Native American Pottery

Acoma

Hopi

Jemez

Santa Clara

San Idolfonso

Taos

NATIVE AMERICAN POTTERY Acoma potters frequently use rainbows, parrots, geometrics, and other historic and prehistoric motifs. Also, they frequently use patterns inspired by prehistoric Mimbres designs. A number of anthropologists believe that the Acoma and Laguna people are remnants of the prehistoric Mimbres people who migrated up from the Silver City, New Mexico area. The Hopi Nation is located in Northeastern Arizona, approximately in the center of the Navajo Nation. The people live on the tips of three high fingers that jut south from the main land-form, Black Mesa, and in the valleys adjacent to these "fingers." The Hopi villages atop these three fingers are conveniently called First Mesa, Second Mesa, and Third Mesa. The center for Hopi pottery artists is in Hano, one of three villages atop First Mesa, the eastern most mesa, and especially in the village below it, Polacca. Hopi pottery is made from local clays that typically fire to a color ranging from a light cream to medium buff. Before firing, the potters polish the clay and then apply vegetal and mineral paints for the designs. Jemez pueblo lies west of the Rio Grande on Jemez River. Like other neighboring pueblos, their tradition traces their ancestry back to the Four-Corners prehistoric Anasazi people. Anthropologists say that the Jemez people abandoned the making of pottery sometime after the Spanish conquest, buying their utilitarian ware from neighbors. Seeing their neighbors making money by selling pottery to the tourists, the Jemez people made a half-hearted attempt to revive the pottery craft during the 1920s and '30s. During this period, they turned out ware that was low fired, and then painted with many colors of poster paint. The Jemez speak the Towa language, and by this anthropologists can trace some of their lineage to prehistoric times. Some of the present-day Jemez families can trace their heritage back to the pueblo of Pecos, a ruined Towa pueblo a few miles east of Santa Fe. The famous black pottery of New Mexico comes from two pueblos, San Ildefonso and Santa Clara, two neighboring pueblo villages, laying along the Rio Grande river just north of Santa Fe. When you talk about black pottery, you must start with Maria Martinez, the potter of San Ildefonso. She, along with Hopi potter Nampeyo, turned utilitarian ware. Typically, Santa Clara pottery is much thicker, with deeply carved designs made into the polished walls of the pottery. The color is usually black, although a large number of pots are polished red. into an art form, beginning around the turn of the last century. Photography: Internet Sound: Native American Flute – Ron Korb IreneC