, population growth, and an increasing reliance on cultigens....
(2500 BCE-100 CE) are the earliest evidence of an artistic tradition in this region. The Adena culture
Adena culture
The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 1000 to 200 BC, in a time known as the early Woodland Period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system...
are another well-known example of an early Woodland culture. They carved stone tablets with zoomorphic
Zoomorphism
Zoomorphism is the shaping of something in animal form or terms. Examples include:*Art that imagines humans as animals*Art that portrays one species of animal like another species of animal*Art that creates patterns using animal imagery, or animal style...
designs, created pottery
Hopewell pottery
Hopewell pottery is the ceramic tradition of the various local cultures involved in the Hopewell tradition and are found as artifacts in archeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast...
, and fashioned costumes from animal hides and antlers for ceremonial rituals. Shellfish was a mainstay of their diet, and engraved shells have been found in their burial mounds.
The Middle Woodland Period was dominated by cultures of the Hopewell tradition (200-500). Their artwork encompassed a wide variety of jewelry and sculpture in stone, wood, and even human bone.
The Late Woodland Period (500-1000 CE) saw a decline in trade and in the size of settlements, and the creation of art likewise declined.
From the 12th century onward, the Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
and nearby coastal tribes fashioned wampum
Wampum
Wampum are traditional, sacred shell beads of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of the indigenous people of North America. Wampum include the white shell beads fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell; and the white and purple beads made from the quahog, or Western North Atlantic...
from shells and string; these were mnenomic devices, currency, and records of treaties.
Iroquois people carve False Face masks for healing rituals, but the traditional representatives of the tribes, the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee, are clear that these masks are not for sale or public display. The same can be said for Iroquois Corn Husk Society masks.
Southeastern Woodlands
The Poverty Point culturePoverty Point culture
Poverty Point culture is an archaeological culture that corresponds to an ancient group of Indigenous peoples who inhabited the area of the lower Mississippi Valley and surrounding Gulf coast from about 2200 BCE - 700 BCE...
inhabited portions of the state of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
from 2000–1000 BCE during the Archaic period. Many objects excavated at Poverty Point sites were made of materials that originated in distant places, including chipped stone projectile points and tools, ground stone plummets, gorgets and vessels, and shell and stone beads. Stone tools found at Poverty Point were made from raw materials which originated in the relatively nearby Ouachita and Ozark Mountains and from the much further away Ohio
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
and Tennessee River
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names...
valleys. Vessels were made from soapstone
Soapstone
Soapstone is a metamorphic rock, a talc-schist. It is largely composed of the mineral talc and is thus rich in magnesium. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occurs in the areas where tectonic plates are subducted, changing rocks by heat and pressure, with influx...
which came from the Appalachian foothills
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
of Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
and Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. Hand-modeled lowly fired clay objects occur in a variety of shapes including anthropomophic figurines and cooking balls.
The Mississippian culture
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
flourished in what is now the Midwestern
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
, Eastern
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, the American East, or simply the East is traditionally defined as the states east of the Mississippi River. The first two tiers of states west of the Mississippi have traditionally been considered part of the West, but can be included in the East today; usually in...
, and Southeastern United States
Southeastern United States
The Southeastern United States, colloquially referred to as the Southeast, is the eastern portion of the Southern United States. It is one of the most populous regions in the United States of America....
from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally. After adopting maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
agriculture the Mississippian culture became fully agrarian, as opposed to the hunting and gathering supplemented by part-time agriculture practiced by preceding woodland cultures. They built platform mound
Platform mound
A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...
s larger and more complex than those of their predecessors, and finished and developed more advanced ceramic techniques, commonly using ground mussel
Mussel
The common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalvia mollusca, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...
shell as a tempering agent. Many were involved with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is the name given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian culture that coincided with their adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization from...
, a pan-regional and pan-linguistic religious and trade network. The majority of the information known about the S.E.C.C. is derived from examination of the elaborate artworks left behind by its participants, including elaborate pottery
Mississippian culture pottery
Mississippian culture pottery is the ceramic tradition of the Mississippian culture found as artifacts in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. It is often characterized by the adoption and use of riverine shell-tempering agents in the clay paste. Shell tempering is one of...
, shell gorget
Shell gorget
A shell gorget is a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated ....
s and cups, stone statuary
Mississippian stone statuary
The Mississippian stone statuary are artifacts of polished stone in the shape of human figurines made by members of the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast...
and Long-nosed god maskette
Long-nosed god maskette
Long-nosed god maskettes are artifacts made from bone, copper and marine shells associated with the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. They are small shield-shaped faces with squared-off foreheads, circular eyes, and large noses of...
s. By the time of European contact the Mississippian societies were already experiencing severe social stress, and with the social upsets and diseases introduced by Europeans many of the societies collapsed and ceased to practice a Mississippian lifestyle, with an exception being the Natchez people
Natchez people
The Natchez are a Native American people who originally lived in the Natchez Bluffs area, near the present-day city of Natchez, Mississippi. They spoke a language isolate that has no known close relatives, although it may be very distantly related to the Muskogean languages of the Creek...
. Other tribes descended from Mississippian cultures include the Caddo
Caddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
, Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
, Muscogee Creek, Wichita
Wichita (tribe)
The Wichita people are indigenous inhabitants of North America, who traditionally spoke the Wichita language, a Caddoan language. They have lived in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas...
, and many other southeastern peoples.
The Calusa
Calusa
The Calusa were a Native American people who lived on the coast and along the inner waterways of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region; at the time of European contact, the Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture...
peoples occupied the southern areas of Florida before European contact, and created carvings of animals.
The Seminoles are best known for their textile creations, especially patchwork clothing. Doll-making is another notable craft.
Great Plains
Tribes have lived on the Great PlainsGreat Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
for thousands of years. Early Plains cultures are commonly divided into four periods: Paleoindian (at least ca. 10,000–4000 BCE), Plains Archaic (ca. 4000–250 BCE), Plains Woodland (ca. 250 BCE–950 CE), Plains Village (ca. 950-1850 CE). The oldest known painted object in North American was found in the southern plains, the Cooper Bison Skull, found in Oklahoma and dated 10,900-10,200 BCE. It's painted with a red zizzag.
In the Plains Village period, the cultures of the area settled in enclosed clusters of rectangular houses and cultivated maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
. Various regional differences emerged, including Southern Plains, Central Plains, Oneota
Oneota
Oneota is a designation archaeologists use to refer to a cultural complex that existed in the eastern plains and Great Lakes area of what is now the United States from around AD 900 to around 1650 or 1700. The culture is believed to have transitioned into various Macro-Siouan cultures of the...
, and Middle Missouri. Tribes were both nomadic hunters and semi-nomadic farmers. During the Plains Coalescent period (1400-European contact) some change, possibly drought, caused the mass migration of the population to the Eastern Woodlands region, and the Great Plains were sparsely populated until pressure from American settlers drove tribes into the area again.
The advent of the horse revolutionized the cultures of many historical Plains tribes. Horse culture
Horse culture
The term "Horse culture" is used to define a tribal group or community whose day to day life revolves around the herding and breeding of horses...
enabled tribes to live a completely nomadic existence, hunting buffalo. Buffalo hide clothing was decorated with porcupine quill embroidery
Quillwork
Quillwork is a form of textile embellishment traditionally practiced by Native Americans that employs the quills of porcupines as a decorative element.-History:...
and beads – dentalium shells and elk teeth were prized materials. Later coins and glass beads acquired from trading were incorporated into Plains art. Plains beadwork
Beadwork
Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another or to cloth, usually by the use of a needle and thread or soft, flexible wire. Most beadwork takes the form of jewelry or other personal adornment, but beads are also used in wall hangings and sculpture.Beadwork techniques are broadly...
has flourished into contemporary times.
Buffalo was the preferred material for Plains hide painting
Plains hide painting
Plains hide painting is a traditional Plains Indian artistic practice of painting on either tanned or raw animal hides. Tipis, tipi liners, shields, parfleches, robes, clothing, drums, and winter counts could all be painted.-Genres:...
. Men painted narrative, pictorial designs recording personal exploits or visions. They also painted pictographic historical calendars known as Winter count
Winter count
Winter counts are pictorial calendars or histories in which tribal records and events were recorded. The Blackfeet, Mandan, Kiowa, Lakota, and other Plains tribes used winter counts extensively...
s. Women painted geometric designs on tanned robes and rawhide parfleche
Parfleche
A parfleche is a Native American rawhide bag, typically used for holding dried meats and pemmican.The word was originally used by French fur traders...
s, which sometimes served as maps.
During the Reservation Era of the late 19th century, buffalo herds were systematically destroyed by non-native hunters. Due to the scarcity of hides, Plains artists adopted new painting surfaces, such as muslin or paper, giving birth to Ledger art
Ledger Art
Ledger Art is a term for Plains Indian narrative drawing or painting on paper or cloth. Ledger art was primarily from the 1860s to about 1900, although some of the old style drawing continues to the 1930s. There is also a contemporary group of accomplished Native American artists who work in the...
, so named for the ubiquitous ledger books used by Plains artists.
Great Basin and Plateau
Since the archaic period the Plateau region, also known as the IntermontaineIntermontane
Intermontane is a physiographic adjective formed from the prefix "inter-" and the adjective "montane" Usage includes intermontane basin such as New Zealand's Mackenzie Basin and intermontane...
and upper Great Basin
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...
, had been a center of trade. Plateau people traditionally settled near major river systems. Because of this, their art carries influences from other regions – from the Pacific Northwest coasts and Great Plains. Nez Perce, Yakama
Yakama
The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, or simply Yakama Nation , is a Native American group with nearly 10,000 enrolled members, living in Washington. Their reservation, along the Yakima River, covers an area of approximately 1.2 million acres...
, Umatilla
Umatilla (tribe)
The Umatilla are a Sahaptin-speaking Native American group living on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, who traditionally inhabited the Columbia Plateau region of the northwestern United States....
, and Cayuse
Cayuse
The Cayuse are a Native American tribe in the state of Oregon in the United States. The Cayuse tribe shares a reservation in northeastern Oregon with the Umatilla and the Walla Walla tribes as part of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation...
women weave flat, rectangular corn husks or hemp dogbane bags, which are decorated with "bold, geometric designs" in false embroidery. Plateau beadworkers are known for their contour-style beading and their elaborate horse regalia.
Great Basin tribes
Great Basin tribes
The Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin are the Native American peoples of the Great Basin inhabited a cultural region between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, in what is now Nevada, and parts of Oregon, California, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. There is very little precipitation in the...
have a sophisticated basket making tradition, as exemplified by Louisa Keyser (Washoe
Washoe people
The Washoe are a Great Basin tribe of Native Americans, living in California and Nevada. The name "Washoe" is derived from the autonym waashiw meaning "people from here" in the Washo language .-Territory:Washoe people have lived in the Great Basin for at least the last 6000 years...
), Lucy Telles
Lucy Telles
Lucy Parker Telles was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi and Southern Sierra Miwok Native American basket weaver.-Background:...
, Carrie Bethel
Carrie Bethel
Carrie McGowan Bethel was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi basketmaker associated with Yosemite National Park. She was born Carrie McGowan in Lee Vining, California and began making baskets at the age of 12. She participated in basket making competitions in the Yosemite Indian Field Days in 1926...
and Nellie Charlie
Nellie Charlie
Nellie Charlie was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi basketmaker associated with Yosemite National Park. She was born in Lee Vining, California, the daughter of tribal headman Pete Jim, and his wife Patsy, also a basketmaker. She married Young Charlie, a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi man from...
. After being displaced from their lands by non-Native settlers, Washoe wove baskets for the commodity market, especially 1895 to 1935. Paiute
Paiute
Paiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...
, Shoshone
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
and Washoe basketmakers are known for their baskets that incorporate seed beads on the surface and for waterproof baskets.
California
The Native Americans in California have a tradition of exquisitely detailed basket weavingBasket weaving
Basket weaving is the process of weaving unspun vegetable fibres into a basket or other similar form. People and artists who weave baskets are called basketmakers and basket weavers.Basketry is made from a variety of fibrous or pliable materials•anything that will bend and form a shape...
arts. In the late 19th century Californian basket
Basket
A basket is a container which is traditionally constructed from stiff fibres, which can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehair, baleen, or metal wire can be used. Baskets are...
s by artists in the Cahuilla
Cahuilla
The Cahuilla, Iviatim in their own language, are Indians with a common culture whose ancestors inhabited inland areas of southern California 2,000 years ago. Their original territory included an area of about . The traditional Cahuilla territory was near the geographic center of Southern California...
, Chumash, Pomo, Miwok
Miwok
Miwok can refer to any one of four linguistically related groups of Native Americans, native to Northern California, who spoke one of the Miwokan languages in the Utian family...
, Hupa
Hupa
Hupa, also spelled Hoopa, are a Native American tribe in northwestern California. Their autonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinookwa, meaning "People of the Place Where the Trails Return." The majority of the tribe is enrolled in the federally recognized Hoopa Valley Tribe; however, some Hupa are...
and many other tribes became popular with collectors, museums, and tourists. This resulted in great innovation in the form of the baskets. Many pieces by Native American basket weavers from all parts of California are in museum collections, such as the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, and is particularly strong in New World ethnography and...
at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, the Southwest Museum
Autry National Center
The Autry National Center of the American West is an intercultural center and museum in Los Angeles, California that celebrates the diversity and history of the American West through three important institutions: the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of the American West, and the...
, and the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere...
.
California has a large number of pictographs and petroglyphs rock art
Rock art
Rock art is a term used in archaeology for any human-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:*Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces*Pictographs - rock and cave paintings...
. One of the largest densities of petroglyphs in North America, by the Coso People
Coso People
The Coso people are an indigenous people of the Americas and Native American tribe associated with the Coso Range in the Mojave Desert of California in the southwestern U.S.. They are of the Uto-Aztecan language and spoke one of several Numic languages, related to that of the Northern Paiute.They...
, is in Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons
Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons
Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons are two principal landforms within which are found major accumulations of Paleo-Indian and/or Native American Petroglyphs, or rock art, by the Coso People located in the Coso Range Mountains of the northern Mojave Desert, and now within the Naval Air Weapons...
in the Coso Rock Art District
Coso Rock Art District
Coso Rock Art District, containing the Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons, is a rock art site containing over 20,000 of Paleo-Indian and/or Native American Petroglyphs The Coso Range is between the Sierra Nevada and the Argus Range. Indian Wells Valley lies to the south of this location...
of the northern Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
in California.
The most elaborate pictographs in the U.S are considered to be the rock art of the Chumash people
Rock art of the Chumash people
Chumash rock art is a genre of paintings on caves, mountains, cliffs, or other living rock surfaces, created by the Chumash people of southern California. Pictographs and petroglyphs are common through interior California, the rock painting tradition thrived until the 19th century...
, found in cave painting
Cave painting
Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
s in present day Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, Ventura
Ventura County, California
Ventura County is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. It is located on California's Pacific coast. It is often referred to as the Gold Coast, and has a reputation of being one of the safest populated places and one of the most affluent places in the country...
, and San Luis Obispo Counties
San Luis Obispo County, California
San Luis Obispo County is a county located along the Pacific Ocean in the Central Coast of the U.S. state of California, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2010 census its population was 269,637, up from 246,681 at the 2000 census...
. The Chumash cave painting
Cave painting
Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
includes examples at Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park
Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park, California
Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park is a unit in the state park system of California, USA, preserving a small sandstone cave adorned with rock art attributed to the Chumash people. Adjoining the small community of Painted Cave, the site is located about north of California State Route 154...
and Burro Flats Painted Cave
Burro Flats Painted Cave
Burro Flats Painted Cave is in the Burro Flats area of the Simi Hills, located between the Simi Valley, and West Hills and Bell Canyon, in Ventura County of Southern California, United States. It is a Cave containing Chumash Native American pictographs...
.
Southwest
In the Southwestern United StatesSouthwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
numerous pictographs and petroglyphs were created. The Fremont culture
Fremont culture
The Fremont culture or Fremont people is a pre-Columbian archaeological culture which received its name from the Fremont River in the U.S. state of Utah where the first Fremont sites were discovered. The Fremont River itself is named for John Charles Frémont, an American explorer. It inhabited...
and Ancient Pueblo Peoples
Ancient Pueblo Peoples
Ancient Pueblo People or Ancestral Pueblo peoples were an ancient Native American culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the United States, comprising southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southern Colorado...
and later tribes' creations, in the Barrier Canyon Style
Barrier Canyon Style
Barrier Canyon Style describes a distinctive style of rock art which appears mostly in Utah, with the largest concentration of sites in and around the San Rafael Swell and Canyonlands National Park, but the full range extends into much of the state and western Colorado...
and others, are seen at present day Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel
Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel
The Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel is an example of rock art, located in Buckhorn Draw in the San Rafael Swell in central Utah, approximately four miles north of the San Rafael campground and bridge....
and Horseshoe Canyon
Horseshoe Canyon (Utah)
Horseshoe Canyon, formerly known as Barrier Canyon, is in a remote area west of the Green River and north of the Canyonlands National Park Maze District in Utah, USA. It is known for its collection of Barrier Canyon Style rock art, including both pictographs and petroglyphs, which was first...
, amongst other sites. Petroglyphs by these and the Mogollon culture's artists are represented in Dinosaur National Monument
Dinosaur National Monument
Dinosaur National Monument is a National Monument located on the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains on the border between Colorado and Utah at the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers. Although most of the monument area is in Moffat County, Colorado, the Dinosaur Quarry is located in Utah...
and at Newspaper Rock
Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument
Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument is in eastern Utah, western United States, located to the east of Canyonlands National Park on Hwy 211. It is 28 miles northwest of Monticello and 53 miles south of Moab...
.
The Ancestral Pueblo
Ancient Pueblo Peoples
Ancient Pueblo People or Ancestral Pueblo peoples were an ancient Native American culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the United States, comprising southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southern Colorado...
, or Anasazi, (1000 BCE–700 CE) are the ancestors of today's Pueblo tribes. Their culture formed in the American southwest, after the cultivation of corn was introduced from Mexico around 1200 BCE. People of this region developed an agrarian lifestyle, cultivating food, storage gourds, and cotton with irrigation or xeriscaping
Xeriscaping
Xeriscaping and xerogardening refers to landscaping and gardening in ways that reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental water from irrigation...
techniques. They lived in sedentary towns, so pottery, used to store water and grain, was ubiquitous.
For hundreds of years, Ancestral Pueblo created utilitarian grayware and black-on-white pottery and occasionally orange or red ceramics. In historical times, Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
created olla
Olla
An Olla is a ceramic jar, often unglazed, used for cooking stews or soups, for the storage of water or dry foods, or for other purposes. Ollas have a short wide neck and a wider belly, resembling beanpots or handis.-History:...
s, dough bowls, and food bowls of different sizes for daily use, but they also made more elaborate ceremonial mugs, jugs, ladles, seed jars and those vessels for ritual use, and these were usually finished with polished surfaces and decorated with black painted designs. At the turn of the 20th century, Hopi potter Nampeyo
Nampeyo
Iris Nampeyo was a Hopi potter who lived on the Hopi Reservation in present-day Arizona. She received the English name Iris as an infant, but was better known by her Tewa name, Num-pa-yu, meaning "snake that does not bite"....
famous revived Sikyatki
Sikyátki
Sikyátki is an archeological site and former Hopi village spanning 40,000 to 60,000 square metres on the eastern side of First Mesa, in what is now Navajo County in the U.S. state of Arizona. It was inhabited by Kokop clan of the Hopi from the 14th to the 17th century. Jesse Walter Fewkes led a...
-style pottery, originated on First Mesa in the 14th to 17th centuries.
Southwest architecture includes Cliff dwellings, multi-story settlements carved from living rock; pit houses; and adobe
Adobe
Adobe is a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material , which the builders shape into bricks using frames and dry in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and mudbrick buildings. Adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for...
and sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
pueblo
Pueblo
Pueblo is a term used to describe modern communities of Native Americans in the Southwestern United States of America. The first Spanish explorers of the Southwest used this term to describe the communities housed in apartment-like structures built of stone, adobe mud, and other local material...
s. One of the most elaborate and largest ancient settlements is Chaco Canyon in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, which includes 15 major complexes of sandstone and timber. These are connected by a network of roads. Construction for the largest of these settlements, Pueblo Bonito
Pueblo Bonito
Pueblo Bonito, the largest and best known Great House in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, northern New Mexico, was built by ancestral Pueblo people and occupied between AD 828 and 1126....
, began 1080 years before present
Before Present
Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...
. Pueblo Bonito contains over 800 rooms.
Turquoise
Turquoise
Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl648·4. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue...
, jet, and spiny oyster shell have been traditionally used by Ancestral Pueblo for jewelry, and they developed sophisticated inlay
Inlay
Inlay is a decorative technique of inserting pieces of contrasting, often coloured materials into depressions in a base object to form patterns or pictures that normally are flush with the matrix. In a wood matrix, inlays commonly use wood veneers, but other materials like shells, mother-of-pearl,...
techniques centuries ago.
Around 200 CE the Hohokam
Hohokam
Hohokam is one of the four major prehistoric archaeological Oasisamerica traditions of what is now the American Southwest. Many local residents put the accent on the first syllable . Variant spellings in current, official usage include Hobokam, Huhugam and Huhukam...
culture developed in Arizona. They are the ancestors of the Tohono O'odham
Tohono O'odham
The Tohono O'odham are a group of Native American people who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of the southeastern Arizona and northwest Mexico...
and Akimel O'odham or Pima tribes. The Mimbres, a subgroup of the Mogollon culture, are especially notable for the narrative paintings on their pottery.
Within the last millennium, Athabaskan peoples emigrated from northern Canada in the southwest. These include the Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
and Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
. Sandpainting
Sandpainting
Sandpainting is the art of pouring colored sands, powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, and pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a fixed, or unfixed sand painting...
is an aspect of Navajo healing ceremonies that inspired an art form. Navajos learned to weave on upright looms from Pueblos and wove blankets that were eagerly collected by Great Basin
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...
and Plains tribes
Plains Indians
The Plains Indians are the Indigenous peoples who live on the plains and rolling hills of the Great Plains of North America. Their colorful equestrian culture and resistance to White domination have made the Plains Indians an archetype in literature and art for American Indians everywhere.Plains...
in the 18th and 19th centuries. After the introduction of the railroad in the 1880s, imported blankets became plentiful and inexpensive, so Navajo weavers switched to producing rugs
Navajo rug
Navajo rugs and blankets are textiles produced by Navajo people of the Four Corners area of the United States. Navajo textiles are highly regarded and have been sought after as trade items for over 150 years. Commercial production of handwoven blankets and rugs has been an important element of the...
for trade.
In the 1850s, Navajos adopted silversmith
Silversmith
A silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...
ing from the Mexicans. Atsidi Sani
Atsidi Sani
Atsidi Sani was the first known Navajo silversmith.-Background:Atsidi Sani played an important role in the history of Navajo silversmithing. He is known by many to be the first Navajo silversmith, although his main focus was in blacksmithing; working with iron. Many agree that he learned...
(Old Smith) was the first Navajo silversmith, but he had many students, and the technology quickly spread to surrounding tribes. Today thousands of artists produce silver jewelry with turquoise. Hopi are renowned for their overlay
Overlay
Overlay may refer to:*Overlay architecture, term used to describe ‘event architecture’ and relates to the temporary elements that supplement existing buildings and infrastructure to enable the operation of major sporting events or festivals....
silver work and cottonwood carvings. Zuni artists are admired for their cluster work jewelry, showcasing turquoise designs, as well as their elaborate, pictorial stone inlay in silver.
Mesoamerica and Central America
The cultural development of ancient Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
was generally divided along east and west. The stable Maya culture was most dominant in the east, especially the Yucatán Peninsula, while in the west more varied developments took place in subregions. These included West Mexican
Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition
The Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition or shaft tomb culture refers to a set of interlocked cultural traits found in the western Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit, and, to a lesser extent, Colima to its south, roughly dating to the period between 300 BCE and 400 CE, although there is not wide...
(1000-1), Teotihuacan (1-500), Mixtec (1000–1200), and Aztec (1200-1521).
Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
n civilizations generally lived to the regions south of modern-day Mexico, although there was some overlap.
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica was home to the following cultures, among others:Olmec
The Olmec (1500-400 BCE), who lived on the gulf coast, were the first civilization to fully develop in Mesoamerica. Their culture was the first to develop many traits that remained constant in Mesoamerica until the last days of the Aztecs: a complex astronomical calendar, the ritual practice of a ball game, and the erection of stelae to commemorate victories or other important events.The most famous artistic creations of the Olmec are colossal basalt heads, believed to be portraits of rulers that were erected to advertise their great power. The Olmec also sculpted votive figurines
Olmec figurine
This article on the Olmec figurine describes a number of archetypical figurines produced by the Formative Period inhabitants of Mesoamerica. While many of these figurines may or may not have been produced directly by the people of the Olmec heartland, they bear the hallmarks and motifs of Olmec...
that they buried beneath the floors of their houses for unknown reasons. These were most often modeled in terracotta, but also occasionally carved from jade
Jade
Jade is an ornamental stone.The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals:...
or serpentine
Serpentinite
Serpentinite is a rock composed of one or more serpentine group minerals. Minerals in this group are formed by serpentinization, a hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth's mantle...
.
Teotihuacano
TeotihuacanTeotihuacan
Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...
was a city built in the Valley of Mexico
Valley of Mexico
The Valley of Mexico is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a centre for several pre-Columbian civilizations, including...
, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
Americas. Established around 200 BCE, the city fell between the 7th and 8th century CE. Teotihuacan has numerous well-preserved mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
s.
Classic Veracruz Culture
In his 1957 book on Mesoamerican art, Miguel CovarrubiasMiguel Covarrubias
José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud was a Mexican painter and caricaturist, ethnologist and art historian among other interests. In 1924 at the age of 19 he moved to New York City armed with a grant from the Mexican government, tremendous talent, but very little English speaking skill. Luckily,...
speaks of Remojadas' "magnificent hollow figures with expressive faces, in majestic postures and wearing elaborate paraphernalia indicated by added clay elements."
Zapotec
"The Bat God was one of the important deities of the Maya, many elements of whose religion were shared also by the Zapotec. The Bat God in particular is known to have been revered also by the Zapotec [...] He was especially associated [...] with the underworld." An important Zapotec center was Monte AlbanMonte Albán
Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca...
, in present-day Oaxaca
Oaxaca
Oaxaca , , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 571 municipalities; of which 418 are governed by the system of customs and traditions...
, Mexico. The Monte Alban periods are divided into I, II, and III, which range from 200 BCE to 600 CE.
Maya
The Maya civilizationMaya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
occupied the south of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, all of Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
and Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
, and the western portions of Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
and El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
.
Central America and "Intermediate area"
Greater ChiriquiGreater Nicoya
The ancient peoples of the Nicoya Peninsula
Nicoya Peninsula
The Nicoya Peninsula is a peninsula on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and lies in the Guanacaste Province in the north, and the Puntarenas Province in the south. It is located at . It varies from 19 to wide and is approximately long, and forms the largest peninsula in the country. It is known...
in present day Costa Rica traditionally sculpted birds in jade
Costa Rican Jade Tradition
Jadeite is presumed one of the most precious materials of Pre-Columbian Costa Rica. It, along with other similar looking greenstones were cherished and worked for years...
, which were used for funeral ornaments. Around 500 CE gold ornaments replaced jade, possibly because of the depletion of jade resources.
Caribbean
Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artArt
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
istic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America, Mesoamerica, North America including Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
, as well as Siberian Yup'ik peoples who have great cultural overlap with Native Alaskan Yup'iks.
Lithic and Archaic stage
In North America, the Lithic stageLithic stage
In the sequence of North American prehistoric cultural stages first proposed by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958, the Lithic stage was the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas, accruing during the Late Pleistocene period, to time before 8,000 B.C....
or Paleo-indian period is defined as approximately 18,000–8000 BCE. The period from around 8000–800 BCE is generally referred to as the Archaic period. The production of bannerstone
Bannerstone
Bannerstones are artifacts usually found in the Eastern United States that are characterized by a centered hole in a symmetrically shaped carved or ground stone. The holes are typically ¼” to ¾” in diameter and extend through a raised portion centered in the stone. They usually are bored all the...
s, Projectile point
Projectile point
In archaeological terms, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a projectile, such as a spear, dart, or arrow, or perhaps used as a knife....
, Lithic reduction
Lithic reduction
Lithic reduction involves the use of a hard hammer precursor, such as a hammerstone, a soft hammer fabricator , or a wood or antler punch to detach lithic flakes from a lump of tool stone called a lithic core . As flakes are detached in sequence, the original mass of stone is reduced; hence the...
styles and pictographic cave paintings are some of the art that remains from this time period.
Belonging in the Lithic stage, the oldest known art in the Americas is the Vero Beach
Vero Beach, Florida
Vero Beach is a city in Indian River County, Florida, USA. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 estimates, the city had a population of 16,939. It is the county seat of Indian River County...
bone, possibly a mammoth bone, etched with a profile of walking mammoth that dates back to 11,000 BCE. The oldest known painted object in North American is the Cooper Bison Skull from 10,900–10,200 BCE. Lithic age art in South America includes Monte Alegre culture rock paintings created at Caverna da Pedra Pintada dating back to 9250–8550 BCE. Guitarrero Cave
Guitarrero Cave
Guitarrero Cave is located in the Callejon de Huaylas valley in Yungay Province, in the Ancash region of Peru. The cave stands 50 meters above Rio Santa and 2,580 meters above sea level.-Archeological findings:...
in Peru has the earliest known textiles in South America, dating to 8000 BCE.
The southwestern United States and certain regions of the Andes have the highest concentration of pictographs (painted images) and Petroglyph
Petroglyph
Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...
s (carved images) from this period. Both pictographs and petroglyphs are known as rock art
Rock art
Rock art is a term used in archaeology for any human-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:*Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces*Pictographs - rock and cave paintings...
.
File:MtnSheepPetroglyph.jpg|A petroglyph of a caravan of bighorn sheep
Bighorn Sheep
The bighorn sheep is a species of sheep in North America named for its large horns. These horns can weigh up to , while the sheep themselves weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates that there are three distinct subspecies of Ovis canadensis, one of which is endangered: Ovis canadensis sierrae...
near Moab, Utah
Moab, Utah
Moab is a city in Grand County, in eastern Utah, in the western United States. The population was 4,779 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat and largest city in Grand County. Moab hosts a large number of tourists every year, mostly visitors to the nearby Arches and Canyonlands National Parks...
, USA; a common theme in glyphs from the southwestern desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
File:Coso archaic.jpg|
Coso Rock Art District
Coso Rock Art District, containing the Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons, is a rock art site containing over 20,000 of Paleo-Indian and/or Native American Petroglyphs The Coso Range is between the Sierra Nevada and the Argus Range. Indian Wells Valley lies to the south of this location...
, California
Image:Petroglyphs in the Columbia River Gorge.jpg|
Columbia River Gorge
The Columbia River Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Up to deep, the canyon stretches for over as the river winds westward through the Cascade Range forming the boundary between the State of Washington to the north and Oregon to the south...
, Washington, USA
Image:Folsom point.png|
Folsom point
Folsom points are a distinct form of chipped stone projectile points associated with the Folsom Tradition of North America. The style of toolmaking was named after Folsom, New Mexico where the first sample was found within the bone structure of a bison in 1927....
spear-point.
File:Bannerstone.jpg|
Bannerstone
Bannerstones are artifacts usually found in the Eastern United States that are characterized by a centered hole in a symmetrically shaped carved or ground stone. The holes are typically ¼” to ¾” in diameter and extend through a raised portion centered in the stone. They usually are bored all the...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
File:Archaic point.jpg|
Arrowhead
An arrowhead is a tip, usually sharpened, added to an arrow to make it more deadly or to fulfill some special purpose. Historically arrowheads were made of stone and of organic materials; as human civilization progressed other materials were used...
, Wilson Butte Cave
Wilson Butte Cave
Wilson Butte Cave is located on the Snake River plain near Twin Falls in Jerome County, Idaho. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is maintained by the Bureau of Land Management or BLM.-External links:...
, Idaho
North America
Arctic
The Yupik of Alaska have a long tradition of carving masksMasks among Eskimo peoples
Masks among Eskimo peoples served a variety of functions. Masks were made out of driftwood, animal skins, bones and feathers. They were often painted using bright colors...
for use in shamanic
Shamanism among Eskimo peoples
Shamanism among Eskimo peoples refers to those aspects of the various Eskimo cultures that are related to the shamans’ role as a mediator between people and spirits, souls, and mythological beings...
rituals. Indigenous peoples of the Canadian arctic have produced objects that could be classified as art since the time of the Dorset culture
Dorset culture
The Dorset culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture that preceded the Inuit culture in Arctic North America. It has been defined as having four phases, with distinct technology related to the people's hunting and tool making...
. While the walrus ivory carvings of the Dorset were primarily shamanic, the art of the Thule people
Thule people
The Thule or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by AD 1000 and expanded eastwards across Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture that had previously inhabited the region...
who replaced them ca. 1000 CE was more decorative in character. With European contact the historic period of Inuit art began. In this period, which reached its height in the late 19th century, Inuit artisans created souvenirs for the crews of whaling ships and explorers. Common examples include cribbage
Cribbage
Cribbage, or crib, is a card game traditionally for two players, but commonly played with three, four or more, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points...
boards. Modern Inuit art began in the late 1940s, when with the encouragement of the Canadian government they began to produce prints and serpentine
Serpentinite
Serpentinite is a rock composed of one or more serpentine group minerals. Minerals in this group are formed by serpentinization, a hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth's mantle...
sculptures for sale in the south.
Greenlandic Inuit, or Kalaallit
Kalaallit
Kalaallit is the contemporary term in the Kalaallisut language for the indigenous people living in Greenland, also called the Kalaallit Nunaat. The singular term is kalaaleq. The Kalaallit are a part of the Arctic Inuit people. The language spoken by Inuit in Greenland is Kalaallisut.Historically,...
have a unique textile tradition intregrating skin-sewing, furs, and appliqué of small pieces of brightly dyed marine mammal organs. Women create elaborate netted beadwork collars. They have strong mask-making tradition and also are known for an art form called tupilaq
Tupilaq
In Greenlandic Inuit traditions, a tupilaq was an avenging monster fabricated by a practitioner of witchcraft or shamanism by using various objects such as animal parts and even parts taken from the corpses of children. The creature was given life by ritualistic chants...
or an "evil spirit object." Traditional art making practices thrive in the Ammassalik
Ammassalik
Ammassalik was one of two municipalities in Tunu, the former county of East Greenland − the other one being Illoqqortoormiut . It was located in southeastern Greenland, and with an area of 232,100 km², most of it on the ice sheet, it was the largest municipality of East Greenland, now part of the...
. Sperm whale
Sperm Whale
The sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus, is a marine mammal species, order Cetacea, a toothed whale having the largest brain of any animal. The name comes from the milky-white waxy substance, spermaceti, found in the animal's head. The sperm whale is the only living member of genus Physeter...
ivory remains a valued medium for carving.
Image:Yupik mask Branly 70-1999-1-2.jpg|
File:KiAs 1.jpg|
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
), Cape Dorset, Nunavat, 1999
Image:Inuitbasket.jpg|
Baleen
Baleen or whalebone is a filter-feeder system inside the mouths of baleen whales. The baleen system works when a whale opens its mouth underwater and then water pours into the whale's mouth. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and remain as food...
basket with carved walrus ivory finial, woven by Kinguktuk (1871-1941), Barrow, Alaska
Barrow, Alaska
Barrow is the largest city of the North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is one of the northernmost cities in the world and is the northernmost city in the United States of America, with nearby Point Barrow being the nation's northernmost point. Barrow's population was 4,212 at the...
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Image:Resolute Bay, Nunavut (2008) A Photo A Day (July 19, 2008).jpg|
Resolute Bay
Resolute Bay is an Arctic waterway in Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is located in Parry Channel on the southern side of Cornwallis Island. The hamlet of Resolute is located on the northern shore of the bay and Resolute Bay Airport to the northwest...
. Photo July 2008.
File:Tupilak 1.jpg|Kalaallit
Kalaallit
Kalaallit is the contemporary term in the Kalaallisut language for the indigenous people living in Greenland, also called the Kalaallit Nunaat. The singular term is kalaaleq. The Kalaallit are a part of the Arctic Inuit people. The language spoken by Inuit in Greenland is Kalaallisut.Historically,...
Tupilak from Greenland
Subarctic
Cultures of interior Alaska and Canada living south of the Arctic CircleArctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
are Subarctic peoples. While humans have lived in the region far longer, the oldest known surviving Subartic art is a petroglyph site in northwest Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, dated to 5000 BCE. Caribou, and to a lesser extent moose
Moose
The moose or Eurasian elk is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a dendritic configuration...
, are major resources, providing hides, antlers, sinew, and other artistic materials. Porcupine quillwork
Quillwork
Quillwork is a form of textile embellishment traditionally practiced by Native Americans that employs the quills of porcupines as a decorative element.-History:...
embellishes hides and birchbark. After European contact with the influence of the Grey Nuns
Grey Nuns
The Order of Sisters of Charity of Montreal, formerly called The Order of Sisters of Charity of the Hôpital Général of Montreal and more commonly known as the Grey Nuns of Montreal, is a Canadian order of Roman Catholic religious sisters...
, moosehair tufting
Tufting
Tufting is a type of textile weaving in which a thread is inserted on a primary base.It is an ancient technique for making warm garments, especially mittens. After the knitting is done, short U-shaped loops of extra yarn are introduced through the fabric from the outside so that their ends point...
and floral glass beadwork became popular through the Subarctic.
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Fairbanks, Alaska
Fairbanks is a home rule city in and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska.Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska, and second largest in the state behind Anchorage...
File:Assinaitappi.jpg|
Northwest Coast
The art of the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian
Tsimshian
The Tsimshian are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Tsimshian translates to Inside the Skeena River. Their communities are in British Columbia and Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are approximately 10,000...
and other smaller tribes living in the coastal areas of Washington State, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, and British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, is characterized by an extremely complex stylistic vocabulary expressed mainly in the medium of woodcarving. Famous examples include Totem pole
Totem pole
Totem poles are monumental sculptures carved from large trees, mostly Western Red Cedar, by cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America...
s, Transformation mask
Transformation mask
A transformation mask is a type of mask used by indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast and Alaska in ritual dances. These masks usually depict an outer, animal visage, which the performer can open by pulling a string to reveal an inner, human face carved in wood...
s, and canoes.
Image:Tsimshian mask Louvre MH 51-35-3.jpg|Tsimshian
Tsimshian
The Tsimshian are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Tsimshian translates to Inside the Skeena River. Their communities are in British Columbia and Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are approximately 10,000...
halait mask depicting a mosquito, British Columbia, 19th century. Louvre Museum.
Image:Casco y collera tlingit (M.A.N. Inv. 13909 y 13912) 01.jpg|
Image:Ketchican totem pole 2 stub.jpg|
Totem pole
Totem poles are monumental sculptures carved from large trees, mostly Western Red Cedar, by cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America...
in Ketchikan, Alaska, in the Tlingit style.
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File:Haida argillite carving BC 1850 nmai13-1875.jpg|
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Northeastern Woodlands
The Eastern Woodlands, or simply woodlands, cultures inhabited the regions of North America east of the Mississippi RiverMississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
at least since 2500 BCE. While there were many regionally distinct cultures, trade between them was common and they shared the practice of burying their dead in earthen mounds, which has preserved a large amount of their art. Because of this trait the cultures are collectively known as the Mound builders.
The Woodland Period
Woodland period
The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures was from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic header for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the...
(1000 BCE–1000 CE) is divided in to early, middle, and late periods, and consisted of cultures that relied mostly on hunting and gathering for their subsistence. Ceramics made by the Deptford culture
Deptford culture
The Deptford culture was characterized by the appearance of elaborate ceremonial complexes, increasing social and opolitical complexity, mound burial, permanent settlements, population growth, and an increasing reliance on cultigens....
(2500 BCE-100 CE) are the earliest evidence of an artistic tradition in this region. The Adena culture
Adena culture
The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 1000 to 200 BC, in a time known as the early Woodland Period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system...
are another well-known example of an early Woodland culture. They carved stone tablets with zoomorphic
Zoomorphism
Zoomorphism is the shaping of something in animal form or terms. Examples include:*Art that imagines humans as animals*Art that portrays one species of animal like another species of animal*Art that creates patterns using animal imagery, or animal style...
designs, created pottery
Hopewell pottery
Hopewell pottery is the ceramic tradition of the various local cultures involved in the Hopewell tradition and are found as artifacts in archeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast...
, and fashioned costumes from animal hides and antlers for ceremonial rituals. Shellfish was a mainstay of their diet, and engraved shells have been found in their burial mounds.
The Middle Woodland Period was dominated by cultures of the Hopewell tradition (200-500). Their artwork encompassed a wide variety of jewelry and sculpture in stone, wood, and even human bone.
The Late Woodland Period (500-1000 CE) saw a decline in trade and in the size of settlements, and the creation of art likewise declined.
From the 12th century onward, the Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
and nearby coastal tribes fashioned wampum
Wampum
Wampum are traditional, sacred shell beads of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of the indigenous people of North America. Wampum include the white shell beads fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell; and the white and purple beads made from the quahog, or Western North Atlantic...
from shells and string; these were mnenomic devices, currency, and records of treaties.
Iroquois people carve False Face masks for healing rituals, but the traditional representatives of the tribes, the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee, are clear that these masks are not for sale or public display. The same can be said for Iroquois Corn Husk Society masks.
File:Mound City Chillicothe Ohio HRoe 2008.jpg|
Hopewell culture
The Hopewell tradition is the term used to describe common aspects of the Native American culture that flourished along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern United States from 200 BCE to 500 CE. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related...
mounds from the Mound City Group
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, formerly known as Mound City Group National Monument, is a United States national historical park with earthworks and burial mounds from the Hopewell culture, indigenous peoples who flourished from about 200 BC to AD 500. The park is composed of five...
in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
File:Hopewell culture nhp raven effigy pipe chillicothe ohio 2006.jpg|
Raven
Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...
, Hopewell tradition
Image:Hand Hopewell mica.jpg|
Mica
The mica group of sheet silicate minerals includes several closely related materials having highly perfect basal cleavage. All are monoclinic, with a tendency towards pseudohexagonal crystals, and are similar in chemical composition...
, Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, formerly known as Mound City Group National Monument, is a United States national historical park with earthworks and burial mounds from the Hopewell culture, indigenous peoples who flourished from about 200 BC to AD 500. The park is composed of five...
File:Hopewell culture falcon.jpg|
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, formerly known as Mound City Group National Monument, is a United States national historical park with earthworks and burial mounds from the Hopewell culture, indigenous peoples who flourished from about 200 BC to AD 500. The park is composed of five...
site of the Hopewell culture
File:Adena SerpMd gorget points HRoe 2009.jpg|
Gorget
A gorget originally was a steel or leather collar designed to protect the throat. It was a feature of older types of armour and intended to protect against swords and other non-projectile weapons...
and spear points on display at the Serpent Mound
Serpent Mound
The Great Serpent Mound is a -long, three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound located on a plateau of the Serpent Mound crater along Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio. Maintained within a park by the Ohio Historical Society, it has been designated a National Historic Landmark by the United...
, Adena culture
Adena culture
The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 1000 to 200 BC, in a time known as the early Woodland Period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system...
File:Wampum William Penn Great Treaty.jpg|
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
to William Penn
William Penn
William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, 1682
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File:Kanawha-Madonna.jpg|
Kanawha Madonna
The Kanawha Madonna is a wood carving of a person holding a four-legged animal. The carving is currently part of the collection of the West Virginia State Museum and displayed in the Cultural Center as an example of prehistoric Native American wood carving. The statue is nearly tall with a in...
, a honey locust wood carving, West Virginia, ca. 1440—1600
Southeastern Woodlands
The Poverty Point culturePoverty Point culture
Poverty Point culture is an archaeological culture that corresponds to an ancient group of Indigenous peoples who inhabited the area of the lower Mississippi Valley and surrounding Gulf coast from about 2200 BCE - 700 BCE...
inhabited portions of the state of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
from 2000–1000 BCE during the Archaic period. Many objects excavated at Poverty Point sites were made of materials that originated in distant places, including chipped stone projectile points and tools, ground stone plummets, gorgets and vessels, and shell and stone beads. Stone tools found at Poverty Point were made from raw materials which originated in the relatively nearby Ouachita and Ozark Mountains and from the much further away Ohio
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
and Tennessee River
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names...
valleys. Vessels were made from soapstone
Soapstone
Soapstone is a metamorphic rock, a talc-schist. It is largely composed of the mineral talc and is thus rich in magnesium. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occurs in the areas where tectonic plates are subducted, changing rocks by heat and pressure, with influx...
which came from the Appalachian foothills
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
of Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
and Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. Hand-modeled lowly fired clay objects occur in a variety of shapes including anthropomophic figurines and cooking balls.
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File:Poverty Point female figurines HRoe 2009.jpg|
File:Poverty Point gorgets atlatl weights HRoe 2009.jpg|
Atlatl
An atlatl or spear-thrower is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart-throwing.It consists of a shaft with a cup or a spur at the end that supports and propels the butt of the dart. The atlatl is held in one hand, gripped near the end farthest from the cup...
weights, Poverty Point
The Mississippian culture
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
flourished in what is now the Midwestern
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
, Eastern
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, the American East, or simply the East is traditionally defined as the states east of the Mississippi River. The first two tiers of states west of the Mississippi have traditionally been considered part of the West, but can be included in the East today; usually in...
, and Southeastern United States
Southeastern United States
The Southeastern United States, colloquially referred to as the Southeast, is the eastern portion of the Southern United States. It is one of the most populous regions in the United States of America....
from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally. After adopting maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
agriculture the Mississippian culture became fully agrarian, as opposed to the hunting and gathering supplemented by part-time agriculture practiced by preceding woodland cultures. They built platform mound
Platform mound
A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...
s larger and more complex than those of their predecessors, and finished and developed more advanced ceramic techniques, commonly using ground mussel
Mussel
The common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalvia mollusca, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...
shell as a tempering agent. Many were involved with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is the name given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian culture that coincided with their adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization from...
, a pan-regional and pan-linguistic religious and trade network. The majority of the information known about the S.E.C.C. is derived from examination of the elaborate artworks left behind by its participants, including elaborate pottery
Mississippian culture pottery
Mississippian culture pottery is the ceramic tradition of the Mississippian culture found as artifacts in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. It is often characterized by the adoption and use of riverine shell-tempering agents in the clay paste. Shell tempering is one of...
, shell gorget
Shell gorget
A shell gorget is a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated ....
s and cups, stone statuary
Mississippian stone statuary
The Mississippian stone statuary are artifacts of polished stone in the shape of human figurines made by members of the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast...
and Long-nosed god maskette
Long-nosed god maskette
Long-nosed god maskettes are artifacts made from bone, copper and marine shells associated with the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. They are small shield-shaped faces with squared-off foreheads, circular eyes, and large noses of...
s. By the time of European contact the Mississippian societies were already experiencing severe social stress, and with the social upsets and diseases introduced by Europeans many of the societies collapsed and ceased to practice a Mississippian lifestyle, with an exception being the Natchez people
Natchez people
The Natchez are a Native American people who originally lived in the Natchez Bluffs area, near the present-day city of Natchez, Mississippi. They spoke a language isolate that has no known close relatives, although it may be very distantly related to the Muskogean languages of the Creek...
. Other tribes descended from Mississippian cultures include the Caddo
Caddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
, Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
, Muscogee Creek, Wichita
Wichita (tribe)
The Wichita people are indigenous inhabitants of North America, who traditionally spoke the Wichita language, a Caddoan language. They have lived in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas...
, and many other southeastern peoples.
The Calusa
Calusa
The Calusa were a Native American people who lived on the coast and along the inner waterways of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region; at the time of European contact, the Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture...
peoples occupied the southern areas of Florida before European contact, and created carvings of animals.
The Seminoles are best known for their textile creations, especially patchwork clothing. Doll-making is another notable craft.
Image:Spiro engraved hero twins HRoe 2005.jpg|
Shell gorget
A shell gorget is a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated ....
, Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds is an important pre-Columbian Caddoan Mississippian culture archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma in the United States. The site is located seven miles north of Spiro, and is the only prehistoric Native American archaeological site in Oklahoma open to the public...
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Spiro ceremonial mace HRoe 2005.jpg|
Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds is an important pre-Columbian Caddoan Mississippian culture archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma in the United States. The site is located seven miles north of Spiro, and is the only prehistoric Native American archaeological site in Oklahoma open to the public...
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Hampson effigypot HRoe 2006.jpg|
Nodena Site
The Nodena Site is an archeological site east of Wilson, Arkansas and northeast of Reverie, Tennessee in Mississippi County, Arkansas, United States. Around 1400–1650 CE an aboriginal palisaded village existed in the Nodena area on a meander bend of the Mississippi River. The Nodena site...
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Moundville stone pallette HRoe 2003.jpg|
Moundville Archaeological Site
Moundville Archaeological Site, also known as the Moundville Archaeological Park, is a Mississippian site on the Black Warrior River in Hale County, near the town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama...
, back used for mixing paint (Mississippian culture)
Image:Spiro Lucifer Pipe HRoe 2005.jpg|
Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds is an important pre-Columbian Caddoan Mississippian culture archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma in the United States. The site is located seven miles north of Spiro, and is the only prehistoric Native American archaeological site in Oklahoma open to the public...
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Etowah statues HRoe 2007.jpg|
Etowah Indian Mounds
Etowah Indian Mounds is a archaeological site in Bartow County, Georgia south of Cartersville, in the United States. Built and occupied in three phases, from 1000–1550 CE, the prehistoric site is located on the north shore of the Etowah River. Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site is a designated...
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Mississippian Underwater Panther ceramic.JPG|
Underwater panther
An Underwater panther is a powerful creature in the mythological traditions of some Native American tribes, particularly Anishinaabe tribes, the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi, of the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States...
jug, Rose Mound (Mississippian culture)
Image:Calusa carved gator head.jpg|
Calusa
The Calusa were a Native American people who lived on the coast and along the inner waterways of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region; at the time of European contact, the Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture...
, Florida
Great Plains
Tribes have lived on the Great PlainsGreat Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
for thousands of years. Early Plains cultures are commonly divided into four periods: Paleoindian (at least ca. 10,000–4000 BCE), Plains Archaic (ca. 4000–250 BCE), Plains Woodland (ca. 250 BCE–950 CE), Plains Village (ca. 950-1850 CE). The oldest known painted object in North American was found in the southern plains, the Cooper Bison Skull, found in Oklahoma and dated 10,900-10,200 BCE. It's painted with a red zizzag.
In the Plains Village period, the cultures of the area settled in enclosed clusters of rectangular houses and cultivated maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
. Various regional differences emerged, including Southern Plains, Central Plains, Oneota
Oneota
Oneota is a designation archaeologists use to refer to a cultural complex that existed in the eastern plains and Great Lakes area of what is now the United States from around AD 900 to around 1650 or 1700. The culture is believed to have transitioned into various Macro-Siouan cultures of the...
, and Middle Missouri. Tribes were both nomadic hunters and semi-nomadic farmers. During the Plains Coalescent period (1400-European contact) some change, possibly drought, caused the mass migration of the population to the Eastern Woodlands region, and the Great Plains were sparsely populated until pressure from American settlers drove tribes into the area again.
The advent of the horse revolutionized the cultures of many historical Plains tribes. Horse culture
Horse culture
The term "Horse culture" is used to define a tribal group or community whose day to day life revolves around the herding and breeding of horses...
enabled tribes to live a completely nomadic existence, hunting buffalo. Buffalo hide clothing was decorated with porcupine quill embroidery
Quillwork
Quillwork is a form of textile embellishment traditionally practiced by Native Americans that employs the quills of porcupines as a decorative element.-History:...
and beads – dentalium shells and elk teeth were prized materials. Later coins and glass beads acquired from trading were incorporated into Plains art. Plains beadwork
Beadwork
Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another or to cloth, usually by the use of a needle and thread or soft, flexible wire. Most beadwork takes the form of jewelry or other personal adornment, but beads are also used in wall hangings and sculpture.Beadwork techniques are broadly...
has flourished into contemporary times.
Buffalo was the preferred material for Plains hide painting
Plains hide painting
Plains hide painting is a traditional Plains Indian artistic practice of painting on either tanned or raw animal hides. Tipis, tipi liners, shields, parfleches, robes, clothing, drums, and winter counts could all be painted.-Genres:...
. Men painted narrative, pictorial designs recording personal exploits or visions. They also painted pictographic historical calendars known as Winter count
Winter count
Winter counts are pictorial calendars or histories in which tribal records and events were recorded. The Blackfeet, Mandan, Kiowa, Lakota, and other Plains tribes used winter counts extensively...
s. Women painted geometric designs on tanned robes and rawhide parfleche
Parfleche
A parfleche is a Native American rawhide bag, typically used for holding dried meats and pemmican.The word was originally used by French fur traders...
s, which sometimes served as maps.
During the Reservation Era of the late 19th century, buffalo herds were systematically destroyed by non-native hunters. Due to the scarcity of hides, Plains artists adopted new painting surfaces, such as muslin or paper, giving birth to Ledger art
Ledger Art
Ledger Art is a term for Plains Indian narrative drawing or painting on paper or cloth. Ledger art was primarily from the 1860s to about 1900, although some of the old style drawing continues to the 1930s. There is also a contemporary group of accomplished Native American artists who work in the...
, so named for the ubiquitous ledger books used by Plains artists.
Image:Sioux-Womendress.jpg|
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
dress with fully beaded yoke.
Image:Bags and pouches of Sioux.jpg|
Image:Blackhawk-spiritbeing.jpg|
Haokah
In Lakota mythology, Heyókȟa is a spirit of thunder and lightning. He is said to use the wind as sticks to beat the drum of thunder. His emotions are portrayed opposite the norm; he laughs when he is sad and cries when he is happy, cold makes him sweat and heat makes him shiver. In art, he is...
(ca. 1880) by Black Hawk
Black Hawk (artist)
Black Hawk was a member of the Sans Arc or Itázipčho band of Lakota people. He is best known as an artist who, in 1880-1881, produced a set of seventy-six color ledger drawings of Lakota life for William Edward Caton, the federal "Indian trader" at the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation...
(Lakota).
Image:Ledger-sm2.jpg|
Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
ledger art, possibly of the 1874 Buffalo Wallow battle, Red River War
Red River War
The Red River War was a military campaign launched by the United States Army in 1874, as part of the Comanche War, to remove the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Native American tribes from the Southern Plains and forcibly relocate them to reservations in Indian Territory...
.
Image:Peace pipe.jpg|Lakota (Sioux) chanunpa
Chanunpa
Chanunpa, or Chanupa, is the Sioux language name for the sacred, ceremonial pipe and the ceremony in which it is used.The Chanunpa is one means of conveying prayers to the Creator and the other sacred beings...
pipestem from a ritual pipe
Great Basin and Plateau
Since the archaic period the Plateau region, also known as the IntermontaineIntermontane
Intermontane is a physiographic adjective formed from the prefix "inter-" and the adjective "montane" Usage includes intermontane basin such as New Zealand's Mackenzie Basin and intermontane...
and upper Great Basin
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...
, had been a center of trade. Plateau people traditionally settled near major river systems. Because of this, their art carries influences from other regions – from the Pacific Northwest coasts and Great Plains. Nez Perce, Yakama
Yakama
The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, or simply Yakama Nation , is a Native American group with nearly 10,000 enrolled members, living in Washington. Their reservation, along the Yakima River, covers an area of approximately 1.2 million acres...
, Umatilla
Umatilla (tribe)
The Umatilla are a Sahaptin-speaking Native American group living on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, who traditionally inhabited the Columbia Plateau region of the northwestern United States....
, and Cayuse
Cayuse
The Cayuse are a Native American tribe in the state of Oregon in the United States. The Cayuse tribe shares a reservation in northeastern Oregon with the Umatilla and the Walla Walla tribes as part of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation...
women weave flat, rectangular corn husks or hemp dogbane bags, which are decorated with "bold, geometric designs" in false embroidery. Plateau beadworkers are known for their contour-style beading and their elaborate horse regalia.
Great Basin tribes
Great Basin tribes
The Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin are the Native American peoples of the Great Basin inhabited a cultural region between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, in what is now Nevada, and parts of Oregon, California, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. There is very little precipitation in the...
have a sophisticated basket making tradition, as exemplified by Louisa Keyser (Washoe
Washoe people
The Washoe are a Great Basin tribe of Native Americans, living in California and Nevada. The name "Washoe" is derived from the autonym waashiw meaning "people from here" in the Washo language .-Territory:Washoe people have lived in the Great Basin for at least the last 6000 years...
), Lucy Telles
Lucy Telles
Lucy Parker Telles was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi and Southern Sierra Miwok Native American basket weaver.-Background:...
, Carrie Bethel
Carrie Bethel
Carrie McGowan Bethel was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi basketmaker associated with Yosemite National Park. She was born Carrie McGowan in Lee Vining, California and began making baskets at the age of 12. She participated in basket making competitions in the Yosemite Indian Field Days in 1926...
and Nellie Charlie
Nellie Charlie
Nellie Charlie was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi basketmaker associated with Yosemite National Park. She was born in Lee Vining, California, the daughter of tribal headman Pete Jim, and his wife Patsy, also a basketmaker. She married Young Charlie, a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi man from...
. After being displaced from their lands by non-Native settlers, Washoe wove baskets for the commodity market, especially 1895 to 1935. Paiute
Paiute
Paiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...
, Shoshone
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
and Washoe basketmakers are known for their baskets that incorporate seed beads on the surface and for waterproof baskets.
Image:Wishram Petroglyphs.jpg|
Wasco-Wishram
Wasco-Wishram are two closely related Chinook Indian tribes from the Columbia River in Oregon. Today the tribes are part of the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon and Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation in Washington.-History:...
petroglyphs, Columbia River, Oregon
Image:NEPE9896 Beaded-Bag.jpg|
Image:Nez Perce Shirt.jpg|
Image:Beadedmoccasins.jpg|
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
beaded men's moccasins, ca. 1900, Wyoming
Image:Datsolalee2.jpg|
Washoe people
The Washoe are a Great Basin tribe of Native Americans, living in California and Nevada. The name "Washoe" is derived from the autonym waashiw meaning "people from here" in the Washo language .-Territory:Washoe people have lived in the Great Basin for at least the last 6000 years...
artist Louisa Keyser (Datsolalee), with several of her baskets, c.1900.
Image:Lucy telles Paiute in Yosemite.jpg|
Lucy Telles
Lucy Parker Telles was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi and Southern Sierra Miwok Native American basket weaver.-Background:...
(Yosemite–Mono Lake Paiute in Yosemite, California, 1933 displaying one of the large baskets for which she is known.
Image:Carrie Bethel basket.jpg|Basket by Carrie Bethel
Carrie Bethel
Carrie McGowan Bethel was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi basketmaker associated with Yosemite National Park. She was born Carrie McGowan in Lee Vining, California and began making baskets at the age of 12. She participated in basket making competitions in the Yosemite Indian Field Days in 1926...
(Mono Lake Paiute), California, 30" diam., ca. 1931-5
Image:UteBeadwork1.jpg|Ute
Ute Tribe
The Ute are an American Indian people now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah ; Southern Ute in Colorado ; and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico . The name of the state of...
beadwork
California
The Native Americans in California have a tradition of exquisitely detailed basket weavingBasket weaving
Basket weaving is the process of weaving unspun vegetable fibres into a basket or other similar form. People and artists who weave baskets are called basketmakers and basket weavers.Basketry is made from a variety of fibrous or pliable materials•anything that will bend and form a shape...
arts. In the late 19th century Californian basket
Basket
A basket is a container which is traditionally constructed from stiff fibres, which can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehair, baleen, or metal wire can be used. Baskets are...
s by artists in the Cahuilla
Cahuilla
The Cahuilla, Iviatim in their own language, are Indians with a common culture whose ancestors inhabited inland areas of southern California 2,000 years ago. Their original territory included an area of about . The traditional Cahuilla territory was near the geographic center of Southern California...
, Chumash, Pomo, Miwok
Miwok
Miwok can refer to any one of four linguistically related groups of Native Americans, native to Northern California, who spoke one of the Miwokan languages in the Utian family...
, Hupa
Hupa
Hupa, also spelled Hoopa, are a Native American tribe in northwestern California. Their autonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinookwa, meaning "People of the Place Where the Trails Return." The majority of the tribe is enrolled in the federally recognized Hoopa Valley Tribe; however, some Hupa are...
and many other tribes became popular with collectors, museums, and tourists. This resulted in great innovation in the form of the baskets. Many pieces by Native American basket weavers from all parts of California are in museum collections, such as the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, and is particularly strong in New World ethnography and...
at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, the Southwest Museum
Autry National Center
The Autry National Center of the American West is an intercultural center and museum in Los Angeles, California that celebrates the diversity and history of the American West through three important institutions: the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of the American West, and the...
, and the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere...
.
California has a large number of pictographs and petroglyphs rock art
Rock art
Rock art is a term used in archaeology for any human-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:*Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces*Pictographs - rock and cave paintings...
. One of the largest densities of petroglyphs in North America, by the Coso People
Coso People
The Coso people are an indigenous people of the Americas and Native American tribe associated with the Coso Range in the Mojave Desert of California in the southwestern U.S.. They are of the Uto-Aztecan language and spoke one of several Numic languages, related to that of the Northern Paiute.They...
, is in Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons
Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons
Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons are two principal landforms within which are found major accumulations of Paleo-Indian and/or Native American Petroglyphs, or rock art, by the Coso People located in the Coso Range Mountains of the northern Mojave Desert, and now within the Naval Air Weapons...
in the Coso Rock Art District
Coso Rock Art District
Coso Rock Art District, containing the Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons, is a rock art site containing over 20,000 of Paleo-Indian and/or Native American Petroglyphs The Coso Range is between the Sierra Nevada and the Argus Range. Indian Wells Valley lies to the south of this location...
of the northern Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
in California.
The most elaborate pictographs in the U.S are considered to be the rock art of the Chumash people
Rock art of the Chumash people
Chumash rock art is a genre of paintings on caves, mountains, cliffs, or other living rock surfaces, created by the Chumash people of southern California. Pictographs and petroglyphs are common through interior California, the rock painting tradition thrived until the 19th century...
, found in cave painting
Cave painting
Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
s in present day Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, Ventura
Ventura County, California
Ventura County is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. It is located on California's Pacific coast. It is often referred to as the Gold Coast, and has a reputation of being one of the safest populated places and one of the most affluent places in the country...
, and San Luis Obispo Counties
San Luis Obispo County, California
San Luis Obispo County is a county located along the Pacific Ocean in the Central Coast of the U.S. state of California, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2010 census its population was 269,637, up from 246,681 at the 2000 census...
. The Chumash cave painting
Cave painting
Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
includes examples at Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park
Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park, California
Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park is a unit in the state park system of California, USA, preserving a small sandstone cave adorned with rock art attributed to the Chumash people. Adjoining the small community of Painted Cave, the site is located about north of California State Route 154...
and Burro Flats Painted Cave
Burro Flats Painted Cave
Burro Flats Painted Cave is in the Burro Flats area of the Simi Hills, located between the Simi Valley, and West Hills and Bell Canyon, in Ventura County of Southern California, United States. It is a Cave containing Chumash Native American pictographs...
.
image:2009 07 09 camino cielo paradise 137.jpg|Chumash rock art at Painted Cave
Image:Pomo 19th century basket 2 CAC.JPG|
Pomo people
The Pomo people are an indigenous peoples of California. The historic Pomo territory in northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point...
of northern California.
Image:Pomo Basket Bowl.jpg|
Image:Yurok 20061109192219.jpg|Yurok baskets, Redwood National Park
Image:Yurok dance skirt 1 CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Yurok dance skirt, buckskin with abalone, pine nuts, beads, and metal, Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
image:Hupa woman's cap CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Hupa
Hupa
Hupa, also spelled Hoopa, are a Native American tribe in northwestern California. Their autonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinookwa, meaning "People of the Place Where the Trails Return." The majority of the tribe is enrolled in the federally recognized Hoopa Valley Tribe; however, some Hupa are...
woman's cap, bear grass and conifer root, Stanford University
image:Hupa moccasins CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Hupa moccasins, Stanford
Southwest
In the Southwestern United StatesSouthwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
numerous pictographs and petroglyphs were created. The Fremont culture
Fremont culture
The Fremont culture or Fremont people is a pre-Columbian archaeological culture which received its name from the Fremont River in the U.S. state of Utah where the first Fremont sites were discovered. The Fremont River itself is named for John Charles Frémont, an American explorer. It inhabited...
and Ancient Pueblo Peoples
Ancient Pueblo Peoples
Ancient Pueblo People or Ancestral Pueblo peoples were an ancient Native American culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the United States, comprising southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southern Colorado...
and later tribes' creations, in the Barrier Canyon Style
Barrier Canyon Style
Barrier Canyon Style describes a distinctive style of rock art which appears mostly in Utah, with the largest concentration of sites in and around the San Rafael Swell and Canyonlands National Park, but the full range extends into much of the state and western Colorado...
and others, are seen at present day Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel
Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel
The Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel is an example of rock art, located in Buckhorn Draw in the San Rafael Swell in central Utah, approximately four miles north of the San Rafael campground and bridge....
and Horseshoe Canyon
Horseshoe Canyon (Utah)
Horseshoe Canyon, formerly known as Barrier Canyon, is in a remote area west of the Green River and north of the Canyonlands National Park Maze District in Utah, USA. It is known for its collection of Barrier Canyon Style rock art, including both pictographs and petroglyphs, which was first...
, amongst other sites. Petroglyphs by these and the Mogollon culture's artists are represented in Dinosaur National Monument
Dinosaur National Monument
Dinosaur National Monument is a National Monument located on the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains on the border between Colorado and Utah at the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers. Although most of the monument area is in Moffat County, Colorado, the Dinosaur Quarry is located in Utah...
and at Newspaper Rock
Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument
Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument is in eastern Utah, western United States, located to the east of Canyonlands National Park on Hwy 211. It is 28 miles northwest of Monticello and 53 miles south of Moab...
.
The Ancestral Pueblo
Ancient Pueblo Peoples
Ancient Pueblo People or Ancestral Pueblo peoples were an ancient Native American culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the United States, comprising southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southern Colorado...
, or Anasazi, (1000 BCE–700 CE) are the ancestors of today's Pueblo tribes. Their culture formed in the American southwest, after the cultivation of corn was introduced from Mexico around 1200 BCE. People of this region developed an agrarian lifestyle, cultivating food, storage gourds, and cotton with irrigation or xeriscaping
Xeriscaping
Xeriscaping and xerogardening refers to landscaping and gardening in ways that reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental water from irrigation...
techniques. They lived in sedentary towns, so pottery, used to store water and grain, was ubiquitous.
For hundreds of years, Ancestral Pueblo created utilitarian grayware and black-on-white pottery and occasionally orange or red ceramics. In historical times, Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
created olla
Olla
An Olla is a ceramic jar, often unglazed, used for cooking stews or soups, for the storage of water or dry foods, or for other purposes. Ollas have a short wide neck and a wider belly, resembling beanpots or handis.-History:...
s, dough bowls, and food bowls of different sizes for daily use, but they also made more elaborate ceremonial mugs, jugs, ladles, seed jars and those vessels for ritual use, and these were usually finished with polished surfaces and decorated with black painted designs. At the turn of the 20th century, Hopi potter Nampeyo
Nampeyo
Iris Nampeyo was a Hopi potter who lived on the Hopi Reservation in present-day Arizona. She received the English name Iris as an infant, but was better known by her Tewa name, Num-pa-yu, meaning "snake that does not bite"....
famous revived Sikyatki
Sikyátki
Sikyátki is an archeological site and former Hopi village spanning 40,000 to 60,000 square metres on the eastern side of First Mesa, in what is now Navajo County in the U.S. state of Arizona. It was inhabited by Kokop clan of the Hopi from the 14th to the 17th century. Jesse Walter Fewkes led a...
-style pottery, originated on First Mesa in the 14th to 17th centuries.
Southwest architecture includes Cliff dwellings, multi-story settlements carved from living rock; pit houses; and adobe
Adobe
Adobe is a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material , which the builders shape into bricks using frames and dry in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and mudbrick buildings. Adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for...
and sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
pueblo
Pueblo
Pueblo is a term used to describe modern communities of Native Americans in the Southwestern United States of America. The first Spanish explorers of the Southwest used this term to describe the communities housed in apartment-like structures built of stone, adobe mud, and other local material...
s. One of the most elaborate and largest ancient settlements is Chaco Canyon in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, which includes 15 major complexes of sandstone and timber. These are connected by a network of roads. Construction for the largest of these settlements, Pueblo Bonito
Pueblo Bonito
Pueblo Bonito, the largest and best known Great House in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, northern New Mexico, was built by ancestral Pueblo people and occupied between AD 828 and 1126....
, began 1080 years before present
Before Present
Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...
. Pueblo Bonito contains over 800 rooms.
Turquoise
Turquoise
Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl648·4. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue...
, jet, and spiny oyster shell have been traditionally used by Ancestral Pueblo for jewelry, and they developed sophisticated inlay
Inlay
Inlay is a decorative technique of inserting pieces of contrasting, often coloured materials into depressions in a base object to form patterns or pictures that normally are flush with the matrix. In a wood matrix, inlays commonly use wood veneers, but other materials like shells, mother-of-pearl,...
techniques centuries ago.
Around 200 CE the Hohokam
Hohokam
Hohokam is one of the four major prehistoric archaeological Oasisamerica traditions of what is now the American Southwest. Many local residents put the accent on the first syllable . Variant spellings in current, official usage include Hobokam, Huhugam and Huhukam...
culture developed in Arizona. They are the ancestors of the Tohono O'odham
Tohono O'odham
The Tohono O'odham are a group of Native American people who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of the southeastern Arizona and northwest Mexico...
and Akimel O'odham or Pima tribes. The Mimbres, a subgroup of the Mogollon culture, are especially notable for the narrative paintings on their pottery.
Within the last millennium, Athabaskan peoples emigrated from northern Canada in the southwest. These include the Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
and Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
. Sandpainting
Sandpainting
Sandpainting is the art of pouring colored sands, powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, and pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a fixed, or unfixed sand painting...
is an aspect of Navajo healing ceremonies that inspired an art form. Navajos learned to weave on upright looms from Pueblos and wove blankets that were eagerly collected by Great Basin
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...
and Plains tribes
Plains Indians
The Plains Indians are the Indigenous peoples who live on the plains and rolling hills of the Great Plains of North America. Their colorful equestrian culture and resistance to White domination have made the Plains Indians an archetype in literature and art for American Indians everywhere.Plains...
in the 18th and 19th centuries. After the introduction of the railroad in the 1880s, imported blankets became plentiful and inexpensive, so Navajo weavers switched to producing rugs
Navajo rug
Navajo rugs and blankets are textiles produced by Navajo people of the Four Corners area of the United States. Navajo textiles are highly regarded and have been sought after as trade items for over 150 years. Commercial production of handwoven blankets and rugs has been an important element of the...
for trade.
In the 1850s, Navajos adopted silversmith
Silversmith
A silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...
ing from the Mexicans. Atsidi Sani
Atsidi Sani
Atsidi Sani was the first known Navajo silversmith.-Background:Atsidi Sani played an important role in the history of Navajo silversmithing. He is known by many to be the first Navajo silversmith, although his main focus was in blacksmithing; working with iron. Many agree that he learned...
(Old Smith) was the first Navajo silversmith, but he had many students, and the technology quickly spread to surrounding tribes. Today thousands of artists produce silver jewelry with turquoise. Hopi are renowned for their overlay
Overlay
Overlay may refer to:*Overlay architecture, term used to describe ‘event architecture’ and relates to the temporary elements that supplement existing buildings and infrastructure to enable the operation of major sporting events or festivals....
silver work and cottonwood carvings. Zuni artists are admired for their cluster work jewelry, showcasing turquoise designs, as well as their elaborate, pictorial stone inlay in silver.
Image:Basket of Basketmaker Pueblo people.jpg|
Basketmaker (culture)
The Basketmaker culture of the Ancient Pueblo People began about 1500 BC and continued until about AD 500 with the beginning of the Pueblo I Era...
, Ancestral Pueblo
Image:RochesterPanel 01 2008.JPG|
Rochester Rock Art Panel
The Rochester Rock Art Panel consists of a large number of petroglyphs of various ages. Some are prehistoric rock art, probably of Fremont culture origin. Others are probably modern, depicting horses, for example. And some are arguably of very recent origin, most likely the work of white...
in the San Rafael Swell
San Rafael Swell
The San Rafael Swell is a large geologic feature located in south-central Utah, USA about 30 miles west of Green River, Utah. The San Rafael Swell, approximately by , consists of a giant dome-shaped anticline of sandstone, shale, and limestone that was pushed up during the Paleocene Laramide...
in Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, USA
File:Hohokam cliff dwelling (Montezuma Castle), Arizona.jpg|Montezuma Castle
Montezuma Castle National Monument
Montezuma Castle National Monument, located near Camp Verde, Arizona, in the Southwestern United States, features well-preserved cliff-dwellings. They were built and used by the Pre-Columbian Sinagua people, northern cousins of the Hohokam, around 700 AD. Several Hopi clans trace their roots to...
, a Sinagua
Sinagua
The Sinagua were a pre-Columbian cultural group occupying an area in central Arizona between the Little Colorado River and the Salt River including the Verde Valley and significant portions of the Mogollon Rim country between approximately 500 AD and 1425 AD.Early Sinagua sites consist of pit houses...
cliff dwelling in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, ca. 700 CE–1425 CE
Image:Hohokam shell etched.jpg|Etched shell, Hohokam
Image:Chaco Anasazi canteen NPS.jpg|
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, ca. 700 CE–1100 CE
Image:Mimbres p1070222.jpg|
Image:Navajo rug.jpg|
Navajo rug
Navajo rugs and blankets are textiles produced by Navajo people of the Four Corners area of the United States. Navajo textiles are highly regarded and have been sought after as trade items for over 150 years. Commercial production of handwoven blankets and rugs has been an important element of the...
.
Image:Navajo sandpainting.jpg|
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
Sandpainting
Sandpainting
Sandpainting is the art of pouring colored sands, powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, and pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a fixed, or unfixed sand painting...
.
File:The Childrens Museum of Indianapolis - Storyteller Under Sunny Skies clay sculpture.jpg|"Storyteller Under Sunny Skies," by Rose Pecos-SunRhodes, Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico (1993), a clay sculpture in the permanent collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
Mesoamerica and Central America
The cultural development of ancient Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
was generally divided along east and west. The stable Maya culture was most dominant in the east, especially the Yucatán Peninsula, while in the west more varied developments took place in subregions. These included West Mexican
Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition
The Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition or shaft tomb culture refers to a set of interlocked cultural traits found in the western Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit, and, to a lesser extent, Colima to its south, roughly dating to the period between 300 BCE and 400 CE, although there is not wide...
(1000-1), Teotihuacan (1-500), Mixtec (1000–1200), and Aztec (1200-1521).
Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
n civilizations generally lived to the regions south of modern-day Mexico, although there was some overlap.
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica was home to the following cultures, among others:Olmec
The Olmec (1500-400 BCE), who lived on the gulf coast, were the first civilization to fully develop in Mesoamerica. Their culture was the first to develop many traits that remained constant in Mesoamerica until the last days of the Aztecs: a complex astronomical calendar, the ritual practice of a ball game, and the erection of stelae to commemorate victories or other important events.The most famous artistic creations of the Olmec are colossal basalt heads, believed to be portraits of rulers that were erected to advertise their great power. The Olmec also sculpted votive figurines
Olmec figurine
This article on the Olmec figurine describes a number of archetypical figurines produced by the Formative Period inhabitants of Mesoamerica. While many of these figurines may or may not have been produced directly by the people of the Olmec heartland, they bear the hallmarks and motifs of Olmec...
that they buried beneath the floors of their houses for unknown reasons. These were most often modeled in terracotta, but also occasionally carved from jade
Jade
Jade is an ornamental stone.The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals:...
or serpentine
Serpentinite
Serpentinite is a rock composed of one or more serpentine group minerals. Minerals in this group are formed by serpentinization, a hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth's mantle...
.
Image:Mexico.Tab.OlmecHead.01.jpg|
La Venta
La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Some of the artifacts have been moved to the museum "Parque - Museo de La Venta", which is in Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco....
. This one is nearly 3 metres (9 ft) tall.
Image:San Martin Pajapan Monument 1 retouched.jpg|
San Martín Pajapan Monument 1
San Martín Pajapan Monument 1 is a large Olmec basalt sculpture found on top of the San Martin Pajapan volcano, in the Tuxtla Mountains of the Mexican state of Veracruz. It is notable for its original location and its Olmec iconography.-Description:...
was found at the peak of a dormant volcano.
Image:Olmec figurine, serpentine.jpg|
Serpentinite
Serpentinite is a rock composed of one or more serpentine group minerals. Minerals in this group are formed by serpentinization, a hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth's mantle...
.
Image:The Wrestler (Olmec) by DeLange.jpg|
The Wrestler (sculpture)
The Wrestler is an ancient basalt statuette that is one of the most important sculptures of the Olmec culture. The near life-size figure has been praised not only for its realism and sense of energy, but also for its aesthetic qualities...
(1500-400 BCE) is an Olmec
Olmec
The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....
basalt
Basalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
statuette, likely a personal portrait.
Image:Las Limas Monument 1 (O Cadena).jpg|
Las Limas Monument 1
Las Limas Monument 1 is a greenstone figure of a youth holding a limp were-jaguar baby. Found in the Mexican state of Veracruz in the Olmec heartland, the statue is famous for its incised representations of Olmec supernaturals and is considered by some a "Rosetta stone" of Olmec religion...
. Greenstone, Middle Formative Period (1000 – 600 BCE). Discovered 1965 near Jesús Carranza, Veracruz, Mexico. Xalapa Museum of Anthropology, Veracruz
Image:Harvestermountainlord.jpg|
Epi-Olmec culture
The Epi-Olmec culture was a cultural area in the central region of the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz, concentrated in the Papaloapan River basin, a culture that existed during the Late Formative period, from roughly 300 BCE to roughly 250 CE. Epi-Olmec was a successor culture to the Olmec,...
)
Image:British Museum Olmec jade votive axe.jpg|
File:Olmec celt 801.jpg|Olmec celt.
File:Olmec mask 802.jpg|Jade Olmec warriors mask
File:Olmec fish vessel.jpg|Black granite fish vessel
File:Olmecmask.jpg|Jade ceremonial mask
File:Olmeken - Menschenkopf 1.jpg|Iron mask
Teotihuacano
TeotihuacanTeotihuacan
Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...
was a city built in the Valley of Mexico
Valley of Mexico
The Valley of Mexico is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a centre for several pre-Columbian civilizations, including...
, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
Americas. Established around 200 BCE, the city fell between the 7th and 8th century CE. Teotihuacan has numerous well-preserved mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
s.
Image:Teotihuacan_mask_Louvre_MH_78-1-187.jpg|
Image:Teotimask2.jpg|
Image:teotihuacanmask.jpg|
Image:Great Goddess of Teotihuacan (T Aleto).jpg|
Image:Facade of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent (Teotihuacán).jpg|Restored partion of Teotihucan architecture showing the typical Mesoamerican use of red paint complemented on gold and jade decoration upon marble and granite.
Image:British Museum Teotihuacan jaguar.jpg|
Image:Teotihuacán - Tlaloc-Maske.jpg|Iron Tlaloc mask
Image:Teotihuacán - Palacio de Atetelco Wandmalerei 3.jpg|Wall design in the palace of Atetelco
File:Tapadera de incensario teotihuacana (M. América Inv.91-11-45) 01.jpg|Teotihuacan incense burner
File:Teotihuacan mask 802.jpg|White polished marble mask
File:QuetzalTeotihuacan.JPG|Stone carving of the feathered dragon Quetzalcoatl
File:Teotihuacan mask 801.jpg|Marble mask
Classic Veracruz Culture
In his 1957 book on Mesoamerican art, Miguel CovarrubiasMiguel Covarrubias
José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud was a Mexican painter and caricaturist, ethnologist and art historian among other interests. In 1924 at the age of 19 he moved to New York City armed with a grant from the Mexican government, tremendous talent, but very little English speaking skill. Luckily,...
speaks of Remojadas' "magnificent hollow figures with expressive faces, in majestic postures and wearing elaborate paraphernalia indicated by added clay elements."
Image:Remojadas Chieftain 1 Art Institute.jpg|
File:HeadScuptureYTajin.JPG|Limestone head sculpture
File:Male-female duality figure from Remojadas.jpg|
Remojadas
Remojadas is a name applied to a culture, an archaeological site, as well as an artistic style that flourished on Mexico's Veracruz Gulf Coast from perhaps 100 BCE to 800 CE. The Remojadas culture is considered part of the larger Classic Veracruz culture. Further research into the Remojadas...
, 200–500 CE. Note the feminine breast and birds on the right side of the figure.
File:El Tajin Ballcourt Mural (Tom Aleto).jpg|
Mesoamerican ballgame
The Mesoamerican ballgame or Tlatchtli in Náhuatl was a sport with ritual associations played since 1,000 B.C. by the pre-Columbian peoples of Ancient Mexico and Central America...
at El Tajin
El Tajín
El Tajín is a pre-Columbian archeological site and was the site of one of the largest and most important cities of the Classic era of Mesoamerica. The city flourished from 600 to 1200 C.E. and during this time numerous temples, palaces, Mesoamerican ballcourts and pyramids were built...
, showing the sacrifice of a ballplayer.
File:Puebla - Museo Amparo - Flûte de Romojadan en céramique, Veracruz 600 dC.JPG|Intricate multichambered Remojada flute
File:Altar urn Collection H Law 53 n1.jpg|Veracruz altar urn
File:WLA lacma 700 ceramic ocarina.jpg|Ceramic frog ocarina
File:Veracruz El Tajin head.jpg|Stone head of a woman from El Tajin
Zapotec
"The Bat God was one of the important deities of the Maya, many elements of whose religion were shared also by the Zapotec. The Bat God in particular is known to have been revered also by the Zapotec [...] He was especially associated [...] with the underworld." An important Zapotec center was Monte AlbanMonte Albán
Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca...
, in present-day Oaxaca
Oaxaca
Oaxaca , , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 571 municipalities; of which 418 are governed by the system of customs and traditions...
, Mexico. The Monte Alban periods are divided into I, II, and III, which range from 200 BCE to 600 CE.
File:MonteAlbanMaskMusJadeSanCri.JPG |
Image:Jaguar trouvé à Oaxaca.jpg|
Monte Albán
Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca...
, 200 BCE–600 CE. H 22" (56 cm). American Museum of Natural History.
File:Dios Cocijo.jpg|Seated Zapotec religious priest
Image:Monte Alban - Fledermaus.jpg|
Image:British Museum Zapotec funerary urn 1.jpg|
File:WLA lacma 1300 ceramic vessel.jpg|Ceramic Zapotec vessel
File:Puebla - Museo Amparo - Statuette des états théocratiques, période classique, Zapoteca.JPG|Zapotec warrior sculpture
File:Monte alban oaxaca mask.jpg|Zapotec mask from Monte Alban
File:Monte Alban - Goldenes Ohrgehänge.jpg|Golden ornamentation worn by Zapotec government officials
File:Schmuckscheibe Monte Alban.jpg|Jade inlaid Zapotec jewelery
File:Monte Alban - Keramik 1.jpg|Zapotec ceramic vessel from Zaachila
File:Zapotec Urn Cociyo Kimbell.jpg|Urn in the form of the rain god Cociyo
Maya
The Maya civilizationMaya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
occupied the south of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, all of Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
and Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
, and the western portions of Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
and El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
.
Image:Maya eccentric.jpg|
Copán
Copán is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization located in the Copán Department of western Honduras, not far from the border with Guatemala. It was the capital city of a major Classic period kingdom from the 5th to 9th centuries AD...
or Quiriguá
Quiriguá
Quiriguá is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the department of Izabal in south-eastern Guatemala. It is a medium-sized site covering approximately along the lower Motagua River, with the ceremonial center about from the north bank. During the Maya Classic Period , Quiriguá was situated at...
, Musées Roayaux d'art et d'Histoire, Brussels.
Image:Jaguar vase.jpg|
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
scene painting on Lord of the Jaguar Pelt Throne vase, 700-800 CE.
File:Palenque - Pakal - Grabbeigabe.jpg|Jade mask from Palenque
File:Urna funeraria maya Kinich Ahau (M. América Inv.91-11-12) 01.jpg|Maya funery urn from Kinich Ahau
File:Cancuenpanel3.jpg|The third Cancuen panel depicting King T'ah 'ak' Cha'an
File:Jaina Figurine 1 (T Aleto).jpg|Jaina Island ceramic male figurine, 650-800 CE.
File:Maya jade plaque.jpg|Maya jade plaque
File:Maya Räuchergefäss Sonnengott 2 EthnM.jpg|Sun god sculpture made of clay
File:Maya flask DYM 92.166.23.JPG|Maya flask for holding alcoholic beverages
Image:K'inich Janaab Pakal I v2.jpg|
File:Maya Vessel with an enthroned Lord Kimbell.jpg|Mayan cups detailed with ink inscriptions
File:Codex at Copan.jpg|Maya codex from Copan
File:Olmeca-Xicalana murals from Cacaxtla.jpg|
File:MayaCampecheMask1.JPG|Jade Maya ceremonial mask
File:WLA metmuseum Maya Double Chambered Vessel 5th C.jpg|Double chambered Iron vessel
File:Mayan clothing - Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde München - DSC08519.JPG|Maya robe and tunic from the Kiche Maya
File:Piedrasnegrastrono.jpg|Maya bench
File:Tripod vessel with lid, Mexico, Campeche, Classic Myan period, c. 450-500 C.E., brown pottery with burnished brown slip, Honolulu Academy of Arts.jpg|Classical period Tripod vessel c.450-500 C.E.
File:WLA lacma Mayan deity head.jpg|Maya warrior helmet
File:Nobleman offering cocoa paste.jpg|Maya nobleman offering cocoa
File:Old God vase Collection Henry Law 155.jpg|Maya vessel
File:Takalik Abaj obsidian 1.jpg|Raw obsidian and obsidian blades used by Maya soldiers
File:Maya Flöten Slg Ebnöther.jpg|Maya flutes
File:ElPetenMask1JadeSanCris.JPG|Jade Maya warriors mask from Peten
Toltec
Image:Telamones Tula.jpg|
Tula, Hidalgo
Tula, formally, Tula de Allende, is a town and one of the 84 municipalities of Hidalgo, in central-eastern Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 305.8 km² , and as of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 93,296, with 28,432 in the town...
.
Image:Toltec-style Vessel 1.jpg|
File:Tula birdman.jpg|Toltec bird carving in granite at Tula
File:TulaPlumbatei.jpg|Toltec turtle vessel
Mixtec
Image:Oaxaca ocho venado.png|
Eight Deer Jaguar Claw
Eight Deer Jaguar Claw was a powerful Mixtec ruler in 11th century Oaxaca referred to in the 15th century deerskin manuscript Codex Zouche-Nuttall, and other Mixtec manuscripts. His surname is alternatively translated Tiger-Claw and Ocelot-Claw. John Pohl has dated his life as having lasted from...
(right) Meeting with Four Jaguar, in a depiction from the precolumbian Codex Zouche-Nuttall
Codex Zouche-Nuttall
The Codex Zouche-Nuttall is an accordion-folded pre-Columbian piece of Mixtec writing, now in the British Museum . It is one of three codices that record the genealogies, alliances and conquests of several 11th and 12th-century rulers of a small Mixtec city-state in highland Oaxaca, the Tilantongo...
.
Image:Snailshellpend-mixtec.jpg|
Dumbarton Oaks
Dumbarton Oaks is the conventional name for the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, situated on a historic property in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The institution is administered by the Trustees for Harvard University. Its founders, Robert Woods Bliss and his wife...
Museum, Washington, DC
File:CloseUp-Mitla-Oaxaca-Mexico.jpg|
Mixtec
The Mixtec are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples inhabiting the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla in a region known as La Mixteca. The Mixtecan languages form an important branch of the Otomanguean language family....
stone mosaic-work at Mitla
Mitla
Mitla is the second most important archeological site in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico, and the most important of the Zapotec culture. The site is located 44 km from the city of Oaxaca. in the upper end of the Tlacolula Valley, one of the three that form the Central Valleys Region of the...
. This was an inspiration for similar mosaics by Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
.
File:12-05oaxaca077.jpg|
File:Escudo de Yanhuitlán.jpg|Mixtec warrior seal
File:Slate mask of Tlaloc (the rain god), Mixtec people, Valley of Oaxaca, c. 900-1200 CE.JPG|Slate mask of Tlaloc, god of rain c. 900-1200 CE
File:Mixtec pendant.jpg|Gold Mixtec pendant
File:Sahumador mixteco.jpg|Mixtec incense burner
Huastec
Image:Huastec statue Tampico Inv D94-20-600.jpg
File:HPIM2116.JPG
Image:Huaxtèque Auch 1.jpg
Image:Huaxtèque Auch 2.jpg
Aztec
File:Double Headed Turquoise Serpent.jpg|
Double-headed serpent
The Double-headed serpent is an Aztec statue kept at the British Museum. Composed of mostly turquoise pieces applied to a wood base, it is one of nine mosaics of similar material in the British Museum; there are thought to be about 25 such pieces from that period in the whole of Europe. It came...
- Turquoise, red and white mosaic on wood. H 20cm x L 43cm (8" x 17"). Possibly Mixtec. 1400-1521, British Museum
File:Aztecheaddress.jpg|Aztec headdress
File:Chalchiuhtlicue Maske.jpg|Marble mask of Chalchiuhtlicue, Aztec god of water
File:Cultura mixteca-azteca, ornamento labiale a forma di testa d'aquila in oro, 1200-1521 ca..JPG|Gold eagles head ornament worn by Aztec Eagle knights
File:Aztec ear flares, Art Institute.jpg|Aztec gold earings
File:MictlantecuhtliByPhilKonstantin.jpg|Granite statue of Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of the underworld
Image:Aztec or Mixtec sacrificial knife 2.jpg|
File:Aztec wooden drum.jpg|Wooden Aztec drum
File:Aztec statue of Coatlicue, the earth goddess.jpg|
File:Wooden Aztec sun stone.jpg|Wooden Aztec sun stone
File:20041229-Ocelotl-Cuauhxicalli (Museo Nacional de Antropología) MQ.jpg|Granite jaguar carving
File:Aztec vulture vessel.jpg|Aztec turtle vessel
File:Mexico - Museo de antropologia - Tonatiuh en jarre rouge.JPG|Vase of Tonatiuh
File:Monkeyjar.jpg|Monkey jar carved from onyx marble
File:Quetzalcoatl 801.jpg|Stone bust of the god Quetzalcoatl
File:Dvasijatemplomayor.JPG|Aztec ceramic vessel
Central America and "Intermediate area"
Greater ChiriquiGreater Nicoya
The ancient peoples of the Nicoya Peninsula
Nicoya Peninsula
The Nicoya Peninsula is a peninsula on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and lies in the Guanacaste Province in the north, and the Puntarenas Province in the south. It is located at . It varies from 19 to wide and is approximately long, and forms the largest peninsula in the country. It is known...
in present day Costa Rica traditionally sculpted birds in jade
Costa Rican Jade Tradition
Jadeite is presumed one of the most precious materials of Pre-Columbian Costa Rica. It, along with other similar looking greenstones were cherished and worked for years...
, which were used for funeral ornaments. Around 500 CE gold ornaments replaced jade, possibly because of the depletion of jade resources.
Image:Metate Costa Rica.jpg|
Metate
A metate is a mortar, a ground stone tool used for processing grain and seeds. In traditional Mesoamerican culture, metates were typically used by women who would grind calcified maize and other organic materials during food preparation...
, Costa Rica, 300-700 CE
Image:Tolita-Tumaco ceramic sculpture from Ecuador.jpg|
Image:Figura masculina cultura Bahía (M.Am. Madrid) 01.jpg|
File:Masked_Figure_Pendant_1.jpg|
Caribbean
Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artArt
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
istic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America, Mesoamerica, North America including Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
, as well as Siberian Yup'ik peoples who have great cultural overlap with Native Alaskan Yup'iks.
Lithic and Archaic stage
In North America, the Lithic stageLithic stage
In the sequence of North American prehistoric cultural stages first proposed by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958, the Lithic stage was the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas, accruing during the Late Pleistocene period, to time before 8,000 B.C....
or Paleo-indian period is defined as approximately 18,000–8000 BCE. The period from around 8000–800 BCE is generally referred to as the Archaic period. The production of bannerstone
Bannerstone
Bannerstones are artifacts usually found in the Eastern United States that are characterized by a centered hole in a symmetrically shaped carved or ground stone. The holes are typically ¼” to ¾” in diameter and extend through a raised portion centered in the stone. They usually are bored all the...
s, Projectile point
Projectile point
In archaeological terms, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a projectile, such as a spear, dart, or arrow, or perhaps used as a knife....
, Lithic reduction
Lithic reduction
Lithic reduction involves the use of a hard hammer precursor, such as a hammerstone, a soft hammer fabricator , or a wood or antler punch to detach lithic flakes from a lump of tool stone called a lithic core . As flakes are detached in sequence, the original mass of stone is reduced; hence the...
styles and pictographic cave paintings are some of the art that remains from this time period.
Belonging in the Lithic stage, the oldest known art in the Americas is the Vero Beach
Vero Beach, Florida
Vero Beach is a city in Indian River County, Florida, USA. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 estimates, the city had a population of 16,939. It is the county seat of Indian River County...
bone, possibly a mammoth bone, etched with a profile of walking mammoth that dates back to 11,000 BCE. The oldest known painted object in North American is the Cooper Bison Skull from 10,900–10,200 BCE. Lithic age art in South America includes Monte Alegre culture rock paintings created at Caverna da Pedra Pintada dating back to 9250–8550 BCE. Guitarrero Cave
Guitarrero Cave
Guitarrero Cave is located in the Callejon de Huaylas valley in Yungay Province, in the Ancash region of Peru. The cave stands 50 meters above Rio Santa and 2,580 meters above sea level.-Archeological findings:...
in Peru has the earliest known textiles in South America, dating to 8000 BCE.
The southwestern United States and certain regions of the Andes have the highest concentration of pictographs (painted images) and Petroglyph
Petroglyph
Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...
s (carved images) from this period. Both pictographs and petroglyphs are known as rock art
Rock art
Rock art is a term used in archaeology for any human-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:*Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces*Pictographs - rock and cave paintings...
.
File:MtnSheepPetroglyph.jpg|A petroglyph of a caravan of bighorn sheep
Bighorn Sheep
The bighorn sheep is a species of sheep in North America named for its large horns. These horns can weigh up to , while the sheep themselves weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates that there are three distinct subspecies of Ovis canadensis, one of which is endangered: Ovis canadensis sierrae...
near Moab, Utah
Moab, Utah
Moab is a city in Grand County, in eastern Utah, in the western United States. The population was 4,779 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat and largest city in Grand County. Moab hosts a large number of tourists every year, mostly visitors to the nearby Arches and Canyonlands National Parks...
, USA; a common theme in glyphs from the southwestern desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
File:Coso archaic.jpg|
Coso Rock Art District
Coso Rock Art District, containing the Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons, is a rock art site containing over 20,000 of Paleo-Indian and/or Native American Petroglyphs The Coso Range is between the Sierra Nevada and the Argus Range. Indian Wells Valley lies to the south of this location...
, California
Image:Petroglyphs in the Columbia River Gorge.jpg|
Columbia River Gorge
The Columbia River Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Up to deep, the canyon stretches for over as the river winds westward through the Cascade Range forming the boundary between the State of Washington to the north and Oregon to the south...
, Washington, USA
Image:Folsom point.png|
Folsom point
Folsom points are a distinct form of chipped stone projectile points associated with the Folsom Tradition of North America. The style of toolmaking was named after Folsom, New Mexico where the first sample was found within the bone structure of a bison in 1927....
spear-point.
File:Bannerstone.jpg|
Bannerstone
Bannerstones are artifacts usually found in the Eastern United States that are characterized by a centered hole in a symmetrically shaped carved or ground stone. The holes are typically ¼” to ¾” in diameter and extend through a raised portion centered in the stone. They usually are bored all the...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
File:Archaic point.jpg|
Arrowhead
An arrowhead is a tip, usually sharpened, added to an arrow to make it more deadly or to fulfill some special purpose. Historically arrowheads were made of stone and of organic materials; as human civilization progressed other materials were used...
, Wilson Butte Cave
Wilson Butte Cave
Wilson Butte Cave is located on the Snake River plain near Twin Falls in Jerome County, Idaho. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is maintained by the Bureau of Land Management or BLM.-External links:...
, Idaho
North America
Arctic
The Yupik of Alaska have a long tradition of carving masksMasks among Eskimo peoples
Masks among Eskimo peoples served a variety of functions. Masks were made out of driftwood, animal skins, bones and feathers. They were often painted using bright colors...
for use in shamanic
Shamanism among Eskimo peoples
Shamanism among Eskimo peoples refers to those aspects of the various Eskimo cultures that are related to the shamans’ role as a mediator between people and spirits, souls, and mythological beings...
rituals. Indigenous peoples of the Canadian arctic have produced objects that could be classified as art since the time of the Dorset culture
Dorset culture
The Dorset culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture that preceded the Inuit culture in Arctic North America. It has been defined as having four phases, with distinct technology related to the people's hunting and tool making...
. While the walrus ivory carvings of the Dorset were primarily shamanic, the art of the Thule people
Thule people
The Thule or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by AD 1000 and expanded eastwards across Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture that had previously inhabited the region...
who replaced them ca. 1000 CE was more decorative in character. With European contact the historic period of Inuit art began. In this period, which reached its height in the late 19th century, Inuit artisans created souvenirs for the crews of whaling ships and explorers. Common examples include cribbage
Cribbage
Cribbage, or crib, is a card game traditionally for two players, but commonly played with three, four or more, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points...
boards. Modern Inuit art began in the late 1940s, when with the encouragement of the Canadian government they began to produce prints and serpentine
Serpentinite
Serpentinite is a rock composed of one or more serpentine group minerals. Minerals in this group are formed by serpentinization, a hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth's mantle...
sculptures for sale in the south.
Greenlandic Inuit, or Kalaallit
Kalaallit
Kalaallit is the contemporary term in the Kalaallisut language for the indigenous people living in Greenland, also called the Kalaallit Nunaat. The singular term is kalaaleq. The Kalaallit are a part of the Arctic Inuit people. The language spoken by Inuit in Greenland is Kalaallisut.Historically,...
have a unique textile tradition intregrating skin-sewing, furs, and appliqué of small pieces of brightly dyed marine mammal organs. Women create elaborate netted beadwork collars. They have strong mask-making tradition and also are known for an art form called tupilaq
Tupilaq
In Greenlandic Inuit traditions, a tupilaq was an avenging monster fabricated by a practitioner of witchcraft or shamanism by using various objects such as animal parts and even parts taken from the corpses of children. The creature was given life by ritualistic chants...
or an "evil spirit object." Traditional art making practices thrive in the Ammassalik
Ammassalik
Ammassalik was one of two municipalities in Tunu, the former county of East Greenland − the other one being Illoqqortoormiut . It was located in southeastern Greenland, and with an area of 232,100 km², most of it on the ice sheet, it was the largest municipality of East Greenland, now part of the...
. Sperm whale
Sperm Whale
The sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus, is a marine mammal species, order Cetacea, a toothed whale having the largest brain of any animal. The name comes from the milky-white waxy substance, spermaceti, found in the animal's head. The sperm whale is the only living member of genus Physeter...
ivory remains a valued medium for carving.
Image:Yupik mask Branly 70-1999-1-2.jpg|
File:KiAs 1.jpg|
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
), Cape Dorset, Nunavat, 1999
Image:Inuitbasket.jpg|
Baleen
Baleen or whalebone is a filter-feeder system inside the mouths of baleen whales. The baleen system works when a whale opens its mouth underwater and then water pours into the whale's mouth. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and remain as food...
basket with carved walrus ivory finial, woven by Kinguktuk (1871-1941), Barrow, Alaska
Barrow, Alaska
Barrow is the largest city of the North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is one of the northernmost cities in the world and is the northernmost city in the United States of America, with nearby Point Barrow being the nation's northernmost point. Barrow's population was 4,212 at the...
Image:Indian hard carved articles 1900.jpg|
Image:Resolute Bay, Nunavut (2008) A Photo A Day (July 19, 2008).jpg|
Resolute Bay
Resolute Bay is an Arctic waterway in Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is located in Parry Channel on the southern side of Cornwallis Island. The hamlet of Resolute is located on the northern shore of the bay and Resolute Bay Airport to the northwest...
. Photo July 2008.
File:Tupilak 1.jpg|Kalaallit
Kalaallit
Kalaallit is the contemporary term in the Kalaallisut language for the indigenous people living in Greenland, also called the Kalaallit Nunaat. The singular term is kalaaleq. The Kalaallit are a part of the Arctic Inuit people. The language spoken by Inuit in Greenland is Kalaallisut.Historically,...
Tupilak from Greenland
Subarctic
Cultures of interior Alaska and Canada living south of the Arctic CircleArctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
are Subarctic peoples. While humans have lived in the region far longer, the oldest known surviving Subartic art is a petroglyph site in northwest Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, dated to 5000 BCE. Caribou, and to a lesser extent moose
Moose
The moose or Eurasian elk is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a dendritic configuration...
, are major resources, providing hides, antlers, sinew, and other artistic materials. Porcupine quillwork
Quillwork
Quillwork is a form of textile embellishment traditionally practiced by Native Americans that employs the quills of porcupines as a decorative element.-History:...
embellishes hides and birchbark. After European contact with the influence of the Grey Nuns
Grey Nuns
The Order of Sisters of Charity of Montreal, formerly called The Order of Sisters of Charity of the Hôpital Général of Montreal and more commonly known as the Grey Nuns of Montreal, is a Canadian order of Roman Catholic religious sisters...
, moosehair tufting
Tufting
Tufting is a type of textile weaving in which a thread is inserted on a primary base.It is an ancient technique for making warm garments, especially mittens. After the knitting is done, short U-shaped loops of extra yarn are introduced through the fabric from the outside so that their ends point...
and floral glass beadwork became popular through the Subarctic.
File:Ak moosehair tufting.jpg|
Fairbanks, Alaska
Fairbanks is a home rule city in and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska.Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska, and second largest in the state behind Anchorage...
File:Assinaitappi.jpg|
Northwest Coast
The art of the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian
Tsimshian
The Tsimshian are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Tsimshian translates to Inside the Skeena River. Their communities are in British Columbia and Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are approximately 10,000...
and other smaller tribes living in the coastal areas of Washington State, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, and British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, is characterized by an extremely complex stylistic vocabulary expressed mainly in the medium of woodcarving. Famous examples include Totem pole
Totem pole
Totem poles are monumental sculptures carved from large trees, mostly Western Red Cedar, by cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America...
s, Transformation mask
Transformation mask
A transformation mask is a type of mask used by indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast and Alaska in ritual dances. These masks usually depict an outer, animal visage, which the performer can open by pulling a string to reveal an inner, human face carved in wood...
s, and canoes.
Image:Tsimshian mask Louvre MH 51-35-3.jpg|Tsimshian
Tsimshian
The Tsimshian are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Tsimshian translates to Inside the Skeena River. Their communities are in British Columbia and Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are approximately 10,000...
halait mask depicting a mosquito, British Columbia, 19th century. Louvre Museum.
Image:Casco y collera tlingit (M.A.N. Inv. 13909 y 13912) 01.jpg|
Image:Ketchican totem pole 2 stub.jpg|
Totem pole
Totem poles are monumental sculptures carved from large trees, mostly Western Red Cedar, by cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America...
in Ketchikan, Alaska, in the Tlingit style.
File:Chilkat blanket univ alaska museum.jpg|
File:Haida argillite carving BC 1850 nmai13-1875.jpg|
Image:Sombrero de jefe de balleneros Nutka (M. América Inv.13570) 01.jpg|
Northeastern Woodlands
The Eastern Woodlands, or simply woodlands, cultures inhabited the regions of North America east of the Mississippi RiverMississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
at least since 2500 BCE. While there were many regionally distinct cultures, trade between them was common and they shared the practice of burying their dead in earthen mounds, which has preserved a large amount of their art. Because of this trait the cultures are collectively known as the Mound builders.
The Woodland Period
Woodland period
The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures was from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic header for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the...
(1000 BCE–1000 CE) is divided in to early, middle, and late periods, and consisted of cultures that relied mostly on hunting and gathering for their subsistence. Ceramics made by the Deptford culture
Deptford culture
The Deptford culture was characterized by the appearance of elaborate ceremonial complexes, increasing social and opolitical complexity, mound burial, permanent settlements, population growth, and an increasing reliance on cultigens....
(2500 BCE-100 CE) are the earliest evidence of an artistic tradition in this region. The Adena culture
Adena culture
The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 1000 to 200 BC, in a time known as the early Woodland Period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system...
are another well-known example of an early Woodland culture. They carved stone tablets with zoomorphic
Zoomorphism
Zoomorphism is the shaping of something in animal form or terms. Examples include:*Art that imagines humans as animals*Art that portrays one species of animal like another species of animal*Art that creates patterns using animal imagery, or animal style...
designs, created pottery
Hopewell pottery
Hopewell pottery is the ceramic tradition of the various local cultures involved in the Hopewell tradition and are found as artifacts in archeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast...
, and fashioned costumes from animal hides and antlers for ceremonial rituals. Shellfish was a mainstay of their diet, and engraved shells have been found in their burial mounds.
The Middle Woodland Period was dominated by cultures of the Hopewell tradition (200-500). Their artwork encompassed a wide variety of jewelry and sculpture in stone, wood, and even human bone.
The Late Woodland Period (500-1000 CE) saw a decline in trade and in the size of settlements, and the creation of art likewise declined.
From the 12th century onward, the Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
and nearby coastal tribes fashioned wampum
Wampum
Wampum are traditional, sacred shell beads of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of the indigenous people of North America. Wampum include the white shell beads fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell; and the white and purple beads made from the quahog, or Western North Atlantic...
from shells and string; these were mnenomic devices, currency, and records of treaties.
Iroquois people carve False Face masks for healing rituals, but the traditional representatives of the tribes, the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee, are clear that these masks are not for sale or public display. The same can be said for Iroquois Corn Husk Society masks.
File:Mound City Chillicothe Ohio HRoe 2008.jpg|
Hopewell culture
The Hopewell tradition is the term used to describe common aspects of the Native American culture that flourished along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern United States from 200 BCE to 500 CE. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related...
mounds from the Mound City Group
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, formerly known as Mound City Group National Monument, is a United States national historical park with earthworks and burial mounds from the Hopewell culture, indigenous peoples who flourished from about 200 BC to AD 500. The park is composed of five...
in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
File:Hopewell culture nhp raven effigy pipe chillicothe ohio 2006.jpg|
Raven
Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...
, Hopewell tradition
Image:Hand Hopewell mica.jpg|
Mica
The mica group of sheet silicate minerals includes several closely related materials having highly perfect basal cleavage. All are monoclinic, with a tendency towards pseudohexagonal crystals, and are similar in chemical composition...
, Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, formerly known as Mound City Group National Monument, is a United States national historical park with earthworks and burial mounds from the Hopewell culture, indigenous peoples who flourished from about 200 BC to AD 500. The park is composed of five...
File:Hopewell culture falcon.jpg|
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, formerly known as Mound City Group National Monument, is a United States national historical park with earthworks and burial mounds from the Hopewell culture, indigenous peoples who flourished from about 200 BC to AD 500. The park is composed of five...
site of the Hopewell culture
File:Adena SerpMd gorget points HRoe 2009.jpg|
Gorget
A gorget originally was a steel or leather collar designed to protect the throat. It was a feature of older types of armour and intended to protect against swords and other non-projectile weapons...
and spear points on display at the Serpent Mound
Serpent Mound
The Great Serpent Mound is a -long, three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound located on a plateau of the Serpent Mound crater along Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio. Maintained within a park by the Ohio Historical Society, it has been designated a National Historic Landmark by the United...
, Adena culture
Adena culture
The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 1000 to 200 BC, in a time known as the early Woodland Period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system...
File:Wampum William Penn Great Treaty.jpg|
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
to William Penn
William Penn
William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, 1682
File:JingleDress1.jpg|
File:Kanawha-Madonna.jpg|
Kanawha Madonna
The Kanawha Madonna is a wood carving of a person holding a four-legged animal. The carving is currently part of the collection of the West Virginia State Museum and displayed in the Cultural Center as an example of prehistoric Native American wood carving. The statue is nearly tall with a in...
, a honey locust wood carving, West Virginia, ca. 1440—1600
Southeastern Woodlands
The Poverty Point culturePoverty Point culture
Poverty Point culture is an archaeological culture that corresponds to an ancient group of Indigenous peoples who inhabited the area of the lower Mississippi Valley and surrounding Gulf coast from about 2200 BCE - 700 BCE...
inhabited portions of the state of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
from 2000–1000 BCE during the Archaic period. Many objects excavated at Poverty Point sites were made of materials that originated in distant places, including chipped stone projectile points and tools, ground stone plummets, gorgets and vessels, and shell and stone beads. Stone tools found at Poverty Point were made from raw materials which originated in the relatively nearby Ouachita and Ozark Mountains and from the much further away Ohio
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
and Tennessee River
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names...
valleys. Vessels were made from soapstone
Soapstone
Soapstone is a metamorphic rock, a talc-schist. It is largely composed of the mineral talc and is thus rich in magnesium. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occurs in the areas where tectonic plates are subducted, changing rocks by heat and pressure, with influx...
which came from the Appalachian foothills
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
of Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
and Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. Hand-modeled lowly fired clay objects occur in a variety of shapes including anthropomophic figurines and cooking balls.
File:Poverty Point clay utensils HRoe 2009.jpg|
File:Poverty Point female figurines HRoe 2009.jpg|
File:Poverty Point gorgets atlatl weights HRoe 2009.jpg|
Atlatl
An atlatl or spear-thrower is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart-throwing.It consists of a shaft with a cup or a spur at the end that supports and propels the butt of the dart. The atlatl is held in one hand, gripped near the end farthest from the cup...
weights, Poverty Point
The Mississippian culture
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
flourished in what is now the Midwestern
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
, Eastern
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, the American East, or simply the East is traditionally defined as the states east of the Mississippi River. The first two tiers of states west of the Mississippi have traditionally been considered part of the West, but can be included in the East today; usually in...
, and Southeastern United States
Southeastern United States
The Southeastern United States, colloquially referred to as the Southeast, is the eastern portion of the Southern United States. It is one of the most populous regions in the United States of America....
from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally. After adopting maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
agriculture the Mississippian culture became fully agrarian, as opposed to the hunting and gathering supplemented by part-time agriculture practiced by preceding woodland cultures. They built platform mound
Platform mound
A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...
s larger and more complex than those of their predecessors, and finished and developed more advanced ceramic techniques, commonly using ground mussel
Mussel
The common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalvia mollusca, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...
shell as a tempering agent. Many were involved with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is the name given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian culture that coincided with their adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization from...
, a pan-regional and pan-linguistic religious and trade network. The majority of the information known about the S.E.C.C. is derived from examination of the elaborate artworks left behind by its participants, including elaborate pottery
Mississippian culture pottery
Mississippian culture pottery is the ceramic tradition of the Mississippian culture found as artifacts in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. It is often characterized by the adoption and use of riverine shell-tempering agents in the clay paste. Shell tempering is one of...
, shell gorget
Shell gorget
A shell gorget is a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated ....
s and cups, stone statuary
Mississippian stone statuary
The Mississippian stone statuary are artifacts of polished stone in the shape of human figurines made by members of the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast...
and Long-nosed god maskette
Long-nosed god maskette
Long-nosed god maskettes are artifacts made from bone, copper and marine shells associated with the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. They are small shield-shaped faces with squared-off foreheads, circular eyes, and large noses of...
s. By the time of European contact the Mississippian societies were already experiencing severe social stress, and with the social upsets and diseases introduced by Europeans many of the societies collapsed and ceased to practice a Mississippian lifestyle, with an exception being the Natchez people
Natchez people
The Natchez are a Native American people who originally lived in the Natchez Bluffs area, near the present-day city of Natchez, Mississippi. They spoke a language isolate that has no known close relatives, although it may be very distantly related to the Muskogean languages of the Creek...
. Other tribes descended from Mississippian cultures include the Caddo
Caddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
, Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
, Muscogee Creek, Wichita
Wichita (tribe)
The Wichita people are indigenous inhabitants of North America, who traditionally spoke the Wichita language, a Caddoan language. They have lived in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas...
, and many other southeastern peoples.
The Calusa
Calusa
The Calusa were a Native American people who lived on the coast and along the inner waterways of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region; at the time of European contact, the Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture...
peoples occupied the southern areas of Florida before European contact, and created carvings of animals.
The Seminoles are best known for their textile creations, especially patchwork clothing. Doll-making is another notable craft.
Image:Spiro engraved hero twins HRoe 2005.jpg|
Shell gorget
A shell gorget is a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated ....
, Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds is an important pre-Columbian Caddoan Mississippian culture archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma in the United States. The site is located seven miles north of Spiro, and is the only prehistoric Native American archaeological site in Oklahoma open to the public...
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Spiro ceremonial mace HRoe 2005.jpg|
Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds is an important pre-Columbian Caddoan Mississippian culture archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma in the United States. The site is located seven miles north of Spiro, and is the only prehistoric Native American archaeological site in Oklahoma open to the public...
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Hampson effigypot HRoe 2006.jpg|
Nodena Site
The Nodena Site is an archeological site east of Wilson, Arkansas and northeast of Reverie, Tennessee in Mississippi County, Arkansas, United States. Around 1400–1650 CE an aboriginal palisaded village existed in the Nodena area on a meander bend of the Mississippi River. The Nodena site...
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Moundville stone pallette HRoe 2003.jpg|
Moundville Archaeological Site
Moundville Archaeological Site, also known as the Moundville Archaeological Park, is a Mississippian site on the Black Warrior River in Hale County, near the town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama...
, back used for mixing paint (Mississippian culture)
Image:Spiro Lucifer Pipe HRoe 2005.jpg|
Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds is an important pre-Columbian Caddoan Mississippian culture archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma in the United States. The site is located seven miles north of Spiro, and is the only prehistoric Native American archaeological site in Oklahoma open to the public...
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Etowah statues HRoe 2007.jpg|
Etowah Indian Mounds
Etowah Indian Mounds is a archaeological site in Bartow County, Georgia south of Cartersville, in the United States. Built and occupied in three phases, from 1000–1550 CE, the prehistoric site is located on the north shore of the Etowah River. Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site is a designated...
(Mississippian culture)
Image:Mississippian Underwater Panther ceramic.JPG|
Underwater panther
An Underwater panther is a powerful creature in the mythological traditions of some Native American tribes, particularly Anishinaabe tribes, the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi, of the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States...
jug, Rose Mound (Mississippian culture)
Image:Calusa carved gator head.jpg|
Calusa
The Calusa were a Native American people who lived on the coast and along the inner waterways of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region; at the time of European contact, the Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture...
, Florida
Great Plains
Tribes have lived on the Great PlainsGreat Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
for thousands of years. Early Plains cultures are commonly divided into four periods: Paleoindian (at least ca. 10,000–4000 BCE), Plains Archaic (ca. 4000–250 BCE), Plains Woodland (ca. 250 BCE–950 CE), Plains Village (ca. 950-1850 CE). The oldest known painted object in North American was found in the southern plains, the Cooper Bison Skull, found in Oklahoma and dated 10,900-10,200 BCE. It's painted with a red zizzag.
In the Plains Village period, the cultures of the area settled in enclosed clusters of rectangular houses and cultivated maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
. Various regional differences emerged, including Southern Plains, Central Plains, Oneota
Oneota
Oneota is a designation archaeologists use to refer to a cultural complex that existed in the eastern plains and Great Lakes area of what is now the United States from around AD 900 to around 1650 or 1700. The culture is believed to have transitioned into various Macro-Siouan cultures of the...
, and Middle Missouri. Tribes were both nomadic hunters and semi-nomadic farmers. During the Plains Coalescent period (1400-European contact) some change, possibly drought, caused the mass migration of the population to the Eastern Woodlands region, and the Great Plains were sparsely populated until pressure from American settlers drove tribes into the area again.
The advent of the horse revolutionized the cultures of many historical Plains tribes. Horse culture
Horse culture
The term "Horse culture" is used to define a tribal group or community whose day to day life revolves around the herding and breeding of horses...
enabled tribes to live a completely nomadic existence, hunting buffalo. Buffalo hide clothing was decorated with porcupine quill embroidery
Quillwork
Quillwork is a form of textile embellishment traditionally practiced by Native Americans that employs the quills of porcupines as a decorative element.-History:...
and beads – dentalium shells and elk teeth were prized materials. Later coins and glass beads acquired from trading were incorporated into Plains art. Plains beadwork
Beadwork
Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another or to cloth, usually by the use of a needle and thread or soft, flexible wire. Most beadwork takes the form of jewelry or other personal adornment, but beads are also used in wall hangings and sculpture.Beadwork techniques are broadly...
has flourished into contemporary times.
Buffalo was the preferred material for Plains hide painting
Plains hide painting
Plains hide painting is a traditional Plains Indian artistic practice of painting on either tanned or raw animal hides. Tipis, tipi liners, shields, parfleches, robes, clothing, drums, and winter counts could all be painted.-Genres:...
. Men painted narrative, pictorial designs recording personal exploits or visions. They also painted pictographic historical calendars known as Winter count
Winter count
Winter counts are pictorial calendars or histories in which tribal records and events were recorded. The Blackfeet, Mandan, Kiowa, Lakota, and other Plains tribes used winter counts extensively...
s. Women painted geometric designs on tanned robes and rawhide parfleche
Parfleche
A parfleche is a Native American rawhide bag, typically used for holding dried meats and pemmican.The word was originally used by French fur traders...
s, which sometimes served as maps.
During the Reservation Era of the late 19th century, buffalo herds were systematically destroyed by non-native hunters. Due to the scarcity of hides, Plains artists adopted new painting surfaces, such as muslin or paper, giving birth to Ledger art
Ledger Art
Ledger Art is a term for Plains Indian narrative drawing or painting on paper or cloth. Ledger art was primarily from the 1860s to about 1900, although some of the old style drawing continues to the 1930s. There is also a contemporary group of accomplished Native American artists who work in the...
, so named for the ubiquitous ledger books used by Plains artists.
Image:Sioux-Womendress.jpg|
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
dress with fully beaded yoke.
Image:Bags and pouches of Sioux.jpg|
Image:Blackhawk-spiritbeing.jpg|
Haokah
In Lakota mythology, Heyókȟa is a spirit of thunder and lightning. He is said to use the wind as sticks to beat the drum of thunder. His emotions are portrayed opposite the norm; he laughs when he is sad and cries when he is happy, cold makes him sweat and heat makes him shiver. In art, he is...
(ca. 1880) by Black Hawk
Black Hawk (artist)
Black Hawk was a member of the Sans Arc or Itázipčho band of Lakota people. He is best known as an artist who, in 1880-1881, produced a set of seventy-six color ledger drawings of Lakota life for William Edward Caton, the federal "Indian trader" at the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation...
(Lakota).
Image:Ledger-sm2.jpg|
Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
ledger art, possibly of the 1874 Buffalo Wallow battle, Red River War
Red River War
The Red River War was a military campaign launched by the United States Army in 1874, as part of the Comanche War, to remove the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Native American tribes from the Southern Plains and forcibly relocate them to reservations in Indian Territory...
.
Image:Peace pipe.jpg|Lakota (Sioux) chanunpa
Chanunpa
Chanunpa, or Chanupa, is the Sioux language name for the sacred, ceremonial pipe and the ceremony in which it is used.The Chanunpa is one means of conveying prayers to the Creator and the other sacred beings...
pipestem from a ritual pipe
Great Basin and Plateau
Since the archaic period the Plateau region, also known as the IntermontaineIntermontane
Intermontane is a physiographic adjective formed from the prefix "inter-" and the adjective "montane" Usage includes intermontane basin such as New Zealand's Mackenzie Basin and intermontane...
and upper Great Basin
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...
, had been a center of trade. Plateau people traditionally settled near major river systems. Because of this, their art carries influences from other regions – from the Pacific Northwest coasts and Great Plains. Nez Perce, Yakama
Yakama
The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, or simply Yakama Nation , is a Native American group with nearly 10,000 enrolled members, living in Washington. Their reservation, along the Yakima River, covers an area of approximately 1.2 million acres...
, Umatilla
Umatilla (tribe)
The Umatilla are a Sahaptin-speaking Native American group living on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, who traditionally inhabited the Columbia Plateau region of the northwestern United States....
, and Cayuse
Cayuse
The Cayuse are a Native American tribe in the state of Oregon in the United States. The Cayuse tribe shares a reservation in northeastern Oregon with the Umatilla and the Walla Walla tribes as part of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation...
women weave flat, rectangular corn husks or hemp dogbane bags, which are decorated with "bold, geometric designs" in false embroidery. Plateau beadworkers are known for their contour-style beading and their elaborate horse regalia.
Great Basin tribes
Great Basin tribes
The Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin are the Native American peoples of the Great Basin inhabited a cultural region between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, in what is now Nevada, and parts of Oregon, California, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. There is very little precipitation in the...
have a sophisticated basket making tradition, as exemplified by Louisa Keyser (Washoe
Washoe people
The Washoe are a Great Basin tribe of Native Americans, living in California and Nevada. The name "Washoe" is derived from the autonym waashiw meaning "people from here" in the Washo language .-Territory:Washoe people have lived in the Great Basin for at least the last 6000 years...
), Lucy Telles
Lucy Telles
Lucy Parker Telles was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi and Southern Sierra Miwok Native American basket weaver.-Background:...
, Carrie Bethel
Carrie Bethel
Carrie McGowan Bethel was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi basketmaker associated with Yosemite National Park. She was born Carrie McGowan in Lee Vining, California and began making baskets at the age of 12. She participated in basket making competitions in the Yosemite Indian Field Days in 1926...
and Nellie Charlie
Nellie Charlie
Nellie Charlie was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi basketmaker associated with Yosemite National Park. She was born in Lee Vining, California, the daughter of tribal headman Pete Jim, and his wife Patsy, also a basketmaker. She married Young Charlie, a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi man from...
. After being displaced from their lands by non-Native settlers, Washoe wove baskets for the commodity market, especially 1895 to 1935. Paiute
Paiute
Paiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...
, Shoshone
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
and Washoe basketmakers are known for their baskets that incorporate seed beads on the surface and for waterproof baskets.
Image:Wishram Petroglyphs.jpg|
Wasco-Wishram
Wasco-Wishram are two closely related Chinook Indian tribes from the Columbia River in Oregon. Today the tribes are part of the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon and Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation in Washington.-History:...
petroglyphs, Columbia River, Oregon
Image:NEPE9896 Beaded-Bag.jpg|
Image:Nez Perce Shirt.jpg|
Image:Beadedmoccasins.jpg|
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
beaded men's moccasins, ca. 1900, Wyoming
Image:Datsolalee2.jpg|
Washoe people
The Washoe are a Great Basin tribe of Native Americans, living in California and Nevada. The name "Washoe" is derived from the autonym waashiw meaning "people from here" in the Washo language .-Territory:Washoe people have lived in the Great Basin for at least the last 6000 years...
artist Louisa Keyser (Datsolalee), with several of her baskets, c.1900.
Image:Lucy telles Paiute in Yosemite.jpg|
Lucy Telles
Lucy Parker Telles was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi and Southern Sierra Miwok Native American basket weaver.-Background:...
(Yosemite–Mono Lake Paiute in Yosemite, California, 1933 displaying one of the large baskets for which she is known.
Image:Carrie Bethel basket.jpg|Basket by Carrie Bethel
Carrie Bethel
Carrie McGowan Bethel was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi basketmaker associated with Yosemite National Park. She was born Carrie McGowan in Lee Vining, California and began making baskets at the age of 12. She participated in basket making competitions in the Yosemite Indian Field Days in 1926...
(Mono Lake Paiute), California, 30" diam., ca. 1931-5
Image:UteBeadwork1.jpg|Ute
Ute Tribe
The Ute are an American Indian people now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah ; Southern Ute in Colorado ; and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico . The name of the state of...
beadwork
California
The Native Americans in California have a tradition of exquisitely detailed basket weavingBasket weaving
Basket weaving is the process of weaving unspun vegetable fibres into a basket or other similar form. People and artists who weave baskets are called basketmakers and basket weavers.Basketry is made from a variety of fibrous or pliable materials•anything that will bend and form a shape...
arts. In the late 19th century Californian basket
Basket
A basket is a container which is traditionally constructed from stiff fibres, which can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehair, baleen, or metal wire can be used. Baskets are...
s by artists in the Cahuilla
Cahuilla
The Cahuilla, Iviatim in their own language, are Indians with a common culture whose ancestors inhabited inland areas of southern California 2,000 years ago. Their original territory included an area of about . The traditional Cahuilla territory was near the geographic center of Southern California...
, Chumash, Pomo, Miwok
Miwok
Miwok can refer to any one of four linguistically related groups of Native Americans, native to Northern California, who spoke one of the Miwokan languages in the Utian family...
, Hupa
Hupa
Hupa, also spelled Hoopa, are a Native American tribe in northwestern California. Their autonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinookwa, meaning "People of the Place Where the Trails Return." The majority of the tribe is enrolled in the federally recognized Hoopa Valley Tribe; however, some Hupa are...
and many other tribes became popular with collectors, museums, and tourists. This resulted in great innovation in the form of the baskets. Many pieces by Native American basket weavers from all parts of California are in museum collections, such as the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, and is particularly strong in New World ethnography and...
at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, the Southwest Museum
Autry National Center
The Autry National Center of the American West is an intercultural center and museum in Los Angeles, California that celebrates the diversity and history of the American West through three important institutions: the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of the American West, and the...
, and the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere...
.
California has a large number of pictographs and petroglyphs rock art
Rock art
Rock art is a term used in archaeology for any human-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:*Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces*Pictographs - rock and cave paintings...
. One of the largest densities of petroglyphs in North America, by the Coso People
Coso People
The Coso people are an indigenous people of the Americas and Native American tribe associated with the Coso Range in the Mojave Desert of California in the southwestern U.S.. They are of the Uto-Aztecan language and spoke one of several Numic languages, related to that of the Northern Paiute.They...
, is in Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons
Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons
Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons are two principal landforms within which are found major accumulations of Paleo-Indian and/or Native American Petroglyphs, or rock art, by the Coso People located in the Coso Range Mountains of the northern Mojave Desert, and now within the Naval Air Weapons...
in the Coso Rock Art District
Coso Rock Art District
Coso Rock Art District, containing the Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons, is a rock art site containing over 20,000 of Paleo-Indian and/or Native American Petroglyphs The Coso Range is between the Sierra Nevada and the Argus Range. Indian Wells Valley lies to the south of this location...
of the northern Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
in California.
The most elaborate pictographs in the U.S are considered to be the rock art of the Chumash people
Rock art of the Chumash people
Chumash rock art is a genre of paintings on caves, mountains, cliffs, or other living rock surfaces, created by the Chumash people of southern California. Pictographs and petroglyphs are common through interior California, the rock painting tradition thrived until the 19th century...
, found in cave painting
Cave painting
Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
s in present day Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, Ventura
Ventura County, California
Ventura County is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. It is located on California's Pacific coast. It is often referred to as the Gold Coast, and has a reputation of being one of the safest populated places and one of the most affluent places in the country...
, and San Luis Obispo Counties
San Luis Obispo County, California
San Luis Obispo County is a county located along the Pacific Ocean in the Central Coast of the U.S. state of California, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2010 census its population was 269,637, up from 246,681 at the 2000 census...
. The Chumash cave painting
Cave painting
Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
includes examples at Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park
Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park, California
Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park is a unit in the state park system of California, USA, preserving a small sandstone cave adorned with rock art attributed to the Chumash people. Adjoining the small community of Painted Cave, the site is located about north of California State Route 154...
and Burro Flats Painted Cave
Burro Flats Painted Cave
Burro Flats Painted Cave is in the Burro Flats area of the Simi Hills, located between the Simi Valley, and West Hills and Bell Canyon, in Ventura County of Southern California, United States. It is a Cave containing Chumash Native American pictographs...
.
image:2009 07 09 camino cielo paradise 137.jpg|Chumash rock art at Painted Cave
Image:Pomo 19th century basket 2 CAC.JPG|
Pomo people
The Pomo people are an indigenous peoples of California. The historic Pomo territory in northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point...
of northern California.
Image:Pomo Basket Bowl.jpg|
Image:Yurok 20061109192219.jpg|Yurok baskets, Redwood National Park
Image:Yurok dance skirt 1 CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Yurok dance skirt, buckskin with abalone, pine nuts, beads, and metal, Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
image:Hupa woman's cap CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Hupa
Hupa
Hupa, also spelled Hoopa, are a Native American tribe in northwestern California. Their autonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinookwa, meaning "People of the Place Where the Trails Return." The majority of the tribe is enrolled in the federally recognized Hoopa Valley Tribe; however, some Hupa are...
woman's cap, bear grass and conifer root, Stanford University
image:Hupa moccasins CAC.JPG|Late 19th c. Hupa moccasins, Stanford
Southwest
In the Southwestern United StatesSouthwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
numerous pictographs and petroglyphs were created. The Fremont culture
Fremont culture
The Fremont culture or Fremont people is a pre-Columbian archaeological culture which received its name from the Fremont River in the U.S. state of Utah where the first Fremont sites were discovered. The Fremont River itself is named for John Charles Frémont, an American explorer. It inhabited...
and Ancient Pueblo Peoples
Ancient Pueblo Peoples
Ancient Pueblo People or Ancestral Pueblo peoples were an ancient Native American culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the United States, comprising southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southern Colorado...
and later tribes' creations, in the Barrier Canyon Style
Barrier Canyon Style
Barrier Canyon Style describes a distinctive style of rock art which appears mostly in Utah, with the largest concentration of sites in and around the San Rafael Swell and Canyonlands National Park, but the full range extends into much of the state and western Colorado...
and others, are seen at present day Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel
Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel
The Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel is an example of rock art, located in Buckhorn Draw in the San Rafael Swell in central Utah, approximately four miles north of the San Rafael campground and bridge....
and Horseshoe Canyon
Horseshoe Canyon (Utah)
Horseshoe Canyon, formerly known as Barrier Canyon, is in a remote area west of the Green River and north of the Canyonlands National Park Maze District in Utah, USA. It is known for its collection of Barrier Canyon Style rock art, including both pictographs and petroglyphs, which was first...
, amongst other sites. Petroglyphs by these and the Mogollon culture's artists are represented in Dinosaur National Monument
Dinosaur National Monument
Dinosaur National Monument is a National Monument located on the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains on the border between Colorado and Utah at the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers. Although most of the monument area is in Moffat County, Colorado, the Dinosaur Quarry is located in Utah...
and at Newspaper Rock
Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument
Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument is in eastern Utah, western United States, located to the east of Canyonlands National Park on Hwy 211. It is 28 miles northwest of Monticello and 53 miles south of Moab...
.
The Ancestral Pueblo
Ancient Pueblo Peoples
Ancient Pueblo People or Ancestral Pueblo peoples were an ancient Native American culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the United States, comprising southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southern Colorado...
, or Anasazi, (1000 BCE–700 CE) are the ancestors of today's Pueblo tribes. Their culture formed in the American southwest, after the cultivation of corn was introduced from Mexico around 1200 BCE. People of this region developed an agrarian lifestyle, cultivating food, storage gourds, and cotton with irrigation or xeriscaping
Xeriscaping
Xeriscaping and xerogardening refers to landscaping and gardening in ways that reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental water from irrigation...
techniques. They lived in sedentary towns, so pottery, used to store water and grain, was ubiquitous.
For hundreds of years, Ancestral Pueblo created utilitarian grayware and black-on-white pottery and occasionally orange or red ceramics. In historical times, Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
created olla
Olla
An Olla is a ceramic jar, often unglazed, used for cooking stews or soups, for the storage of water or dry foods, or for other purposes. Ollas have a short wide neck and a wider belly, resembling beanpots or handis.-History:...
s, dough bowls, and food bowls of different sizes for daily use, but they also made more elaborate ceremonial mugs, jugs, ladles, seed jars and those vessels for ritual use, and these were usually finished with polished surfaces and decorated with black painted designs. At the turn of the 20th century, Hopi potter Nampeyo
Nampeyo
Iris Nampeyo was a Hopi potter who lived on the Hopi Reservation in present-day Arizona. She received the English name Iris as an infant, but was better known by her Tewa name, Num-pa-yu, meaning "snake that does not bite"....
famous revived Sikyatki
Sikyátki
Sikyátki is an archeological site and former Hopi village spanning 40,000 to 60,000 square metres on the eastern side of First Mesa, in what is now Navajo County in the U.S. state of Arizona. It was inhabited by Kokop clan of the Hopi from the 14th to the 17th century. Jesse Walter Fewkes led a...
-style pottery, originated on First Mesa in the 14th to 17th centuries.
Southwest architecture includes Cliff dwellings, multi-story settlements carved from living rock; pit houses; and adobe
Adobe
Adobe is a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material , which the builders shape into bricks using frames and dry in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and mudbrick buildings. Adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for...
and sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
pueblo
Pueblo
Pueblo is a term used to describe modern communities of Native Americans in the Southwestern United States of America. The first Spanish explorers of the Southwest used this term to describe the communities housed in apartment-like structures built of stone, adobe mud, and other local material...
s. One of the most elaborate and largest ancient settlements is Chaco Canyon in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, which includes 15 major complexes of sandstone and timber. These are connected by a network of roads. Construction for the largest of these settlements, Pueblo Bonito
Pueblo Bonito
Pueblo Bonito, the largest and best known Great House in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, northern New Mexico, was built by ancestral Pueblo people and occupied between AD 828 and 1126....
, began 1080 years before present
Before Present
Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...
. Pueblo Bonito contains over 800 rooms.
Turquoise
Turquoise
Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl648·4. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue...
, jet, and spiny oyster shell have been traditionally used by Ancestral Pueblo for jewelry, and they developed sophisticated inlay
Inlay
Inlay is a decorative technique of inserting pieces of contrasting, often coloured materials into depressions in a base object to form patterns or pictures that normally are flush with the matrix. In a wood matrix, inlays commonly use wood veneers, but other materials like shells, mother-of-pearl,...
techniques centuries ago.
Around 200 CE the Hohokam
Hohokam
Hohokam is one of the four major prehistoric archaeological Oasisamerica traditions of what is now the American Southwest. Many local residents put the accent on the first syllable . Variant spellings in current, official usage include Hobokam, Huhugam and Huhukam...
culture developed in Arizona. They are the ancestors of the Tohono O'odham
Tohono O'odham
The Tohono O'odham are a group of Native American people who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of the southeastern Arizona and northwest Mexico...
and Akimel O'odham or Pima tribes. The Mimbres, a subgroup of the Mogollon culture, are especially notable for the narrative paintings on their pottery.
Within the last millennium, Athabaskan peoples emigrated from northern Canada in the southwest. These include the Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
and Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
. Sandpainting
Sandpainting
Sandpainting is the art of pouring colored sands, powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, and pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a fixed, or unfixed sand painting...
is an aspect of Navajo healing ceremonies that inspired an art form. Navajos learned to weave on upright looms from Pueblos and wove blankets that were eagerly collected by Great Basin
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...
and Plains tribes
Plains Indians
The Plains Indians are the Indigenous peoples who live on the plains and rolling hills of the Great Plains of North America. Their colorful equestrian culture and resistance to White domination have made the Plains Indians an archetype in literature and art for American Indians everywhere.Plains...
in the 18th and 19th centuries. After the introduction of the railroad in the 1880s, imported blankets became plentiful and inexpensive, so Navajo weavers switched to producing rugs
Navajo rug
Navajo rugs and blankets are textiles produced by Navajo people of the Four Corners area of the United States. Navajo textiles are highly regarded and have been sought after as trade items for over 150 years. Commercial production of handwoven blankets and rugs has been an important element of the...
for trade.
In the 1850s, Navajos adopted silversmith
Silversmith
A silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...
ing from the Mexicans. Atsidi Sani
Atsidi Sani
Atsidi Sani was the first known Navajo silversmith.-Background:Atsidi Sani played an important role in the history of Navajo silversmithing. He is known by many to be the first Navajo silversmith, although his main focus was in blacksmithing; working with iron. Many agree that he learned...
(Old Smith) was the first Navajo silversmith, but he had many students, and the technology quickly spread to surrounding tribes. Today thousands of artists produce silver jewelry with turquoise. Hopi are renowned for their overlay
Overlay
Overlay may refer to:*Overlay architecture, term used to describe ‘event architecture’ and relates to the temporary elements that supplement existing buildings and infrastructure to enable the operation of major sporting events or festivals....
silver work and cottonwood carvings. Zuni artists are admired for their cluster work jewelry, showcasing turquoise designs, as well as their elaborate, pictorial stone inlay in silver.
Image:Basket of Basketmaker Pueblo people.jpg|
Basketmaker (culture)
The Basketmaker culture of the Ancient Pueblo People began about 1500 BC and continued until about AD 500 with the beginning of the Pueblo I Era...
, Ancestral Pueblo
Image:RochesterPanel 01 2008.JPG|
Rochester Rock Art Panel
The Rochester Rock Art Panel consists of a large number of petroglyphs of various ages. Some are prehistoric rock art, probably of Fremont culture origin. Others are probably modern, depicting horses, for example. And some are arguably of very recent origin, most likely the work of white...
in the San Rafael Swell
San Rafael Swell
The San Rafael Swell is a large geologic feature located in south-central Utah, USA about 30 miles west of Green River, Utah. The San Rafael Swell, approximately by , consists of a giant dome-shaped anticline of sandstone, shale, and limestone that was pushed up during the Paleocene Laramide...
in Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, USA
File:Hohokam cliff dwelling (Montezuma Castle), Arizona.jpg|Montezuma Castle
Montezuma Castle National Monument
Montezuma Castle National Monument, located near Camp Verde, Arizona, in the Southwestern United States, features well-preserved cliff-dwellings. They were built and used by the Pre-Columbian Sinagua people, northern cousins of the Hohokam, around 700 AD. Several Hopi clans trace their roots to...
, a Sinagua
Sinagua
The Sinagua were a pre-Columbian cultural group occupying an area in central Arizona between the Little Colorado River and the Salt River including the Verde Valley and significant portions of the Mogollon Rim country between approximately 500 AD and 1425 AD.Early Sinagua sites consist of pit houses...
cliff dwelling in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, ca. 700 CE–1425 CE
Image:Hohokam shell etched.jpg|Etched shell, Hohokam
Image:Chaco Anasazi canteen NPS.jpg|
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, ca. 700 CE–1100 CE
Image:Mimbres p1070222.jpg|
Image:Navajo rug.jpg|
Navajo rug
Navajo rugs and blankets are textiles produced by Navajo people of the Four Corners area of the United States. Navajo textiles are highly regarded and have been sought after as trade items for over 150 years. Commercial production of handwoven blankets and rugs has been an important element of the...
.
Image:Navajo sandpainting.jpg|
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
Sandpainting
Sandpainting
Sandpainting is the art of pouring colored sands, powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, and pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a fixed, or unfixed sand painting...
.
File:The Childrens Museum of Indianapolis - Storyteller Under Sunny Skies clay sculpture.jpg|"Storyteller Under Sunny Skies," by Rose Pecos-SunRhodes, Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico (1993), a clay sculpture in the permanent collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
Mesoamerica and Central America
The cultural development of ancient Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
was generally divided along east and west. The stable Maya culture was most dominant in the east, especially the Yucatán Peninsula, while in the west more varied developments took place in subregions. These included West Mexican
Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition
The Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition or shaft tomb culture refers to a set of interlocked cultural traits found in the western Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit, and, to a lesser extent, Colima to its south, roughly dating to the period between 300 BCE and 400 CE, although there is not wide...
(1000-1), Teotihuacan (1-500), Mixtec (1000–1200), and Aztec (1200-1521).
Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
n civilizations generally lived to the regions south of modern-day Mexico, although there was some overlap.
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica was home to the following cultures, among others:Olmec
The Olmec (1500-400 BCE), who lived on the gulf coast, were the first civilization to fully develop in Mesoamerica. Their culture was the first to develop many traits that remained constant in Mesoamerica until the last days of the Aztecs: a complex astronomical calendar, the ritual practice of a ball game, and the erection of stelae to commemorate victories or other important events.The most famous artistic creations of the Olmec are colossal basalt heads, believed to be portraits of rulers that were erected to advertise their great power. The Olmec also sculpted votive figurines
Olmec figurine
This article on the Olmec figurine describes a number of archetypical figurines produced by the Formative Period inhabitants of Mesoamerica. While many of these figurines may or may not have been produced directly by the people of the Olmec heartland, they bear the hallmarks and motifs of Olmec...
that they buried beneath the floors of their houses for unknown reasons. These were most often modeled in terracotta, but also occasionally carved from jade
Jade
Jade is an ornamental stone.The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals:...
or serpentine
Serpentinite
Serpentinite is a rock composed of one or more serpentine group minerals. Minerals in this group are formed by serpentinization, a hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth's mantle...
.
Image:Mexico.Tab.OlmecHead.01.jpg|
La Venta
La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Some of the artifacts have been moved to the museum "Parque - Museo de La Venta", which is in Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco....
. This one is nearly 3 metres (9 ft) tall.
Image:San Martin Pajapan Monument 1 retouched.jpg|
San Martín Pajapan Monument 1
San Martín Pajapan Monument 1 is a large Olmec basalt sculpture found on top of the San Martin Pajapan volcano, in the Tuxtla Mountains of the Mexican state of Veracruz. It is notable for its original location and its Olmec iconography.-Description:...
was found at the peak of a dormant volcano.
Image:Olmec figurine, serpentine.jpg|
Serpentinite
Serpentinite is a rock composed of one or more serpentine group minerals. Minerals in this group are formed by serpentinization, a hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth's mantle...
.
Image:The Wrestler (Olmec) by DeLange.jpg|
The Wrestler (sculpture)
The Wrestler is an ancient basalt statuette that is one of the most important sculptures of the Olmec culture. The near life-size figure has been praised not only for its realism and sense of energy, but also for its aesthetic qualities...
(1500-400 BCE) is an Olmec
Olmec
The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....
basalt
Basalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
statuette, likely a personal portrait.
Image:Las Limas Monument 1 (O Cadena).jpg|
Las Limas Monument 1
Las Limas Monument 1 is a greenstone figure of a youth holding a limp were-jaguar baby. Found in the Mexican state of Veracruz in the Olmec heartland, the statue is famous for its incised representations of Olmec supernaturals and is considered by some a "Rosetta stone" of Olmec religion...
. Greenstone, Middle Formative Period (1000 – 600 BCE). Discovered 1965 near Jesús Carranza, Veracruz, Mexico. Xalapa Museum of Anthropology, Veracruz
Image:Harvestermountainlord.jpg|
Epi-Olmec culture
The Epi-Olmec culture was a cultural area in the central region of the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz, concentrated in the Papaloapan River basin, a culture that existed during the Late Formative period, from roughly 300 BCE to roughly 250 CE. Epi-Olmec was a successor culture to the Olmec,...
)
Image:British Museum Olmec jade votive axe.jpg|
File:Olmec celt 801.jpg|Olmec celt.
File:Olmec mask 802.jpg|Jade Olmec warriors mask
File:Olmec fish vessel.jpg|Black granite fish vessel
File:Olmecmask.jpg|Jade ceremonial mask
File:Olmeken - Menschenkopf 1.jpg|Iron mask
Teotihuacano
TeotihuacanTeotihuacan
Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...
was a city built in the Valley of Mexico
Valley of Mexico
The Valley of Mexico is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a centre for several pre-Columbian civilizations, including...
, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
Americas. Established around 200 BCE, the city fell between the 7th and 8th century CE. Teotihuacan has numerous well-preserved mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
s.
Image:Teotihuacan_mask_Louvre_MH_78-1-187.jpg|
Image:Teotimask2.jpg|
Image:teotihuacanmask.jpg|
Image:Great Goddess of Teotihuacan (T Aleto).jpg|
Image:Facade of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent (Teotihuacán).jpg|Restored partion of Teotihucan architecture showing the typical Mesoamerican use of red paint complemented on gold and jade decoration upon marble and granite.
Image:British Museum Teotihuacan jaguar.jpg|
Image:Teotihuacán - Tlaloc-Maske.jpg|Iron Tlaloc mask
Image:Teotihuacán - Palacio de Atetelco Wandmalerei 3.jpg|Wall design in the palace of Atetelco
File:Tapadera de incensario teotihuacana (M. América Inv.91-11-45) 01.jpg|Teotihuacan incense burner
File:Teotihuacan mask 802.jpg|White polished marble mask
File:QuetzalTeotihuacan.JPG|Stone carving of the feathered dragon Quetzalcoatl
File:Teotihuacan mask 801.jpg|Marble mask
Classic Veracruz Culture
In his 1957 book on Mesoamerican art, Miguel CovarrubiasMiguel Covarrubias
José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud was a Mexican painter and caricaturist, ethnologist and art historian among other interests. In 1924 at the age of 19 he moved to New York City armed with a grant from the Mexican government, tremendous talent, but very little English speaking skill. Luckily,...
speaks of Remojadas' "magnificent hollow figures with expressive faces, in majestic postures and wearing elaborate paraphernalia indicated by added clay elements."
Image:Remojadas Chieftain 1 Art Institute.jpg|
File:HeadScuptureYTajin.JPG|Limestone head sculpture
File:Male-female duality figure from Remojadas.jpg|
Remojadas
Remojadas is a name applied to a culture, an archaeological site, as well as an artistic style that flourished on Mexico's Veracruz Gulf Coast from perhaps 100 BCE to 800 CE. The Remojadas culture is considered part of the larger Classic Veracruz culture. Further research into the Remojadas...
, 200–500 CE. Note the feminine breast and birds on the right side of the figure.
File:El Tajin Ballcourt Mural (Tom Aleto).jpg|
Mesoamerican ballgame
The Mesoamerican ballgame or Tlatchtli in Náhuatl was a sport with ritual associations played since 1,000 B.C. by the pre-Columbian peoples of Ancient Mexico and Central America...
at El Tajin
El Tajín
El Tajín is a pre-Columbian archeological site and was the site of one of the largest and most important cities of the Classic era of Mesoamerica. The city flourished from 600 to 1200 C.E. and during this time numerous temples, palaces, Mesoamerican ballcourts and pyramids were built...
, showing the sacrifice of a ballplayer.
File:Puebla - Museo Amparo - Flûte de Romojadan en céramique, Veracruz 600 dC.JPG|Intricate multichambered Remojada flute
File:Altar urn Collection H Law 53 n1.jpg|Veracruz altar urn
File:WLA lacma 700 ceramic ocarina.jpg|Ceramic frog ocarina
File:Veracruz El Tajin head.jpg|Stone head of a woman from El Tajin
Zapotec
"The Bat God was one of the important deities of the Maya, many elements of whose religion were shared also by the Zapotec. The Bat God in particular is known to have been revered also by the Zapotec [...] He was especially associated [...] with the underworld." An important Zapotec center was Monte AlbanMonte Albán
Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca...
, in present-day Oaxaca
Oaxaca
Oaxaca , , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 571 municipalities; of which 418 are governed by the system of customs and traditions...
, Mexico. The Monte Alban periods are divided into I, II, and III, which range from 200 BCE to 600 CE.
File:MonteAlbanMaskMusJadeSanCri.JPG |
Image:Jaguar trouvé à Oaxaca.jpg|
Monte Albán
Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca...
, 200 BCE–600 CE. H 22" (56 cm). American Museum of Natural History.
File:Dios Cocijo.jpg|Seated Zapotec religious priest
Image:Monte Alban - Fledermaus.jpg|
Image:British Museum Zapotec funerary urn 1.jpg|
File:WLA lacma 1300 ceramic vessel.jpg|Ceramic Zapotec vessel
File:Puebla - Museo Amparo - Statuette des états théocratiques, période classique, Zapoteca.JPG|Zapotec warrior sculpture
File:Monte alban oaxaca mask.jpg|Zapotec mask from Monte Alban
File:Monte Alban - Goldenes Ohrgehänge.jpg|Golden ornamentation worn by Zapotec government officials
File:Schmuckscheibe Monte Alban.jpg|Jade inlaid Zapotec jewelery
File:Monte Alban - Keramik 1.jpg|Zapotec ceramic vessel from Zaachila
File:Zapotec Urn Cociyo Kimbell.jpg|Urn in the form of the rain god Cociyo
Maya
The Maya civilizationMaya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
occupied the south of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, all of Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
and Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
, and the western portions of Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
and El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
.
Image:Maya eccentric.jpg|
Copán
Copán is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization located in the Copán Department of western Honduras, not far from the border with Guatemala. It was the capital city of a major Classic period kingdom from the 5th to 9th centuries AD...
or Quiriguá
Quiriguá
Quiriguá is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the department of Izabal in south-eastern Guatemala. It is a medium-sized site covering approximately along the lower Motagua River, with the ceremonial center about from the north bank. During the Maya Classic Period , Quiriguá was situated at...
, Musées Roayaux d'art et d'Histoire, Brussels.
Image:Jaguar vase.jpg|
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
scene painting on Lord of the Jaguar Pelt Throne vase, 700-800 CE.
File:Palenque - Pakal - Grabbeigabe.jpg|Jade mask from Palenque
File:Urna funeraria maya Kinich Ahau (M. América Inv.91-11-12) 01.jpg|Maya funery urn from Kinich Ahau
File:Cancuenpanel3.jpg|The third Cancuen panel depicting King T'ah 'ak' Cha'an
File:Jaina Figurine 1 (T Aleto).jpg|Jaina Island ceramic male figurine, 650-800 CE.
File:Maya jade plaque.jpg|Maya jade plaque
File:Maya Räuchergefäss Sonnengott 2 EthnM.jpg|Sun god sculpture made of clay
File:Maya flask DYM 92.166.23.JPG|Maya flask for holding alcoholic beverages
Image:K'inich Janaab Pakal I v2.jpg|
File:Maya Vessel with an enthroned Lord Kimbell.jpg|Mayan cups detailed with ink inscriptions
File:Codex at Copan.jpg|Maya codex from Copan
File:Olmeca-Xicalana murals from Cacaxtla.jpg|
File:MayaCampecheMask1.JPG|Jade Maya ceremonial mask
File:WLA metmuseum Maya Double Chambered Vessel 5th C.jpg|Double chambered Iron vessel
File:Mayan clothing - Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde München - DSC08519.JPG|Maya robe and tunic from the Kiche Maya
File:Piedrasnegrastrono.jpg|Maya bench
File:Tripod vessel with lid, Mexico, Campeche, Classic Myan period, c. 450-500 C.E., brown pottery with burnished brown slip, Honolulu Academy of Arts.jpg|Classical period Tripod vessel c.450-500 C.E.
File:WLA lacma Mayan deity head.jpg|Maya warrior helmet
File:Nobleman offering cocoa paste.jpg|Maya nobleman offering cocoa
File:Old God vase Collection Henry Law 155.jpg|Maya vessel
File:Takalik Abaj obsidian 1.jpg|Raw obsidian and obsidian blades used by Maya soldiers
File:Maya Flöten Slg Ebnöther.jpg|Maya flutes
File:ElPetenMask1JadeSanCris.JPG|Jade Maya warriors mask from Peten
Toltec
Image:Telamones Tula.jpg|
Tula, Hidalgo
Tula, formally, Tula de Allende, is a town and one of the 84 municipalities of Hidalgo, in central-eastern Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 305.8 km² , and as of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 93,296, with 28,432 in the town...
.
Image:Toltec-style Vessel 1.jpg|
File:Tula birdman.jpg|Toltec bird carving in granite at Tula
File:TulaPlumbatei.jpg|Toltec turtle vessel
Mixtec
Image:Oaxaca ocho venado.png|
Eight Deer Jaguar Claw
Eight Deer Jaguar Claw was a powerful Mixtec ruler in 11th century Oaxaca referred to in the 15th century deerskin manuscript Codex Zouche-Nuttall, and other Mixtec manuscripts. His surname is alternatively translated Tiger-Claw and Ocelot-Claw. John Pohl has dated his life as having lasted from...
(right) Meeting with Four Jaguar, in a depiction from the precolumbian Codex Zouche-Nuttall
Codex Zouche-Nuttall
The Codex Zouche-Nuttall is an accordion-folded pre-Columbian piece of Mixtec writing, now in the British Museum . It is one of three codices that record the genealogies, alliances and conquests of several 11th and 12th-century rulers of a small Mixtec city-state in highland Oaxaca, the Tilantongo...
.
Image:Snailshellpend-mixtec.jpg|
Dumbarton Oaks
Dumbarton Oaks is the conventional name for the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, situated on a historic property in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The institution is administered by the Trustees for Harvard University. Its founders, Robert Woods Bliss and his wife...
Museum, Washington, DC
File:CloseUp-Mitla-Oaxaca-Mexico.jpg|
Mixtec
The Mixtec are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples inhabiting the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla in a region known as La Mixteca. The Mixtecan languages form an important branch of the Otomanguean language family....
stone mosaic-work at Mitla
Mitla
Mitla is the second most important archeological site in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico, and the most important of the Zapotec culture. The site is located 44 km from the city of Oaxaca. in the upper end of the Tlacolula Valley, one of the three that form the Central Valleys Region of the...
. This was an inspiration for similar mosaics by Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
.
File:12-05oaxaca077.jpg|
File:Escudo de Yanhuitlán.jpg|Mixtec warrior seal
File:Slate mask of Tlaloc (the rain god), Mixtec people, Valley of Oaxaca, c. 900-1200 CE.JPG|Slate mask of Tlaloc, god of rain c. 900-1200 CE
File:Mixtec pendant.jpg|Gold Mixtec pendant
File:Sahumador mixteco.jpg|Mixtec incense burner
Huastec
Image:Huastec statue Tampico Inv D94-20-600.jpg
File:HPIM2116.JPG
Image:Huaxtèque Auch 1.jpg
Image:Huaxtèque Auch 2.jpg
Aztec
File:Double Headed Turquoise Serpent.jpg|
Double-headed serpent
The Double-headed serpent is an Aztec statue kept at the British Museum. Composed of mostly turquoise pieces applied to a wood base, it is one of nine mosaics of similar material in the British Museum; there are thought to be about 25 such pieces from that period in the whole of Europe. It came...
- Turquoise, red and white mosaic on wood. H 20cm x L 43cm (8" x 17"). Possibly Mixtec. 1400-1521, British Museum
File:Aztecheaddress.jpg|Aztec headdress
File:Chalchiuhtlicue Maske.jpg|Marble mask of Chalchiuhtlicue, Aztec god of water
File:Cultura mixteca-azteca, ornamento labiale a forma di testa d'aquila in oro, 1200-1521 ca..JPG|Gold eagles head ornament worn by Aztec Eagle knights
File:Aztec ear flares, Art Institute.jpg|Aztec gold earings
File:MictlantecuhtliByPhilKonstantin.jpg|Granite statue of Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of the underworld
Image:Aztec or Mixtec sacrificial knife 2.jpg|
File:Aztec wooden drum.jpg|Wooden Aztec drum
File:Aztec statue of Coatlicue, the earth goddess.jpg|
File:Wooden Aztec sun stone.jpg|Wooden Aztec sun stone
File:20041229-Ocelotl-Cuauhxicalli (Museo Nacional de Antropología) MQ.jpg|Granite jaguar carving
File:Aztec vulture vessel.jpg|Aztec turtle vessel
File:Mexico - Museo de antropologia - Tonatiuh en jarre rouge.JPG|Vase of Tonatiuh
File:Monkeyjar.jpg|Monkey jar carved from onyx marble
File:Quetzalcoatl 801.jpg|Stone bust of the god Quetzalcoatl
File:Dvasijatemplomayor.JPG|Aztec ceramic vessel
Central America and "Intermediate area"
Greater ChiriquiGreater Nicoya
The ancient peoples of the Nicoya Peninsula
Nicoya Peninsula
The Nicoya Peninsula is a peninsula on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and lies in the Guanacaste Province in the north, and the Puntarenas Province in the south. It is located at . It varies from 19 to wide and is approximately long, and forms the largest peninsula in the country. It is known...
in present day Costa Rica traditionally sculpted birds in jade
Costa Rican Jade Tradition
Jadeite is presumed one of the most precious materials of Pre-Columbian Costa Rica. It, along with other similar looking greenstones were cherished and worked for years...
, which were used for funeral ornaments. Around 500 CE gold ornaments replaced jade, possibly because of the depletion of jade resources.
Image:Metate Costa Rica.jpg|
Metate
A metate is a mortar, a ground stone tool used for processing grain and seeds. In traditional Mesoamerican culture, metates were typically used by women who would grind calcified maize and other organic materials during food preparation...
, Costa Rica, 300-700 CE
Image:Tolita-Tumaco ceramic sculpture from Ecuador.jpg|
Image:Figura masculina cultura Bahía (M.Am. Madrid) 01.jpg|
File:Masked_Figure_Pendant_1.jpg|
Caribbean
Image:Duho.jpg|
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
. Taíno
Taíno people
The Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is thought that the seafaring Taínos are relatives of the Arawak people of South America...
, 1000-1500 CE, carved lignum vitae
Lignum vitae
Lignum vitae is a trade wood, also called guayacan or guaiacum, and in parts of Europe known as pockenholz, from trees of the genus Guaiacum. This wood was once very important for applications requiring a material with its extraordinary combination of strength, toughness and density...
Image:Zemi figure Metropolitan.jpg|
Zemi
A Zemi or Cemi is a Taíno concept, meaning both a deity, or ancestral spirit, and a sculptural object that houses the spirit. They were also created by neighboring tribes in the Caribbean and northern South America.-Theology:...
, ironwood with shell inlay, Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
, 15th-16th c. Bowl used for cohoba
Cohoba
Cohoba is an old Taino Indian transliteration for a ceremony in which psychedelic ground seed of the cojóbana tree was snufed in twin nasal Y-shaped pipe also called Cohoba...
rituals Native American art history is a new and highly contested academic discipline, and these Eurocentric benchmarks are followed today less and less today. Many media considered appropriate for easel art were employed by Native artists for centuries, such as stone and wood sculpture and mural painting. Ancestral Pueblo artists painted with tempera on woven cotton fabric, at least 800 years ago. Certain Native artists used non-Indian art materials as soon as they became available. For example, Texcocan artist Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl
Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl
Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl was a Novohispanic historian.-Life:A Castizo born between 1568 and 1580, Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl was a direct descendant of Ixtlilxochitl I and Ixtlilxochitl II, who had been tlatoque of Texcoco...
painted with ink and watercolor on paper in the late 16th century. Bound together in the Codex
Codex
A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...
Ixtlilxochitl, these portraits of historical Texcocan leaders are rendered with shading, modeling and anatomic accuracy. The Cuzco School
Cuzco School
The Cuzco School was a Roman Catholic artistic tradition based in Cusco, Peru during the Colonial period, in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries...
of Peru featured Quechua easel painters in the 17th and 18th centuries. The first cabinets of curiosities
Cabinet of curiosities
A cabinet of curiosities was an encyclopedic collection in Renaissance Europe of types of objects whose categorical boundaries were yet to be defined. They were also known by various names such as Cabinet of Wonder, and in German Kunstkammer or Wunderkammer...
in the 16th century, precursors to modern museums, featured Native American art.
It should be noted that the notion that fine art cannot be functional has not gained widespread acceptance in the Native American art world, as evidenced by the high esteem and value placed upon rugs, blankets, basketry, weapons, and other utilitarian items in Native American art shows. A dichotomy between fine art
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
and craft
Craft
A craft is a branch of a profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work. In historical sense, particularly as pertinent to the Medieval history and earlier, the term is usually applied towards people occupied in small-scale production of goods.-Development from the past until...
is not commonly found in contemporary Native art. For example, the Cherokee Nation
Cherokee Nation
The Cherokee Nation is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It was established in the 20th century, and includes people descended from members of the old Cherokee Nation who relocated voluntarily from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who...
honors its greatest artists as Living Treasures, including frog- and fish-gig
Gigging
Gigging is the practice of hunting fish or small game with a gig or similar multi-pronged spear. Commonly harvested wildlife include freshwater suckers, saltwater flounder, and small game, such as frogs. A gig can refer to any long pole which has been tipped with a multi-pronged spear. The gig pole...
makers, flint knappers, and basket weavers
Basket weaving
Basket weaving is the process of weaving unspun vegetable fibres into a basket or other similar form. People and artists who weave baskets are called basketmakers and basket weavers.Basketry is made from a variety of fibrous or pliable materials•anything that will bend and form a shape...
, alongside sculptors, painters, and textile artists. Art historian Dawn Ades writes, "For from being inferior, or purely decorative, crafts like textiles or ceramics, have always had the possibility of being the bearers of vital knowledge, beliefs and myths."
Recognizable art markets between Natives and non-Natives emerged upon contact, but the 1820-1840s were a highly prolific time. In the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes region, tribes dependent upon the rapidly diminishing fur trade adopted art production a means of financial support. A painting movement known as the Iroquois Realist School emerged among the Haudenosaunee in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in the 1820s, spearheaded by the brothers David
David Cusick
David Cusick was Tuscarora artist and the author of David Cusick’s Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations . This is an early account of Native American history and myth, written and published in English by an Indian.-Biography:David Cusick was born around 1780, probably on the Oneida...
and Dennis Cusick
Dennis Cusick
Dennis Cusick was a Tuscarora painter from New York and one of the founders of the Iroquois Realist Style of painting.-Biography:...
.
African-Ojibwe sculptor, Edmonia Lewis
Edmonia Lewis
Mary Edmonia Lewis was the first African American and Native American woman to gain fame and recognition as a sculptor in the international fine arts world...
maintained a studio in Rome, Italy and carved Neoclassicist
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
marble sculptors from the 1860s-1880s. Her mother belonged to the Mississauga
Mississaugas
The Mississaugas are a subtribe of the Anishinaabe-speaking First Nations people located in southern Ontario, Canada. They are closely related to the Ojibwa...
band of the Credit River Indian Reserve. Lewis exhibited widely, and a testament to her popularity during her own time was that President Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
commissioned her to carve his portrait in 1877.
Ho-Chunk
Ho-Chunk
The Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago, are a tribe of Native Americans, native to what is now Wisconsin and Illinois. There are two federally recognized Ho-Chunk tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska....
artist, Angel DeCora was the best known Native American artist before World War I. She was taken from her reservation and family to the Hampton Institute
Hampton University
Hampton University is a historically black university located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It was founded by black and white leaders of the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War to provide education to freedmen.-History:...
, where she began her lengthy formal art training. Active in the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
, DeCora exhibited her paintings and design widely and illustrated books by Native authors. She strove to be tribally specific in her work and was revolutionary for portraying Indians in contemporary clothing of the early 20th century. She taught art to young Native students at Carlisle Indian Industrial School
Carlisle Indian Industrial School
Carlisle Indian Industrial School was an Indian boarding school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1879 at Carlisle, Pennsylvania by Captain Richard Henry Pratt, the school was the first off-reservation boarding school, and it became a model for Indian boarding schools in other locations...
and was an outspoken advocate of art as a means for Native Americans to maintain cultural pride, while finding a place in mainstream society.
The Kiowa Five
Kiowa Five
The Kiowa Five or Kiowa Six is a group of six Kiowa artists from Oklahoma in the 20th century. They were Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Lois Smoky, and Monroe Tsatoke.-Background:...
or Kiowa Six, a group of Kiowa painters from Oklahoma, met with international success when their mentor, Oscar Jacobson, showed their paintings in First International Art Exposition in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1928. They also participated in the 1932 Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
, where their art display, according to Dorothy Dunn
Dorothy Dunn
Dorothy Dunn Kramer was an American art instructor who created The Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian School.-Background:Dunn was born on 2 December 1903 in Pottawatomie County, Kansas and educated in Chicago. She first encountered Native American art at the Field Museum in Chicago in 1925...
, “was acclaimed the most popular exhibit among all the rich and varied displays assembled.”
The Santa Fe Indian Market
Santa Fe Indian Market
Santa Fe Indian Market is an annual art market held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA over two days on the weekend after the third Thursday in August and draws an estimated 100,000 people to the city from around the world. The Market was first held in 1922 as the Indian Fair and was sponsored by the...
began in 1922. John Collier
John Collier (reformer)
John Collier was an American social reformer and Native American advocate. He served as Commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, from 1933-1945...
became Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1933 and temporarily reversed the BIA's assimilationist policies by encouraging Native American arts and culture. By this time, Native American art exhibits and the art market increased, gaining wider audiences. In the 1920s and 30s, Indigenist art movements flourished in Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, most famously with the Mexican Muralist movements
Mexican Muralism
Mexican muralism is a Mexican art movement. The most important period of this movement took place primarily from the 1920s to the 1960s, though it exerted an influence on later generations of Mexican artists...
.
Basketry
Basket weaving
Basket weaving is the process of weaving unspun vegetable fibres into a basket or other similar form. People and artists who weave baskets are called basketmakers and basket weavers.Basketry is made from a variety of fibrous or pliable materials•anything that will bend and form a shape...
is one of the ancient and most-widespread art forms in the Americas. From coiled sea lyme grass
Leymus arenarius
Leymus arenarius Hochst. is a psammophylic species of grass in the Poaceae family, native to Atlantic, Central and Northern Europe and the coldest shores of North America....
baskets in Nunavut to bark baskets in Tierra del Fuego, Native artists weave baskets from a wide range of materials. Typically baskets are made of vegetable fibers, but Tohono O'odham are known for their horsehair baskets and Inupiaq artists weave baskets from baleen
Baleen
Baleen or whalebone is a filter-feeder system inside the mouths of baleen whales. The baleen system works when a whale opens its mouth underwater and then water pours into the whale's mouth. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and remain as food...
, filtering plates of certain whales. Grand Traverse Band Kelly Church
Kelly Church
Kelly Jean Church is an award-winning black ash basket weaver, Woodlands Style painter, birch bark biter, and educator, enrolled in the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.-Background:...
, Wasco-Wishram
Wasco-Wishram
Wasco-Wishram are two closely related Chinook Indian tribes from the Columbia River in Oregon. Today the tribes are part of the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon and Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation in Washington.-History:...
Pat Gold, and Eastern Band Cherokee Joel Queen all weave baskets from copper sheets or wire, and Mi'kmaq-Onondaga
Onondaga (tribe)
The Onondaga are one of the original five constituent nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Their traditional homeland is in and around Onondaga County, New York...
conceptual artist Gail Tremblay
Gail Tremblay
Gail Tremblay is a Mi'kmaq and Onondaga writer and artist.-Background:Trembley was born on 15 December 1945 in Buffalo, New York. She received her BA in drama from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA in English from the University of Oregon, Eugene in 1969.-Writing and education career:She...
weaves baskets in the traditional fancywork patterns of her tribes from exposed film. Basketry can take many forms. Haida artist Lisa Telford uses cedar bark to weave both traditional functional baskets and impractical but beautiful cedar evening gowns and high-heeled shoes.
A range of native grasses provides material for Arctic baskets, as does baleen, which is a 20th century development. Baleen baskets are typically embellished with walrus ivory carvings. Cedar bark is often used in northwest coastal baskets. Throughout the Great Lakes and northeast, black ash and sweetgrass are woven into fancy work, featuring "porcupine" points, or decorated as strawberries. Bark baskets are traditional for gathering berries. Rivercane
Arundinaria
Arundinaria, commonly known as the canes, is the sole genus of bamboo native to South Africa and eastern North America and the only temperate bamboo in North America. The genus is endemic to the eastern United States from New Jersey south to Florida and west to Ohio and Texas...
is the preferred material in the Southeast, and Chitimacha
Chitimacha
The Chitimacha are a Native American federally recognized tribe that lives in the U.S. state of Louisiana, mainly in St. Mary Parish. They currently number about 720 people. The Chitimacha language is a language isolate.- History :The Chitimacha's historic home was the southern Louisiana coast...
s are regarded as the finest rivercane weavers. In Oklahoma, rivercane is prized but rare so baskets are typically made of honeysuckle or buckbrush runners. Coiled baskets are popular in the southwest and the Hopi and Apache in particular are known for pictorial coiled basketry plaques. The Tohono O'odham are well known for their basket-weaving prowess, and evidenced by the success of Annie Antone
Annie Antone
Annie Antone is a Native American Tohono O'odham basket weaver from Gila Bend, Arizona-Background:Annie Antone was born in Tucson, Arizona in 1955. She learned how to weave baskets from her mother, Irene Antone. Annie began at the age of 19 and sold her first basket for $10. She gave the money to...
and Terrol Dew Johnson
Terrol Dew Johnson
Terrol Dew Johnson is a contemporary Tohono O'odham basketweaver and health advocate, promoting traditional foods to prevent diabetes.-Background:...
.
Juncus
Juncus is a genus in the plant family Juncaceae. It consists of some 200 to 300 or more species of grassy plants commonly called rushes...
is a common material in southern California, while sedge, willow, redbud, and devil's claw are also used. Pomo basket weavers are known to weave 60-100 stitches per inch and their rounded, coiled baskets adorned with quail's topknots, feathers, abalone, and clamshell discs are known as "treasure baskets." Three of the most celebrated Californian basket weavers were Elsie Allen
Elsie Allen
Elsie Allen was a Native American Pomo basket weaver from the Cloverdale Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California in Northern California, significant as for historically categorizing and teaching Californian Indian basket patterns and techniques and sustaining traditional Pomo basketry as an art...
(Pomo), Laura Somersal (Wappo
Wappo
The Wappo are a group of Native Americans who traditionally lived in Northern California in the areas of Napa Valley, the south shore of Clear Lake, Alexander Valley, and Russian River. When Mexicans arrived to colonize California, Wappo villages existed near the present-day towns of Yountville,...
), and the late Pomo-Patwin
Patwin
The Patwin are a Wintun people native to the area of Northern California. The Patwin were a southern branch of the Wintun group and native inhabitants of California from 1,000 up to 4,000 years....
medicine woman, Mabel McKay
Mabel McKay
Mabel McKay was a member of the Long Valley Cache Creek Pomo Indians. She was the last Dreamer of the Pomo people and a basket making prodigy....
, known for her biography, Weaving the Dream. Louisa Keyser
Dat So La Lee
Dat So La Lee, whose birth name was "Dabuda", meaning "Young Willow", , was a renowned American basket weaver and one of the most famous Native American artists of the 20th century...
was a highly influential Washoe
Washoe people
The Washoe are a Great Basin tribe of Native Americans, living in California and Nevada. The name "Washoe" is derived from the autonym waashiw meaning "people from here" in the Washo language .-Territory:Washoe people have lived in the Great Basin for at least the last 6000 years...
basket weaver.
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
, Cherokee, Chitimacha, Tarahumara
Tarahumara
The Rarámuri or Tarahumara are a Native American people of northwestern Mexico who are renowned for their long-distance running ability...
, and Venezuelan tribes. Mike Dart
Mike Dart
Mike Dart is a Native American artist of the Cherokee Nation, who is one of the few Western Cherokee men who specialize in Cherokee basketry.-Background :...
, Cherokee Nation
Cherokee Nation
The Cherokee Nation is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It was established in the 20th century, and includes people descended from members of the old Cherokee Nation who relocated voluntarily from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who...
, is a contemporary practitioner of this technique. The Tarahumara, or Raramuri, of Copper Canyon
Copper Canyon
Copper Canyon is a group of canyons consisting of six distinct canyons in the Sierra Tarahumara in the southwestern part of the state of Chihuahua in Mexico...
, Mexico typically weave with pine needles and sotol
Sotol
Sotol is a distilled spirit made from the Dasylirion wheeleri , a plant that grows in the wilds of Northern Mexico, New Mexico, West Texas, and the Texas Hill Country . It is known as the state drink of Chihuahua, Durango and Coahuila. There are few commercial examples available...
. Yanomamo basket weavers of the Venezuelan Amazon paint their woven tray and burden baskets with geometric designs in charcoal and onto, a red berry. While in most tribes the basket weavers are often women, among the Waura tribe in Brazil, men weave baskets. They weave a wide range of styles, but the largest are called mayaku, which can be two feet wide and feature tight weaves with an impressive array of designs.
Today basket weaving often leads to environmental activism. Indiscriminate pesticide spraying endangers basket weavers' health. The black ash tree, used by basket weavers from Michigan to Maine, is threatened by the emerald ash borer
Emerald ash borer
The emerald ash borer is a green beetle native to Asia.In North America the borer is an invasive species, highly destructive to ash trees in its introduced range. The potential damage of this insect rivals that of Chestnut blight and Dutch Elm Disease...
. Basket weaver Kelly Church has organized two conferences about the threat and teaches children how to harvest black ash seeds. Many native plants that basket weavers use are endangered. Rivercane only grows in 2% of its original territory. Cherokee basket weaver and ethnobotanist, Shawna Cain is working with her tribe to form the Cherokee Nation Native Plant Society. Tohono O'odham
Tohono O'odham
The Tohono O'odham are a group of Native American people who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of the southeastern Arizona and northwest Mexico...
basket weaver Terrol Dew Johnson
Terrol Dew Johnson
Terrol Dew Johnson is a contemporary Tohono O'odham basketweaver and health advocate, promoting traditional foods to prevent diabetes.-Background:...
, known for his experimental use of gourds, beargrass, and other desert plants, took his interest in native plants and founded Tohono O'odham Community Action, which provides traditional wild desert foods for his tribe.
Beadwork
Beadwork
Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another or to cloth, usually by the use of a needle and thread or soft, flexible wire. Most beadwork takes the form of jewelry or other personal adornment, but beads are also used in wall hangings and sculpture.Beadwork techniques are broadly...
is a quintessentially Native American art form, but ironically uses beads imported from Europe and Asia. Glass beads have been in use for almost five centuries in the Americas. Today a wide range of beading styles flourish.
In the Great Lakes, Ursuline nuns introduced floral patterns to tribes, who quickly applied them to beadwork. Great Lakes tribes are known for their bandolier bags, that might take an entire year to complete. During the 20th century the Plateau tribes, such as the Nez Perce perfected contour-style beadwork, in which the lines of beads are stitch to emphasize the pictorial imagery. Plains tribes are master beaders, and today dance regalia for man and women feature a variety of beadwork styles. While Plains and Plateau tribes are renowned for their beaded horse trappings, Subarctic tribes such as the Dene
Dene
The Dene are an aboriginal group of First Nations who live in the northern boreal and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dené speak Northern Athabaskan languages. Dene is the common Athabaskan word for "people" . The term "Dene" has two usages...
bead lavish floral dog blankets. Eastern tribes have a completely different beadwork aesthetic, and Innu
Innu
The Innu are the indigenous inhabitants of an area they refer to as Nitassinan , which comprises most of the northeastern portions of the provinces of Quebec and some western portions of Labrador...
, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, and Haudenosaunee tribes are known for symmetrical scroll motifs in white beads, called the "double curve." Iroquois are also known for "embossed" beading in which strings pulled taunt force beads to pop up from the surface, creating a bas-relief. Tammy Rahr (Cayuga) is a contemporary practitioner of this style. Zuni artists have developed a tradition of three-dimensional beaded sculptures.
Jalisco
Jalisco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in Western Mexico and divided in 125 municipalities and its capital city is Guadalajara.It is one of the more important states...
and Nayarit
Nayarit
Nayarit officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Nayarit is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 20 municipalities and its capital city is Tepic.It is located in Western Mexico...
, Mexico have a completely unique approach to beadwork. They adhere beads, one by one, to a surface, such as wood or a gourd, with a mixture of resin and beeswax.
Most Native beadwork is created for tribal use but beadworkers also create conceptual work for the art world. Richard Aitson
Richard Aitson
Richard Aitson is a Kiowa-Kiowa Apache bead artist, curator, and poet from Oklahoma.-Background:Richard Aitson was born on December 26, 1953 in Anadarko, Oklahoma. His mother was the Kiowa traditionalist Alecia Keahbone Gonzales , who taught the Kiowa language at the University of Science and Arts...
(Kiowa
Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
-Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
) has both an Indian and non-Indian audience for his work and is known for his fully beaded cradleboards. Another Kiowa beadworker, Teri Greeves
Teri Greeves
Teri Greeves is an award-winning Kiowa-Comanche-Italian beadwork artist, living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is enrolled in the Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma.-Background:...
has won top honors for her beadwork, which consciously integrates both traditional and contemporary motifs, such as beaded dancers on Converse high-tops. Greeves also beads on buckskin and explores such issues as warfare or Native American voting rights.
Marcus Amerman
Marcus Amerman
Marcus Amerman is an award-winning Choctaw bead artist, glass artist, painter, fashion designer, and performance artist, living north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is known for his highly realistic beadwork portraits.-Background:...
, Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
, one of today's most celebrated bead artists, pioneered a movement of highly realistic beaded portraits. His imagery ranges from 19th century Native leaders to pop icons such as Janet Jackson and Brook Shields.
Roger Amerman, Marcus' brother, and Martha Berry
Martha Berry (artist)
Martha Berry is a Cherokee beadwork artist, who has been highly influential in reviving traditional Cherokee and Southeastern beadwork, particularly techniques from the pre-Removal period.-Background:...
, Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
, have effectively revived Southeastern beadwork, a style that had been lost because of forced removal from tribes to Indian Territory. Their beadwork commonly features white bead outlines, an echo of the shell beads or pearls Southeastern tribes used before contact.
Jamie Okuma (Luiseño-Shoshone
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
-Bannock
Bannock (tribe)
The Bannock tribe of the Northern Paiute are an indigenous people of the Great Basin. Their traditional lands include southeastern Oregon, southeastern Idaho, western Wyoming, and southwestern Montana...
) was won top awards with her beaded dolls, which can include entire families or horses and riders, all with fully beaded regalia. The antique Venetian beads she uses can as small as size 22°, about the size of a grain of salt. Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty
Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty
Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty is an award-winning Assiniboine-Sioux bead worker and porcupine quill worker, who creates traditional Northern Plains regalia.-Background:...
, Rhonda Holy Bear, and Charlene Holy Bear are also prominent beaded dollmakers.
The widespread popularity of glass beads does not mean aboriginal bead making is dead. Perhaps the most famous Native bead is wampum
Wampum
Wampum are traditional, sacred shell beads of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of the indigenous people of North America. Wampum include the white shell beads fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell; and the white and purple beads made from the quahog, or Western North Atlantic...
, a cylindrical tube of quahog or whelk shell. Both shells produce white beads, but only parts of the quahog produce purple. These are ceremonially and politically important to a range of Eastern tribes. Elizabeth James Perry (Aquinnah Wampanoag-Eastern Band Cherokee) creates wampum jewelry today, including wampum belts.
Ceramics
Marajó
Marajó is an island located at the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil. It is part of the state of Pará.- Geography :With a land area of 40,100 km² , which compares to the size of Switzerland, it is the largest island to be completely surrounded by freshwater in the world...
in Brazil remains a major center of ceramic art today. In Mexico, Mata Ortiz
Mata Ortiz
Mata Ortiz is a small village in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, less than from the US-Mexico border. The community, population 2,000, is one of the designated localidades in the municipio libre of Casas Grandes, one of several such pueblos in a wide, fertile valley long inhabited by indigenous...
ceramics continue the ancient Casas Grandes
Casas Grandes
Casas Grandes is the contemporary name given to a pre-Columbian archaeological zone and its central site, located in northwestern Mexico in the modern-day Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is one of the largest and most complex sites in the region...
tradition of polychrome pottery. Juan Quezada is one of the leading potters from Mata Ortiz.
In the Southeast, the Catawba
Catawba (tribe)
The Catawba are a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans, known as the Catawba Indian Nation. They live in the Southeast United States, along the border between North and South Carolina near the city of Rock Hill...
tribe is known for its tan-and-black mottled pottery. Eastern Band Cherokees' pottery has Catawba influences. In Oklahoma, Cherokees lost their pottery traditions until revived by Anna Belle Sixkiller Mitchell. The Caddo
Caddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
tribe's centuries-long pottery tradition had died out in the early 20th century, but has been effectively revived by Jereldine Redcorn.
Pueblo people are particularly known for their ceramic traditions. Nampeyo
Nampeyo
Iris Nampeyo was a Hopi potter who lived on the Hopi Reservation in present-day Arizona. She received the English name Iris as an infant, but was better known by her Tewa name, Num-pa-yu, meaning "snake that does not bite"....
(ca. 1860–1942) was a Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
potter who collaborated with anthropologists to revive traditional pottery forms and designs, and many of her relatives are successful potters today. Maria
Maria Martinez
Maria Montoya Martinez was a Native American artist who created internationally known pottery...
and Julian Martinez
Julian Martinez
Julian Martinez, also known as Pacano, was a Native American potter and the patriarch of the most important family of Native American artisans in the United States. Born on the San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico, Martinez was instrumental in reviving the black San Ildefonso pottery and Santa Clara...
, both San Ildefonso Pueblo revived their tribe's blackware tradition in the early 20th century. Julian invented a gloss-matte blackware style for which his tribe is still known today. Lucy Lewis (1898–1992) of Acoma Pueblo
Acoma Pueblo
Acoma Pueblo is a Native American pueblo approximately 60 miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico in the United States. Three reservations make up Acoma Pueblo: Sky City , Acomita, and McCartys. The Acoma Pueblo tribe is a federally recognized tribal entity...
gained recognition for her black-on-white ceramics in the mid-20th century. Cochiti Pueblo was known for its grotesque figurines at the turn-of-the-20th-century, and these have been revived by Virgil Ortiz. Cochiti potter Helen Cordero
Helen Cordero
Helen Cordero was a Cochiti Pueblo potter from Cochiti, New Mexico. She was renowned for her storyteller dolls, a genre she invented. In 1986 she was made a National Heritage Fellow.-External links:*...
(1915–1994) invented storyteller figures, which feature a large, single figure of a seated elder
American Indian elder
In American Indian education, within each tribe elders, "are repositories of cultural and philosophical knowledge and are the transmitters of such information," including, "basic beliefs and teachings, encouraging...faith in the Great Spirit, the Creator"...
telling stories to groups of smaller figures.
While northern potters are not as well known as their southern counterparts, ceramic arts extend as far north as the Arctic. Inuit potter, Makituk Pingwartok of Cape Dorset uses a pottery wheel to create her prizewinning ceramics.
Today contemporary Native potters create a wide range of ceramics from functional pottery to monumental ceramic sculpture. Roxanne Swentzell
Roxanne Swentzell
Roxanne Swentzell is a well-known clay sculptor from Santa Clara Pueblo. She attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico and later the Portland Art Museum School in Portland, Oregon....
of Santa Clara Pueblo is one of the leading ceramic artists in the Americas. She creates coil-built, emotionally-charged figures that comment on contemporary society. Nora Naranjo-Morse
Nora Naranjo-Morse
Nora Naranjo-Morse is a Native American potter and poet. She currently resides in Espanola, New Mexico just north of Santa Fe and is a member of the Santa Clara Pueblo...
, also of Santa Clara Pueblo is world renowned for her individual figures as well as conceptual installations featuring ceramics. Diego Romero of Cochiti Pueblo is known for his ceramic bowls, painted with satirical scenes that combine Ancestral Pueblo, Greek, and pop culture imagery. Hundreds more Native contemporary ceramic artists are taking pottery in new directions.
Jewelry
File:Caeser Bruce silver comb 1984 ohs.jpg|
Oklahoma Historical Society
The Oklahoma Historical Society is an agency of the government of Oklahoma dedicated to promotion and preservation of Oklahoma's history and its people by collecting, interpreting, and disseminating knowledge and artifacts of Oklahoma....
File:Tommy Singer 2.jpg|
Dine
-People named Dine:* Jim Dine , an American pop artist* S. S. Van Dine, an art critic and author* Tom Dine, an American government worker-Other meanings:* Beit ed-Dine, a town in Lebanon* Diné, name for the Navajo Nation in the Navajo language...
), New Mexico, ca. 1980s
File:Woolaroc - Navajo Gürtelschnalle.jpg|
Dine
-People named Dine:* Jim Dine , an American pop artist* S. S. Van Dine, an art critic and author* Tom Dine, an American government worker-Other meanings:* Beit ed-Dine, a town in Lebanon* Diné, name for the Navajo Nation in the Navajo language...
stamped silver belt buckle, collection of Woolaroc
Woolaroc
Woolaroc is located in the Osage Hills of Northeastern Oklahoma on Oklahoma State Highway 123 about southwest of Bartlesville, Oklahoma and north of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Woolaroc was established in 1925 as the ranch retreat of oilman Frank Phillips...
File:Dan townsend gorget.jpg|
Shell gorget
A shell gorget is a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated ....
by Dan Townsend (Muscogee Creek-Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
), Florida, ca. 2000
Performance art
Performance artPerformance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
is a new art form, emerging in the 1960s, and so does not carry the cultural baggage of many other art genres. Performance art can draw upon storytelling traditions, as well as music and dance, and often includes elements of installation, video, film, and textile design. Rebecca Belmore
Rebecca Belmore
Rebecca Belmore is a Anishinaabe-Canadian artist based in Vancouver. Her work addresses history, voice and voicelessness, place, and identity through the media of sculpture, installation, video and performance.-Life:...
, a Canadian Ojibway performance artist, has represented her country in the prestigious Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
. James Luna
James Luna
James Luna is a Pooyukitchum and Mexican-American performance artist and multimedia installation artist, living on the La Jolla Indian Reservation in California.-Background:...
, a Luiseño-Mexican
Mexican people
Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....
performance artist, also participated in the Venice Biennale in 2005, representing the National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere...
.
Performance allows artists to confront their audience directly, challenge long held stereotypes, and bring up current issues, often in an emotionally charged manner. "[P]eople just howl in their seats, and there's ranting and booing or hissing, carrying on the in the audience," says Rebecca Belmore of the response to her work. She has created performances to call attention to violence against and many unsolved murders of First Nations women. Both Belmore and Luna create elaborate, often outlandish outfits and props for their performances and move through a range of characters. For instance, a repeating character of Luna's is Uncle Jimmy, a disabled veteran who criticizes greed and apathy on his reservation. On the other hand, Marcus Amerman
Marcus Amerman
Marcus Amerman is an award-winning Choctaw bead artist, glass artist, painter, fashion designer, and performance artist, living north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is known for his highly realistic beadwork portraits.-Background:...
, a Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
performance artist, maintains a consistent role of the Buffalo Man, whose irony and social commentary arise from the odd situations in which he finds himself, for instance a James Bond movie or lost in a desert labyrinth.
Erica Lord, Inupiaq-Athabaskan, explores her mixed-race identity and conflicts about the ideas of home through her performance art. In her words, "In order to sustain a genuine self, I create a world in which I shift to become one or all of my multiple visions of self." She has suntanned phrases into her skin, donned cross-cultural and cross-gender disguises, and incorporated songs, ranging from Inupiaq throat singing
Inuit throat singing
Inuit throat singing or katajjaq, also known as the generic term overtone singing, is a form of musical performance uniquely found among the Inuit...
to racist children's rhymes into her work.
A Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
n anarcha-feminist
Anarcha-feminism
Anarcha-feminism combines anarchism with feminism. It generally views patriarchy as a manifestation of involuntary hierarchy. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class struggle, and the anarchist struggle against the state...
cooperative, Mujeres Creando
Mujeres Creando
Mujeres Creando is a Bolivian anarcha-feminist collective that participates in a range of anti-poverty work, including propaganda, street theater and direct action. The group was founded by María Galindo, Mónica Mendoza y J.Paredes in 1992 and members including two of Bolivia's only openly lesbian...
or "Women Creating" features many indigenous artists. They create public performances or street theater to bring attention to issues of women's, indigenous people's, and lesbian's rights, as well as anti-poverty issues. Julieta Paredes, María Galindo and Mónica Mendoza are founding members.
Performance art has allowed Native Americans access to the international art world, and Rebecca Belmore mentions that her audiences are non-Native; however, Native American audiences also respond to this genre. Bringing It All Back Home, a 1997 film collaboration between James Luna and Chris Eyre
Chris Eyre
Chris Eyre , an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, is a film director and producer.His films focus on all aspects of contemporary Native American life, while dispelling the usual stereotypes. Eyre's debut film, Smoke Signals , won the coveted Sundance Film Festival Filmmakers...
, documents Luna's first performance at his own home, the La Jolla Indian Reservation. Luna describes the experience as "probably the scariest moment of my life as an artist ... performing for the members of my reservation in the tribal hall."
Photography
Benjamin Haldane
Benjamin Alfred Haldane was a Tsimshian professional photographer from Metlakatla, Alaska.-Background:Benjamin Alfred Haldane was born on 15 June 1874 in the village of Metlakatla, British Columbia....
(1874–1941), Tsimshian
Tsimshian
The Tsimshian are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Tsimshian translates to Inside the Skeena River. Their communities are in British Columbia and Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are approximately 10,000...
of Metlakatla
Metlakatla, Alaska
Metlakatla is a census-designated place on Annette Island in Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 1,375.- History :...
Village on Annette Island, Alaska, Jennie Ross Cobb (1881–1959), Cherokee Nation of Park Hill, Oklahoma
Park Hill, Oklahoma
Park Hill is a census-designated place in southwestern Cherokee County, Oklahoma in the United States. The population was 3,936 at the 2000 census. It lies near Tahlequah, east of the junction of U.S. Route 62 and State Highway 82.-History:...
, and Richard Throssel
Richard Throssel
Richard Throssel was a Cree photographer, who documented life on the Crow Reservation at the beginning of the 20th century.-Background:...
(1882–1933), Cree
Cree
The Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...
of Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
. Their early photographs stand in stark contrast to the romanticized images of Edward Curtis and other contemporaries. Recent scholarship by Mique’l Askren (Tsimshian/Tlingit) on the photographs of B.A. Haldane has analyzed the functions that Haldane's photographs served for his community: as markers of success by having Anglo-style formal portraits taken, and as markers of the continuity of potlaching and traditional ceremonials by having photographs taken in ceremonial regalia. This second category is particularly significant because the use of the ceremonial regalia was against the law in Canada between 1885-1951.
Martín Chambi
Martín Chambi
Martín Chambi Jiménez or Martín Chambi de Coaza, was a photographer, originally from southern Peru...
(1891–1973), a Quechua photographer from Peru, was one of the pioneering indigenous photographers of South America. Peter Pitseolak
Peter Pitseolak
Peter Pitseolak was an Inuit photographer, artist and historian.-Life:]...
(1902–1973), Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
from Cape Dorset, Nunavut
Cape Dorset, Nunavut
Cape Dorset is an Inuit hamlet located on Dorset Island near Foxe Peninsula at the southern tip of Baffin Island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada...
, documented Inuit life in the mid-20th century while dealing with challenges presented by the harsh climate and extreme light conditions of the Canadian Arctic. He developed his film himself in his igloo, and some of his photos were shot by oil lamps. Horace Poolaw
Horace Poolaw
Horace Poolaw was a Kiowa photographer from Mountain View, Oklahoma.-Background:Born in Oklahoma in 1906, Horace Poolaw apprenticed himself to a local photographer at age 17, later becoming the most prolific Indian photographer of his generation...
(1906–1984), Kiowa
Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
, shot over 2000 images of his neighbors and relatives in Western Oklahoma from the 1920s onward. Jean Fredericks
Jean Fredericks
Jean Fredericks was a Hopi photographer. He grew up in Old Oraibi, Arizona, a village located on Third Mesa on the Hopi Reservation.-Biography:...
(b. 1906), Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
, had to carefully negotiate cultural views towards photography and made a point of not offering his portraits of Hopi people for sale to the public.
Today innumerable Native people are professional art photographers; however, acceptance to the genre has met with challenges. Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie
Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie
Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie is a Seminole-Muscogee-Diné photographer, curator, and educator living in Davis, California.-Background:Hulleah J...
, Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
-Muscogee-Seminole
Seminole
The Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily in that state and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in...
, has not only established a successful career with her own work, she has also been an advocate for the entire field of Native American photography. She has curated shows and organized conferences at the C.N. Gorman Museum at UC Davis featuring Native American photographers. Tsinhnahjinnie wrote the book, Our People, Our Land, Our Images: International Indigenous Photographers. Native photographers taking their skills into the fields of art videography, photocollage, digital photography, and digital art.
Printmaking
Although it is widely speculated that the ancient AdenaAdena culture
The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 1000 to 200 BC, in a time known as the early Woodland Period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system...
stone tablets were used for printmaking, not much is known about aboriginal American printmaking
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
. 20th century Native artists have borrowed techniques from Japan and Europe, such as woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
, linocut
Linocut
Linocut is a printmaking technique, a variant of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum is used for the relief surface. A design is cut into the linoleum surface with a sharp knife, V-shaped chisel or gouge, with the raised areas representing a reversal of the parts to show printed...
, serigraphy, monotyping
Monotyping
Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The image is then transferred onto a sheet of paper by...
, and other practices.
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
communities in particular. European-Canadian James Houston created a graphic art program in Cape Dorset, Nunavut
Cape Dorset, Nunavut
Cape Dorset is an Inuit hamlet located on Dorset Island near Foxe Peninsula at the southern tip of Baffin Island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada...
in 1957. Houston taught local Inuit stone carvers how to created prints from stone-blocks and stencils. He asked local artists to draw pictures and the shop generated limited edition prints, based on the ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e
' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...
workshop system of Japan. Cooperative print shops were also established in nearby communities, including Baker Lake
Baker Lake, Nunavut
Baker Lake , is a hamlet in the Kivalliq Region, in Nunavut on mainland Canada. Located inland from Hudson Bay, it is near the nation's geographical centre, and is notable for being the Canadian Arctic's sole inland community...
, Puvirnituq
Puvirnituq, Quebec
Puvirnituq is an Inuit settlement in Nunavik on the Povungnituk River near its mouth on the Hudson Bay in northern Quebec, Canada. Its population is 1457 .The name means "Place where there is a smell of rotten meat"...
, Holman
Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories
Ulukhaktok is a small hamlet on the west coast of Victoria Island, in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. The 2006 census indicated a population of 398 of which 360 were Inuvialuit or Inuit along with 7.5% non-Aboriginal and 2.5% North American Indian...
, and Pangnirtung. These shops have experimented with etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
, engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
, lithography
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
, and silkscreen. Shops produced annual catalogs advertising their collections. Local birds and animals, spirit beings, and hunting scenes are the most popular subject matter, but are allegorical in nature. Backgrounds tend to be minimal and perspective is mixed. One of the most prominent of Cape Dorset artists is Kenojuak Ashevak
Kenojuak Ashevak
Kenojuak Ashevak, is regarded as one of the most notable Canadian pioneers of modern Inuit art.-Life:Kenojuak Ashevak was born in an igloo in an Inuit camp, Ikirasaq, at the southern coast of Baffin Island. At three years old, she lost her father. In 1952, she had to be treated for three years...
(born 1927), who has received many public commissions and two honorary doctorate degrees. Other prominent Inuit printmakers and graphic artists include Parr
Parr (artist)
Parr was an Inuit artist who lived a traditional Inuit lifestyle until 1961, when he settled in Cape Dorset because of declining health and a hunting accident....
, Osuitok Ipeelee
Osuitok Ipeelee
Osuitok Ipeelee was an Inuit sculptor who lived in Cape Dorset, Nunavut. His sculptures in green soapstone of caribou and birds are particularly esteemed for their balance and delicacy...
, Germaine Arnaktauyok
Germaine Arnaktauyok
Germaine Arnaktauyok is an Inuit artist from Igloolik.Her artistic output consists of lithographs, etchings, and serigraphs that illustrate Inuit myths and traditional ways of life...
, Pitseolak Ashoona, Tivi Etok
Tivi Etok
Tivi Etok is a Canadian Inuit artist, illustrator, and printmaker. In 1975, he was the first Inuk printmaker to have a collection of his own prints released. He is now an Inuk Elder.-Early years:...
, Helen Kalvak
Helen Kalvak
Helen Kalvak, CM was a Copper Inuit graphic artist from Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, Canada.-Early years:...
, Jessie Oonark
Jessie Oonark
Jessie Oonark, OC was a Canadian Inuit artist who is best known for her wall hangings and her prints.-Biography :...
, Kananginak Pootoogook
Kananginak Pootoogook
Kananginak Pootoogook , was an Inuk sculptor and printmaker who lived in Cape Dorset, Nunavut. He died as a result of complications related to surgery for lung cancer.-Biography:...
, Pudlo Pudlat
Pudlo Pudlat
Pudlo Pudlat , was a widely known Inuit artist whose preferred medium was a combination of acrylic wash and coloured pencils. His works are in the collections of most Canadian museums...
, Irene Avaalaaqiaq Tiktaalaaq
Irene Avaalaaqiaq Tiktaalaaq
Irene Avaalaaqiaq Tiktaalaaq is an Inuit artist who was born at Princess Mary Lake near Baker Lake, Nunavut, Canada. She moved to Baker Lake in 1958 to give birth to one of her children....
, and Simon Tookoome
Simon Tookoome
Simon Tookoome was an Utkusiksalingmiut Inuk artist. In his youth, Tookoome and other Utkusiksalingmiut lived along the Back River and in Gjoa Haven on King William Island...
. Inuit printmaker Andrew Qappik
Andrew Qappik
Andrew Qappik is a Canadian Inuit graphic artist currently residing in Pangnirtung, Nunavut. Qappik is known for his printmaking and his contribution to the Nunavut Coat of arms....
designed the coat of arms of Nunavut
Coat of arms of Nunavut
The coat of arms of the territory of Nunavut was granted by a warrant of Roméo LeBlanc, Governor General of Canada, dated 31 March 1999, one day before the territory of Nunavut, Canada was created. The same document specified the flag of Nunavut.- Overview :...
.
Many Native painters transformed their paintings into fine art prints. Potawatomi
Potawatomi
The Potawatomi are a Native American people of the upper Mississippi River region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family. In the Potawatomi language, they generally call themselves Bodéwadmi, a name that means "keepers of the fire" and that was applied...
artist Woody Crumbo
Woody Crumbo
Woodrow "Woody" Crumbo was an American Indian artist, flautist, and dancer of Potawatomi descent. As an independent prospector, he found one of the largest beryllium veins in the nation. His paintings are held by several prominent museums, including the Smithsonian Institution and the...
created bold, screen prints and etchings in the mid-20th century that blended traditional, flat Bacone Style
Bacone College
Bacone College is a private four-year liberal arts college in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Founded in 1880 as the Indian University by Almon C. Bacone, Bacone College is the oldest continuously operated institution of higher education in Oklahoma...
with Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
influences. Kiowa
Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
-Caddo
Caddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
-Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
painter, T.C. Cannon traveled to Japan to study wood block printing from master printers.
In Chile, Mapuche
Mapuche
The Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina. They constitute a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who shared a common social, religious and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage. Their influence extended...
printmaker Santos Chávez
Santos Chavez
Santos Chávez was a Mapuche printmaker from Chile, known for his engravings.-Background:Santos Segundo Chávez Alíster was born on February 7, 1934 in a small town of Canihual, between Tirúa and Quidico in the Región del Biobío, Chile. He was Mapuche, the indigenous people of central and southern...
(1934–2001) was one of the most celebrated artists of his country – with over 85 solo exhibitions during his lifetime.
Melanie Yazzie
Melanie Yazzie
Melanie Yazzie is a Navajo sculptor, painter and printmaker.-Background:Melanie Yazzie was born in Ganado, Arizona in 1966. She is Navajo of the , born for . She grew up on the Navajo Reservation....
(Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
), Linda Lomahaftewa
Linda Lomahaftewa
Linda Lomahaftewa is a Hopi and Choctaw printmaker, painter, and educator living in Santa Fe, New Mexico.-Background:Linda J. Lomahaftewa was born July 3, 1947 in Phoenix, Arizona. Her parents had met at an Indian boarding school. Her late father was Hopi, her mother, who lives in Arizona, is...
(Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
-Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
), and Debora Iyall
Debora Iyall
Debora Kay Iyall , professional name “Debora Iyall” , a Cowlitz Native American, is an artist and was lead singer for the new wave band Romeo Void. Debora got her surname from her family adopting their ancestor Iyallwahawa's "first" name written at the time as Ayiel.She was born in 1954 in Soap...
(Cowlitz
Cowlitz (tribe)
The Cowlitz are a group of Native American peoples from what is now western Washington state in the United States. The Cowlitz tribe actually consists of two distinct groups: the Upper Cowlitz, or Taidnapam, and the Lower Cowlitz, or Kawlic....
) have all built successful careers with their print and have gone on to teach the next generation of printers. Walla Walla
Walla Walla (tribe)
Walla Walla |Native American]] tribe of the northwestern United States. The reduplication of the word expresses the diminutive form. The name "Walla Walla" is translated several ways but most often as "many waters."...
artist, James Lavadour
James Lavadour
James Lavadour is a Walla Walla painter and printmaker. Co-Founder of the Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts, he is known for creating large panel sets of landscape paintings....
founded Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts on the Umatilla Reservation
Umatilla Indian Reservation
The Umatilla Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in eastern Oregon in the United States, mostly located in Umatilla County, with a very small part extending south into Union County...
in Oregon in 1992. Crow's Shadow features a state-of-the-art printmaking studio and offers workshops, exhibition space, and printmaking residencies for Native artists, in which they pair visiting artists with master printers.
Sculpture
Catlinite
Catlinite is a type of argillite , usually brownish-red in color, which occurs in a matrix of Sioux quartzite. Because it is fine-grained and easily worked, it is prized by Native Americans for use in making sacred pipes such as calumets and chanunpas...
carving is traditional in the Northern Plains and fetish-carving is traditional in the Southwest, particularly among the Zuni. The Taíno
Taíno people
The Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is thought that the seafaring Taínos are relatives of the Arawak people of South America...
of Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
and the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
are known for their zemi
Zemi
A Zemi or Cemi is a Taíno concept, meaning both a deity, or ancestral spirit, and a sculptural object that houses the spirit. They were also created by neighboring tribes in the Caribbean and northern South America.-Theology:...
s– sacred, three-pointed stone sculptures.
Inuit art
Inuit art
Inuit art refers to artwork produced by Inuit people, that is, the people of the Arctic previously known as Eskimos, a term that is now often considered offensive outside Alaska...
ists sculpt with walrus ivory, caribou antlers, bones, soapstone, serpentinite, and argillite. They often represent local fauna and humans engaged in hunting or ceremonial activities.
Edmonia Lewis paved the way for Native American artists to sculpt in mainstream traditions using non-Native materials. Allan Houser
Allan Houser
Allan Capron Houser or Haozous a Chiricahua Apache sculptor from Oklahoma. He was one of the most renowned Native American painters and Modernist sculptors of the 20th century....
(Warms Springs Chiricahua Apache) became one of most prominent Native sculptors of the 20th century. Though he worked in wood and stone, Houser is most known for his monumental bronze sculptors, both representational and abstract. Houser influenced a generation of Native sculptors by teaching at the Institute of American Indian Arts
Institute of American Indian Arts
The Institute of American Indian Arts is a college focused on Native American art. It is situated in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is congressionally chartered, and was created by an executive order of former American President John F. Kennedy in 1962...
. His two sons, Phillip and Bob Haozous
Bob Haozous
Bob Haozous is a Chiricahua Apache sculptor from Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is enrolled in the Fort Sill Apache Tribe.-Background:Bob Haozous was born on 1 April 1943 in Los Angeles, California. His parents are Anna Marie Gallegos, a Diné-Mestiza textile artist, and the late Allan Houser , a famous...
are sculptors today. Roxanne Swentzell
Roxanne Swentzell
Roxanne Swentzell is a well-known clay sculptor from Santa Clara Pueblo. She attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico and later the Portland Art Museum School in Portland, Oregon....
(Santa Clara Pueblo) is known for her expressive, figurative, ceramic sculptures but has also branched into bronze casting, and her work is permanently displayed at the National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere...
.
The Northwest Coastal tribes are known for their woodcarving – most famously their monumental totem pole
Totem pole
Totem poles are monumental sculptures carved from large trees, mostly Western Red Cedar, by cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America...
s that display clan crests. During the 19th century and early 20th century, this art form was threatened but was effectively revived. Kwakwaka'wakw
Kwakwaka'wakw
The Kwakwaka'wakw are an Indigenous group of First Nations peoples, numbering about 5,500, who live in British Columbia on northern Vancouver Island and the adjoining mainland and islands.Kwakwaka'wakw translates as "Those who speak Kwak'wala", describing the collective nations within the area that...
totem pole carvers such as Charlie James, Mungo Martin
Mungo Martin
Chief Mungo Martin or Nakapenkem , Datsa , was an important figure in Northwest Coast style art, specifically that of the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples. He was a major contributor to Kwakwaka'wakw art, especially in the realm of wood sculpture and painting...
, Ellen Neel
Ellen Neel
Ellen Neel was a Kwakwaka'wakw artist woodcarver and is the first woman known to have professionally carved totem poles. She came from Alert Bay, British Columbia, and her work is in public collections throughout the world....
, and Willie Seaweed
Willie Seaweed
-Early life:Kwakwaka'wakw carver Willie Seaweed was born in 1893 at Blunden Harbour, British Columbia, where he lived until his death in 1967. Both his parents came from chiefly lines and so as chief of the Nakwaktokw band, Seaweed was called Heyhlamas or Rights Maker. His informal name was...
kept the art alive and also carved masks, furniture, bentwood boxes, and jewelry. Haida carvers include Charles Edenshaw
Charles Edenshaw
Charles Edenshaw was a Haida artist from Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada. He is known for his woodcarving, argillite carving, jewellery, and painting.-Background:...
, Bill Reid
Bill Reid
William Ronald Reid, OBC was a Canadian artist whose works included jewelry, sculpture, screen-printing, and painting. His work is featured on the Canadian $20 banknote.-Biography:...
, and Robert Davidson
Robert Davidson (artist)
Robert Charles Davidson, CM, OBC , is a Canadian artist of Haida heritage. His specialties are in carving , sculpture and painting....
. Besides working in wood, Haida also work with argillite
Haida Argillite Carvings
Haida argillite carvings are a sculptural tradition among the Haida indigenous nation of the Northwest Coast of North America, which came into existence in the early 19th century and continues today.-Background:...
. Traditional formline designs translate well into glass sculpture, which is increasingly popular thanks to efforts by contemporary glass artists such as Preston Singletary
Preston Singletary
Preston Singletary is a Native American glass artist.- Biography :Preston Singletary grew up in the Seattle area listening to stories told by his great-grandparents, who were both full Tlingit. In high school he met and became friends with future glass artist Dante Marioni, son of glass artist...
(Tlingit), Susan Point (Coast Salish
Coast Salish
Coast Salish languages are a subgroup of the Salishan language family. These languages are spoken by First Nations or Native American peoples inhabiting the territory that is now the southwest coast of British Columbia around the Strait of Georgia and Washington state around Puget Sound...
) and Marvin Oliver (Quinault/Isleta Pueblo
Isleta Pueblo
Isleta Pueblo is an unincorporated Tanoan pueblo in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States, originally established around the 14th century.-Overview:...
).
In the Southeast, woodcarving dominates sculpture. Willard Stone
Willard Stone
Willard Stone was an important Native American artist of the 20th century, best known for his wood sculptures done in a distinctively personal, flowing style inspired by Art Deco.-Biography:...
, of Cherokee descent, exhibited internationally in the mid-20th century. Amanda Crowe
Amanda Crowe
Amanda Crowe was an Eastern Band Cherokee woodcarver and educator from Cherokee, North Carolina.-Early life:Amanda Crowe was born on 16 July 1928 in the Qualla Boundary, North Carolina. By the age of four, she had decided to become an artist. Of her children, Amanda said: "Every spare minute was...
(Eastern Band Cherokee) studied sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
and returned to her reservation to teach over 2000 students woodcarving over a period of 40 years, ensuring that sculpture thrives as an art form on the Qualla Boundary.
Textiles
Guitarrero Cave
Guitarrero Cave is located in the Callejon de Huaylas valley in Yungay Province, in the Ancash region of Peru. The cave stands 50 meters above Rio Santa and 2,580 meters above sea level.-Archeological findings:...
in Peru. Cotton and wool from alpaca, llamas, and vicuñas have been woven into elaborate textiles for thousands of years in the Andes and are still important parts of Quechua and Aymara culture today. Coroma in Antonio Quijarro Province
Antonio Quijarro Province
Antonio Quijarro is a province in the central parts of the Bolivian Potosí Department situated at the Salar de Uyuni. Its seat is Uyuni.-Location:Antonio Quijarro province is one of sixteen provinces in the Potosí Department...
, Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
is a major center for ceremonial textile production. An Aymara elder from Coroma said, "In our sacred weavings are expressions of our philosophy, and the basis for our social organization... The sacred weavings are also important in differentiating one community, or ethnic group, from a neighboring group..."
Kuna (people)
Kuna or Cuna is the name of an indigenous people of Panama and Colombia. The spelling Kuna is currently preferred. In the Kuna language, the name is Dule or Tule, meaning "people," and the name of the language in Kuna is Dulegaya, meaning "Kuna language" - Location :The Kuna live in three...
tribal members of Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
and Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
are famous for their mola
Mola (art form)
The mola forms part of the traditional costume of a Kuna woman, two mola panels being incorporated as front and back panels in a blouse. The full costume traditionally includes a patterned wrapped skirt , a red and yellow headscarf , arm and leg beads , a gold nose ring and earrings in addition...
s, cotton panels with elaborate geometric designs created by a reverse appliqué
Applique
In its broadest sense, an appliqué is a smaller ornament or device applied to another surface. In the context of ceramics, for example, an appliqué is a separate piece of clay added to the primary work, generally for the purpose of decoration...
technique. Designs originated from traditional skin painting designs but today exhibit a wide range of influences, including pop culture. Two mola panels form a blouse, but when a Kuna woman is tired of a blouse, she can dissemble it and sell the molas to art collectors.
Mayan women have woven cotton with backstrap looms for centuries, creating items such as huipil
Huipíl
A huipil is a form of Maya textile and tunic or blouse worn by indigenous Mayan, Zapotec, and other women in central to southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and western Honduras, in the northern part of Central America. Some are also worn by men, particularly in Guatemala...
s or traditional blouses. Elaborate Maya textiles featured representations of animals, plants, and figures from oral history. Organizing into weaving collectives have helped Mayan women earn better money for their work and greatly expand the reach of Mayan textiles in the world.
Seminole
Seminole
The Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily in that state and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in...
seamstresses, upon gaining access to sewing machines in the late 19th century and early 20th centures, invented an elaborate appliqué patchwork tradition. Seminole patchwork, for which the tribe is known today, came into full flower in the 1920s.
Great Lakes and Prairie tribes are known for their ribbonwork, found on clothing and blankets. Strips of silk ribbons are cut and appliquéd in layers, creating designs defined by negative space. The colors and designs might reflect the clan or gender of the wearer. Powwow
PowWow
PowWow is a wireless sensor network mote developed by the Cairn team of IRISA/INRIA. The platform is currently based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard radio transceiver and on an MSP430 microprocessor...
and other dance regalia from these tribes often feature ribbonwork. These tribes are also known for their fingerwoven
Fingerweaving
Fingerweaving is a Native American art form used mostly to create belts, sashes, straps, and other similar items through a non-loom weaving process...
sashes.
Pueblo
Pueblo
Pueblo is a term used to describe modern communities of Native Americans in the Southwestern United States of America. The first Spanish explorers of the Southwest used this term to describe the communities housed in apartment-like structures built of stone, adobe mud, and other local material...
men weave with cotton on upright looms. Their mantas and sashes are typically made for ceremonial use for the community, not for outside collectors.
Navajo rug
Navajo rug
Navajo rugs and blankets are textiles produced by Navajo people of the Four Corners area of the United States. Navajo textiles are highly regarded and have been sought after as trade items for over 150 years. Commercial production of handwoven blankets and rugs has been an important element of the...
s are woven by Navajo women today from Navajo-Churro sheep
Navajo-Churro sheep
The Navajo-Churro, or Churro for short, is a breed of domestic sheep originating with the Spanish Churra sheep obtained by the Navajo Indian tribe. The breed is renowned for its hardiness and adaptability to extremes of climate. Its wool consists of a protective topcoat and soft undercoat...
or commercial wool. Designs can be pictorial or abstract, based on traditional Navajo, Spanish, Oriental, or Persian designs. 20th century Navajo weavers include Clara Sherman
Clara Sherman
Clara Nezbah Sherman was a Navajo artist particularly known for her Navajo rugs. Born Nezbah Gould, her mother was of the clan, and her father was of the . She was the last surviving member of ten siblings including an adopted sister. Sherman and her siblings learned to weave as children from her...
and Hosteen Klah
Hosteen Klah
Hosteen Klah was a Navajo artist and medicine man. He documented aspects of Navajo religion and related ceremonial practices. He was also a master weaver.-Background:...
, who co-founded the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian
Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian
The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian is a museum devoted to Native American arts. It is located in Santa Fe, New Mexico and was founded in 1937 by Mary Cabot Wheelwright, who came from Boston, and Hastiin Klah, a Navajo singer and medicine man....
.
In 1973, the Navajo Studies Department of the Diné College
Diné College
Diné College is a two-year, tribally controlled community college, serving the 27,000 square-mile Navajo Indian Reservation, which spans the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah....
in Many Farms, Arizona
Many Farms, Arizona
Many Farms is a census-designated place in Apache County, Arizona, United States. The population was 1,548 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Many Farms is located at ....
, wanted to determine how long it took a Navajo weaver to create a rug or blanket from sheep shearing
Sheep shearing
Sheep shearing, shearing or clipping is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a shearer. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year...
to market. The study determined the total amount of time was 345 hours. Out of these 345 hours, the expert Navajo weaver needed: 45 hours to shear the sheep and process the wool; 24 hours to spin
Spinning (textiles)
Spinning is a major industry. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibre are converted into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. The textiles are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. There are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a...
the wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
; 60 hours to prepare the dye
Dye
A dye is a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and requires a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
and to dye the wool; 215 hours to weave
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
the piece; and only one hour to sell the item in their shop.
Traditional textiles of Northwest Coast tribes are enjoying a dramatic revival. Chilkat weaving
Chilkat weaving
Chilkat weaving is a traditional form of weaving practiced by Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and other Northwest coastal tribes of Alaska and British Columbia. Chilkat blankets are worn by high-ranking tribal members on civic or ceremonial occasions, including dances.-Background:The name derives from...
and ravenstail weaving are regarded as some of the most difficult weaving techniques in the world. A single Chilkat blanket can take an entire year to weave. In both techniques, dog, mountain goat, or sheep wool and shredded cedar bark are combined to create textiles featuring curvilinear formline designs. Tlingit weaver Jennie Thlunaut
Jennie Thlunaut
Jennie Thlunaut was a Tlingit artist, who is credited with keeping the art of Chilkat weaving alive and was one of the most celebrated Northwest Coastal master weavers of the 20th century.-Biography:...
(1982–1986) was instrumental in this revival.
Experimental contemporary textile artists include Martha Gradolf (Winnebago
Ho-Chunk
The Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago, are a tribe of Native Americans, native to what is now Wisconsin and Illinois. There are two federally recognized Ho-Chunk tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska....
), whose work is overtly political in nature. Valencia, Joseph and Ramona Sakiestewa (Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
) and Melissa Cody (Diné
Dine
-People named Dine:* Jim Dine , an American pop artist* S. S. Van Dine, an art critic and author* Tom Dine, an American government worker-Other meanings:* Beit ed-Dine, a town in Lebanon* Diné, name for the Navajo Nation in the Navajo language...
) explore non-representational abstraction and use experimental materials in their weaving.
Cultural sensitivity and repatriation
Not everything made by Native peoples are meant to be viewed by the public. Many sacred objects or items that contain medicine are only meant to be seen or touched by certain individuals with specialized knowledge. Many PuebloPueblo people
The Pueblo people are a Native American people in the Southwestern United States. Their traditional economy is based on agriculture and trade. When first encountered by the Spanish in the 16th century, they were living in villages that the Spanish called pueblos, meaning "towns". Of the 21...
and Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
katsina
Katsina
Katsina is a city , and a Local Government Area in northern Nigeria, and is the capital of Katsina State. Katsina is located some 160 miles east of the city of Sokoto, and 84 miles northwest of Kano, close to the border with Niger. As of 2007, Katsina's estimated population was 459,022...
figures (tihü in Hopi
Hopi language
Hopi is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Hopi people of northeastern Arizona, USA, although today some Hopi are monolingual English speakers.The use of the language has gradually declined over the course of the 20th century...
and kokko in Zuni
Zuni language
Zuni is a language of the Zuni people, indigenous to western New Mexico and eastern Arizona in the United States. It is spoken by around 9,500 people worldwide, especially in the vicinity of Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, and much smaller numbers in parts of Arizona.Unlike most indigenous languages in...
) and katsinam regalia are not meant to be seen by individuals who have not received instruction about that particular katsina. Many are not displayed publicly out of respect for tribal taboos.
Mide birch bark scrolls are deemed too culturally sensitive for public display, as are medicine bundle
Medicine bundle
A medicine bundle is a wrapped package used by Native Americans for religious purposes. A package of this type can also be referred to as a medicine bag. Medicine bundles are usually employed as a ritual aid in Shamanistic religions...
s, certain sacred pipes and pipe bags, and other tools of medicine people.
Navajo sandpainting is a component for healing ceremonies, but sandpaintings can be made into permanent art that is acceptable to sell to non-Natives as long as actual Holy People are not portrayed. Photography of many sacred ceremonies are forbidden by various tribes. Several early photographers broke local laws and photographs of sensitive ceremonies are in circulation but tribes prefer that they not be displayed. The same can be said for photographs or sketches of medicine bundle contents.
Two Mohawk leaders sued a museum, trying to remove a False Face Society mask or Ga:goh:sah from an exhibit because "it was a medicine object intended to be seen only by community members and that its public display would cause irreparable harm to the Mohawk." The Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee are clear that these masks are not for sale or public display, nor are Corn Husk Society masks.
Tribes and individuals within tribes do not always agree about what is or is not appropriate to display to the public. In general Ghost Dance
Ghost Dance
The Ghost Dance was a new religious movement which was incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. The traditional ritual used in the Ghost Dance, the circle dance, has been used by many Native Americans since prehistoric times...
regalia is preferably not exhibited. Among other institutions, the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
does not exhibit Plains warrior's shields or "artifacts imbued with a warrior's power" at the request of tribal leaders. Many tribes do not want grave goods or items associated with burials, such as funerary urns, in museums, and many would like these associated grave goods reinterred, a process often facilitated within the United States by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act , Pub. L. 101-601, 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law passed on 16 November 1990 requiring federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American "cultural items" to...
(NAGPRA). In Canada, repatriation is negotiated between the tribes and museums or through Land Claims laws. In international situations, institutions are not always legally required to repatriate indigenous cultural items to their place of origin, some museums do so voluntarily, as with Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
's decision to return 5,000 artifacts and human remains to Cusco, Peru.
See also
- Archaeology of the AmericasArchaeology of the AmericasThe archaeology of the Americas is the study of the archaeology of North America , Central America, South America and the Caribbean...
- List of indigenous artists of the Americas
- List of Native American artists
- Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation ActNative American Graves Protection and Repatriation ActThe Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act , Pub. L. 101-601, 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law passed on 16 November 1990 requiring federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American "cultural items" to...
- Native American jewelryNative American jewelryNative American jewelry is the personal adornment, often in the forms of necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, pins, brooches, labrets, and more, made by the Indigenous peoples of the United States. Native American jewelry reflects the cultural diversity and history of its makers...
- Native American potteryNative American potteryNative American pottery is an art form with at least a 7500-year history in the Americas. Pottery is fired ceramics with clay as a component. Ceramics are used for utilitarian cooking vessels, serving and storage vessels, pipes, funerary urns, censers, musical instruments, ceremonial items, masks,...
- Painting in the Americas before ColonizationPainting in the Americas before ColonizationPainting in the Americas before colonization is the Precolumbian painting traditions of the Americas. Painting was a relatively widespread, popular and diverse means of communication and expression for both religious and utilitarian purpose throughout the regions of the Western Hemisphere...
- Paraguayan Indian art
- Pre-Columbian artPre-Columbian artPre-Columbian art is the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas until the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and the time period marked by Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas....
- Timeline of Native American art historyTimeline of Native American art historyThis is a chronological list of significant or pivotal moments in the development of Native American art or the visual arts of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas...
General
- Crawford, Suzanne J. and Dennis F. Kelley, eds. American Indian Religious Traditions: An Encyclopedia, Volume 1. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005. ISBN 978-1576075173.
- Levenson, Jay A., ed. (1991) Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-05167-0.
- Mann, Charles C. (2005). 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 1-4000-4006-X.
- Nottage, James H. Diversity and Dialogue: The Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art, 2007. Indianapolis: Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, 2008. ISBN 978-0-295-98781-1.
- Phillips, Ruth B. "A Proper Place for Art or the Proper Arts of Place? Native North American Objects and the Hierarchies of Art, Craft and Souvenir." Lynda Jessup with Shannon Bagg, eds. On Aboriginal Representation in the Gallery. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0660187495.
North America
- Dalrymple, Larry (2000). California and Great Basin Indian Basketmakers: The Living Art and Fine Tradition. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-89013-337-9
- Dubin, Lois Sherr (1999). North American Indian Jewelry and Adornment: From Prehistory to the Present. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-3689-5
- Dunn, Dorothy. American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968. ASIN B000X7A1T0.
- Hessel, Ingo (2006). Arctic Spirit: Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Museum. Phoenix, AZ: Heard Museum. ISBN 978-1-55365-189-5.
- Hill, Sarah H. (1997). Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and Their Basketry. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4650-3.
- Hutchinson, Elizabeth (Dec 2001). "Modern Native American Art: Angel DeCora's Transcultural Aesthetics." Art Bulletin. Vol. 83, 4: 740-756.
- Masayesva, Victor and Erin Younger (1983). Hopi Photographers: Hopi Images. Sun Tracks, Tucson, Arizona. ISBN 978-0816508044.
- Ryan, Allan J. The Trickster Shift: Humor and Irony in Contemporary Native Art. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999. ISBN 0-7748-0704-0.
- Sturtevant, William C. (2007). "Early Iroquois Realist Painting and Identity Marking." Three Centuries of Woodlands Indian Art. Vienna: ZKF Publishers: 129-143. ISBN 978-3-981162004.
- Wolfe, Rinna Evelyn (1998). Edmonia Lewis: Wildfire in Marble. Parsippany, New Jersey. ISBN 0-382-39714-2
South America
- Ades, Dawn (2006). Art in Latin America: The Modern Era 1820-1980. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300045611.
- Siegal, William (1991). Aymara-Bolivianische Textilien. Krefeld: Deutsches Textilmuseum. ISBN 978-1-135-96629-4.
- Stone-Miller (2002). Art of the Andes: from Chavín to Inca. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-20363-7.
External links
- National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City, Mexico, islc.net
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, metmuseum.org
- North American art, starting at 8000 BCE, metmuseum.org
- Central American art, starting at 8000 BCE, metmuseum.org
- South American art, starting at 8000 BCE, metmuseum.org
- Online database of the Plains Indian Museum, on the website of the Buffalo Bill Historical CenterBuffalo Bill Historical CenterThe Buffalo Bill Historical Center is a complex of museums displaying artifacts and art of the American West located in Cody, Wyoming. Founded in 1917, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center is the oldest museum in the West...
, bbhc.org. - Elizabeth Willis DeHuff Collection of American Indian Art from the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University