Native American Art I INTRODUCTION

Native American Art I INTRODUCTION Native American Art, the visual works crafted by indigenous people of North America, starting after their arrival on the continent thousands of years ago and continuing until the present. These works may be painted, carved, woven, sewn, or built, and can incorporate such materials as feathers, porcupine quills, tree bark, animal skins and hair, and wood. They encompass a variety of objects, including clothing and jewelry, blankets and rugs, masks, totem poles, baskets, and bowls. Today, some Native American artists produce mainstream contemporary art—paintings on canvas, photographs, and performance art—while others continue to make art based on long-standing traditions. For information about native building traditions, see Native American Architecture. Many Native American artworks were intended for use in daily life as well as in ceremonies and rituals. Some items were made as garments or to store food. The ceremonies and rituals served various functions, including healing and maintaining success in hunting and farming, and they expressed beliefs about the relationship of Native Americans with the universe and the world around them. These beliefs gave shape and meaning to Native American art. Masks worn in healing ceremonies, for example, helped specialists in those rituals communicate with the spirit world. Carved wooden totem poles of the Pacific Northwest recorded family histories, and they were presented and displayed at elaborate ceremonies that helped the family preserve its history and status within the community. To serve its purpose effectively, a work of art was expected to be skillfully crafted and beautiful to its viewers. No written records of Native American life exist before contact with Europeans during the 1500s, and so scholars consider the period before contact as prehistoric. During that time and afterward, Native Americans passed down their histories, traditions, and beliefs through their art, their ceremonies, and their oral literature (see Native American Literature). The arrival of nonnatives in North America produced some exchange of ideas that affected Native American art, although many concepts remained unchanged. II TRADITIONAL ARTS BY REGION Scholars have grouped Native Americans into distinct culture areas on the basis of geographic boundaries, common languages, similar practices, and shared beliefs. This article discusses five principal areas in which art was created: the East, Plains, Southwest, Northwest Coast, and Arctic. Native Americans have their own ideas about their group memberships and histories, and these views may not be the same as those developed by nonnatives. The forms of Native American art differ significantly from region to region, depending on the requirements of the society’s way of life, belief system, and natural environment, as well as on individual artists’ points of view. A painted tipi made of buffalo hide, which served native inhabitants of the southern Plains well, would not protect Arctic inhabitants from cold and snow. Nor would symbols meant to encourage rain, which were painted on Pueblo pots from the dry Southwest, even be thought of in the rainy Pacific Northwest. In some parts of native North America, individuals own the right to paint or carve specific images that record their own family or personal histories; thus, no one else can create quite the same work of art. A Arts of Eastern Native America Eastern Native America stretches from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in the East to the Mississippi Valley in the West. Its southern boundary is the Gulf of Mexico; its northern boundary, the Great Lakes. Surviving artworks from the area date back further than those of any other region. The earliest works from this region were constructed of mounds of earth. A1 Prehistoric Period Hopewell Art Hopewell artists of the Ohio River Valley cut elegant ornaments out of mica and placed them in graves. Many of these ornaments took the shapes of human hands or figures, or animals. This one has the shape of a bird’s claw. Richard A. Cooke/Corbis During the period from 3000 BC to 1000 BC people of mound-building cultures created massive earthworks in Eastern North America as sites for ceremonies and burial of prominent citizens. The earliest burials contained objects such as knives and spearheads made from hammered copper, and stone pendants and beads carved in the forms of birds and human figures. Artists of the Adena culture, which flourished from 1100 BC to 200 AD in what is now Ohio, engraved curvilinear (curved line) designs and carved elaborate stone pipes. One pipe took the form of a standing man with bent knees, his arms at his sides, wearing large ornaments called ear spools. Hopewell artists in the Ohio area cut delicate flat forms from sheets of mica in the shape of birds, human figures, and large hands. They also carved quite natural-looking birds and animals on stone platform pipes. These figures sat on the pipe’s flat base, or platform, and on some pipes they were part of the pipe bowl. Prominent people of these cultures were buried with a wealth of ornaments, such as jewelry of shells and copper, and headdresses elaborated with animal forms. The period of Mississippian culture began about 900 AD. The best-known Mississippian earthwork, the Serpent Mound in Ohio, was built in the undulating form of a snake. Spiral designs, which may relate to beliefs about the nature and shape of the universe, appear on many works of art from this period, such as disk-shaped pendants made of shell, copper objects, conch shells (possibly used as cups in ceremonies), and ceramic pots. Other pieces carry the engraved figure of a dancer in elaborate dress. Markings near the dancer’s eyes resemble the patterns on the faces of falcons. These markings suggest that dancers may have impersonated a specific being in performances on ceremonial occasions. Human figures, modeled in clay or carved from stone in the Mississippian Period, suggest wealth and power through their impressive clothing and accessories. A2 Historical Period Wampum Belts and Strings Wampum belts recorded treaties and agreements among native peoples of the East. They consisted of beads made from the purple and white shells of mussels and clams found along the Atlantic coast. The beads were woven into belts using hemp or animal sinew, and the woven patterns and colors had meanings. White beads expressed brightness, for example, whereas a predominance of dark beads expressed a more solemn or sad purpose. The beads also could be strung for use in trade. Corbis European explorers and settlers brought diseases to North America that killed a large portion of the native population in the East during the historical period. Many of the survivors were forced by settlers to leave their traditional lands and regroup elsewhere. Some artistic traditions survived and were transformed by these changes, but others were lost. In some groups, artists preserved tribal practices in images engraved with thin lines on birch bark or recorded tribal histories as symbolic patterns woven into wampum belts. These belts consist of tubular purple and white beads that are made from clam shells, threaded on string, and woven into beaded cloth. Wampum belts were taken out on special occasions when specialists educated to know the meanings of the designs “read” them aloud. A2a Clothing and Adornment Mi’kmaq Moccasins Native Americans commonly used animal hides to make footwear. These deerskin moccasins, made by the Mi’kmaq of eastern Canada around 1840, feature decorative beadwork, sequins, silk ribbons, and red trade cloth. John Bigelow Taylor/Eugene and Claire Thaw Collection, Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY, U.S.A./Art Resource, NY Much native artwork of the Eastern region involved clothing and other items of adornment. The spiral motifs of the Mississippian Period resurfaced in beadwork designs embroidered on fancy sashes, decorative bags, and garments. Bags twined (woven with a finger technique) of natural fibers, animal hair, and wool had patterned images of powerful supernatural beings such as thunderbirds and underwater panthers that played a role in native religions and philosophical thought in the Eastern region. The bags probably contained a collection of special “medicine” or power objects meant to provide spiritual help to the owner. Quillwork Native Americans in many parts of North America created designs out of porcupine quills. After being washed and dyed, the quills were then folded and attached in rows to animal hide to form geometric patterns. Animal sinews held the quills in place. After the arrival of European goods, beadwork largely replaced quillwork for decoration. Today, the skill is being revived. Richard T. Nowitz/Corbis Women embroidered complex designs out of porcupine quills to decorate clothing and other objects. They colored the whitish, tubular quills by boiling them with dyes. After washing the quills they flattened them and created patterns on hide by attaching the quills with sinew (animal tissue) in rows. Other decorative elements, made by folding, braiding or weaving, could also be sewn onto the hide. The production of decorated clothing and bags increased after contact with Europeans as a greater variety of textiles and other materials became available through trade. Imported glass beads inspired native women, who quickly adapted quillwork techniques for the creation of beaded apparel. European curvilinear and floral designs of the 19th century proved as meaningful for the native women who worked with them as they were for the nonnative women who purchased and wore them. Native women gained income by selling souvenirs, including beaded and quilled works such as moccasins and pin cushions, and birch bark objects such as miniature canoes, baskets, and boxes that were intricately embroidered with fine moose hair. A2b Masks Iroquois Mask Masks play an important role in many Native American cultures, including that of the Iroquois.

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