Navajo rugs, blankets and weavings
Native American Art Navajo pottery history - page 3 of 6

Today, Southwestern pottery made in the existing twenty pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona, and by the Navajos in Arizona, remains one of the greatest expressions of ceramic art in the world. The continuity of these Indian cultures is assured as long as their belief systems remain intact.

Clay vessels have been made for storage and household use in these stationary societies for at least two thousand years. Each pueblo has developed a style of form and decoration indigenous to its needs and beliefs. These varying styles have been historically documented and attributed to particular pueblos since the Spanish conquest.

Traditionally, Pueblo Indians prospected clays from their own secret ancestral clay sources. Most pots were smoothed to create burnished backgrounds for designs, which were painted with pigments made from residues of boiled plants or finely ground metallic rocks. Brushes were cut and shaped from the chewed ends of twigs or yucca fronds. Glaze was almost never used for a vitreous coating, nor was the potter's wheel ever used for fabrication. The pots were hardened in an open outdoor bonfire reaching 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit. These antique methods are preserved today.

The railroad greatly affected Pueblo pottery culture, bringing curious and inquisitive tourists within reach of the artists. Soon, a great deal of Pueblo pottery was being made for sale as souvenirs. Traders were the middlemen; some settled near the reservations and set up trading posts that became famous. Fairs and markets, especially at Gallup and Santa Fe, promoted Indian pottery. Shops selling only pottery sprung up all over the Southwest. Among the most important merchants was the Fred Harvey Company, which sold Indian pottery in its chain of lodges, shops, and restaurants at railroad stations, national parks, and other key tourist locations throughout the West.

Within the boundaries of the somewhat nomadic Navajo nation lays the more settled Hopi Pueblo, a contradiction that has caused problems for many years. The relationship between the Hopi and the Navajo is tense. Although most Indian groups (even outside the United States) have similar myths of origin, rituals, good and bad gods, and rules of behavior, different groups of Indians are not at all alike. Differences between the Hopi and the Navajo tribes have caused some political and social confrontations.

Unlike the Hopi, the Navajo were not traditionally artistic potters, although Navajo women have been making pottery for hundreds of years for their own household and ceremonial use. A few of them turned into artist potters when the railroad crossed America, and have begun to be a force in the Indian pottery market much like Hopi artists, who have long been successful. In this century, Navajos have achieved renown in weaving of Navajo rugs, silversmithing and jewelry making, basketry, and painting; probably more than in any other Indian culture, Navajo potters are enveloped in surrounding aesthetic inspirations.

Native American art Navajo traditional pottery history - page 4

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