chapter 3 heritage themes and related resources DEVELOPMENT OF THE events, notes about the current HERITAGE THEMES diversity of cultures found in the watershed, and lists of activities related The seven heritage themes in this to outdoor recreation or local festivals. chapter emerged directly from public Continuing in their small groups, input. During Meeting Two of the participants reviewed all of the items series of four Working Group meetings placed on the maps and devised described in Chapter 1, participants between four and six themes that were divided into small groups and would capture all of the items. Each given large maps of the Little Colorado small group then reported its themes to watershed. They were then asked a the whole group. The whole group then series of four questions designed to worked all of themes suggested by each elicit responses that would describe the smaller group into one set of between heritage of the region. four and six themes. This process took place at five meetings in five different If you had a two-week dream locations across the watershed and vacation in the Little Colorado resulted in a total of 25 heritage themes River watershed, where would you being suggested. Many of the themes go? from a Working Group in one meeting If you had to describe this area to location were virtually the same as someone who had never been here, themes suggested by one or more what would you say? Working Groups in other meeting When friends or family come to locations, thus giving evidence that visit, where do you take them? particular themes indeed identified If “something” were to leave this prevalent, consistent, and over-arching area forever, what would you miss characteristics of the region. The most? Heritage Programs Coordinator reviewed all 25 suggestions and found Participants drew or wrote their seven common themes that united the responses on the maps. In most cases, most frequently suggested themes by the maps were completely covered the Working Groups. Those seven with sites, references to historical unifying themes became the seven Draft: 8 April 2008 Chapter 3: Heritage Themes and Related Resources Page 39 heritage themes described in this were written on large pieces of paper chapter: and participants wrote down the name of the resource (a site, event, Sacred and Enchanted Landscapes organization, business, etc.) and its Trails, Roads, and Rails of the West general location on the paper of the Native Nations particular theme the resource fit. Living from the Land Participants were asked to identify Archaeology resources that related to tourism as Expressions of Art and Life well as those that served local Outdoor Recreation communities, although often a single resource fulfilled both functions. After establishing the seven heritage Often, too, a single resource reflected themes, the next round of Working more than one theme. The related Group meetings focused on identifying resources sections that appear in each resources within the watershed that heritage theme chapter are a direct reflected, interpreted, or embodied one result of data generated during these or more themes. The seven themes Working Group meetings. Draft: 8 April 2008 Chapter 3: Heritage Themes and Related Resources [Theme 6: Expressions of Art and Life] Page 130 Theme 6 Expressions of Art and Life SUMMARY OF THEME are highly prized by museums, private collectors, and individuals. The American Southwest has long been noted for its association with Native From the late 19th to the late 20th American arts and crafts. For literally century, trading posts were the thousands of years, this region has primary locations where Native artists been home to cultures and tribal took their pieces and where non- groups who developed complex and Natives could purchase them. Trading sophisticated societies that posts also served a crucial role in the incorporated a broad range of religious household economies of most Native activities, governmental systems, families and were a centerpiece of any transportation and communication community. Traders served a key role networks, agricultural practices, in the community, keeping necessary architecture, science, astronomy, and supplies available during economically the technology required to lean times and often serving as liaisons manufacture, utilize, and trade a between the Native community and number of craft items that were outsiders. necessary adjuncts to daily life routines. For over 2,000 years, the vast Several Little Colorado communities Colorado Plateau has been home to the are graced with impressive murals that Basketmaker/Anasazi/Pueblo culture. honor the multi-layered history of their In late prehistoric times, this culture respective locations. Painted by Native became one of the most advanced and non-Native artists alike, their societies in all of North America, in subjects cover the full range of history, spite of the difficult terrain and geography, and cultural diversity. The unpredictable weather patterns. murals, some more than 50 years old and some completed just last year, are The quality and originality of the art vibrant and engaging testimonies to the produced reflects the sophistication of richness of the region. the culture in general. Navajo arts and crafts production is as impressive as that of Pueblo tribes. Both Navajo and DESCRIPTION OF THEME Pueblo cultures are known for pottery, jewelry, weaving, and basket making as Pueblo Arts well as other forms. The Native Southwest artistic style is recognized The ancient culture, variously known the world over. The style embodies key as the Anasazi, Hisatsinom, or elements of the cultures including Ancestral Pueblo, once ranged over the belief systems, the surrounding entire southern portion of the Colorado environment, and various cultural Plateau. The two most western practices. Native arts serve to connect branches, the Zuni and the Hopi, and reconnect the artist to the spiritual occupied the drainages of the Little and physical landscape, as well as Colorado River. One of their most primary sources of income. In the non- significant crafts centered around the Native world, Native Southwest arts tradition of ceramics. Pueblo pottery is Draft: 8 April 2008 Chapter 3: Heritage Themes and Related Resources [Theme 6: Expressions of Art and Life] Page 131 perhaps the most distinctive, versatile, was successful in revitalizing pottery and long-lived craft found among any making among Hopi artisans. Her North American Indian group. children carried on the tradition, and now many of her grandchildren are Until the end of the 19th century, continuing the craft, still using local pottery was primarily a household supplies of clay and temper, craft. Since the beginning of the manufacturing the vessel by the coil ceramic tradition in the 1st century, technique, painting Sikyatki style millions of pots have been created for designs, and firing the pots in outdoor cooking, food storage, holding water, kilns utilizing sheep dung and locally serving foods, and for ritual uses. mined bituminous coal. Today, pottery Eventually the pots would be given is made in all the villages throughout away, traded, or worn out, broken, and the three mesas on the Hopi discarded. reservation, but painted, or decorated vessels are only produced on First By the middle of the 19th century, with Mesa. Pottery from Second and Third metal pots and pans, and later plastic Mesas are always plainwares with a and glass containers, readily available red slip. at the trading posts, pottery making quickly declined. Modern pottery is The Pueblo of Zuni witnessed a similar only occasionally utilitarian and, when decline of pottery production made for use within the Pueblos, it is throughout the 19th and early 20th mainly for ceremonial use. Irrespective centuries. After World War II, almost of its historical value, almost all every family in the Pueblo was engaged contemporary Pueblo pottery is valued in some facet of silversmithing, and purely on the basis of aesthetics and the only three or four families—and mostly reputation of the potter. It is produced the women of the families—continued by one culture largely for the to produce traditional pottery. In the appreciation of another culture that mid-1960’s, Zuni High School initiated buys and collects it. an art program that included pottery making. A granddaughter of Nampeyo, Generally speaking, Hopi pottery of the Daisy Hooee, who had married a Zuni, 19th century was coarsely made, with was hired to teach the course. She crude designs, and poorly fired. A made a point of teaching only the Zuni major change occurred in 1897 when J. style pottery and even took her Walter Fewkes, the distinguished students to various museums in the anthropologist of the Bureau of Southwest to view and study their Zuni American Ethnology, came to the Hopi pottery collections. By 1975, when villages and began to excavate the long- Jennie Laate took over the program, 78 abandoned ruin of Sikyatki. Here he students had gone through the classes. found quantities of beautiful and well- Currently, these former students, both executed pottery dating back some 400 men and women, and their children years. Among his Native workmen was form the nucleus of the community’s a man named Laysoo, whose wife, a pottery makers. Although most adhere Hopi-Tewa, became extremely to the traditional methods, several now interested in the old pieces and tend to utilize commercial clays, and determined to revive the old styles. fire the vessels in an electric kiln. This woman, known to all students and In the 21st century, pottery is a vital collectors of Hopi pottery as Nampeyo, craft for both Hopi and Zuni. Draft: 8 April 2008 Chapter 3: Heritage Themes and Related Resources [Theme 6: Expressions of Art and Life] Page 132 Production is not limited just to Eventually, the peoples of the Colorado women, as Lawrence Namoki (Hopi) Plateau developed a sturdy, drought- and Randy Nahohai (Zuni) can attest.