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    Navajo and Hopi Art in Arizona: Continuing Traditions
    Navajo and Hopi Art in Arizona: Continuing Traditions
    Navajo and Hopi Art in Arizona: Continuing Traditions
    Ebook254 pages5 hours

    Navajo and Hopi Art in Arizona: Continuing Traditions

    By Rory O'Neill Schmitt PhD

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    About this ebook

    Arizona's Navajo and Hopi cultures span multiple generations, and their descendants continue to honor customs from thousands of years ago. Contemporary artists like Hopi katsina doll carver Manuel Chavarria and Navajo weaver Barbara Teller Ornelas use traditional crafts and techniques to preserve the stories of their ancestors. Meanwhile, emerging mixed-media artists like Melanie Yazzie expand the boundaries of tradition by combining Navajo influences with contemporary culture and styles. Local author Rory Schmitt presents the region's outstanding native artists and their work, studios and inspirations.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe History Press
    Release dateFeb 1, 2016
    ISBN9781625855602
    Navajo and Hopi Art in Arizona: Continuing Traditions
    Author

    Rory O'Neill Schmitt PhD

    Rory O'Neill Schmitt, PhD, MPS, ATR-BC, is a writer, art therapist, professor and photographer. She serves as a faculty member of the University College at ASU. While a doctoral student, she worked in the curatorial and education departments at the ASU Art Museum. Since then, she has worked at museums and galleries in New York and California, while exhibiting her own fine art photography. As a board-certified art therapist, she has also worked with youths and adults in rehabilitation programs.

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      Navajo and Hopi Art in Arizona - Rory O'Neill Schmitt PhD

      art.

      Part I

      Native Peoples of Arizona

      1

      AN INTRODUCTION

      AMERICAN INDIANS IN ARIZONA

      Between twelve and fifteen thousand years ago, the first known inhabitants of the Southwest, known as the Paleo-Indians, crossed the Bering Straight from Asia. Different groups spread to diverse areas and adopted customs to support life in their new environments. Native peoples of Arizona adapted to the natural environments, which had an incredible range of life and native plant zones. For example:

      In the northern region, native peoples adapted their lifestyles to the lofty plateaus and huge canyons.

      In the central region, they lived among high mountain ranges.

      In the southern section, they thrived in the river plains and deserts and along the Gila River.

      The first inhabitants were hunters and gatherers. Later, they settled into areas and built homes and farmed. Around 6000 BC, groups of people from California desert regions and northern Mexico moved into Arizona. Prehistoric cultures developed, including the Hohokam, Anasazi and Mogollon peoples. (See Figure 1.)

      The Hohokam people, or Ancient Ones, migrated to the Salt and Gila River areas of southern and central Arizona from Mexico in 300 BC. Hohokams were brilliant farmers who developed an incredible canal irrigation system. They lived in permanent buildings, created pottery and traded with people in Mexico.

      In about 200 BC, the Anasazi people came to the Four Corners area, located in northern Arizona, where the state meets with Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. They had evolved from a nomadic lifestyle to a more sedentary lifestyle by 500 AD. Anasazis were known as basket makers, as they wove delicate storage baskets out of yucca fiber. They migrated from caves to pit houses, from pit houses to apartment-style dwellings (which the Spanish referred to as pueblos) and from those to extraordinary cliff dwellings on the tops of mesas.

      Lastly, the third group, the Mogollons, left archaeological evidence that dates their culture to AD 300. Mogollons lived in one-room pit houses overlooking fields in eastern Arizona, southwest New Mexico and northern Mexico.

      Figure 1: A Timeline of American Indians in Arizona

      A PERIOD OF GREAT CHANGE

      Pre-contact native life remained steady for hundreds of years, but great changes occurred due to the influence of European outsiders in the fifteenth century. American Indians began to fiercely battle invaders after Columbus arrived in America in 1492. The Spanish intruded in the Southwest in the 1540s, and for three centuries, Spanish settlers fought to gain control of land and also indoctrinate American Indians in Christianity. Franciscans, Jesuits, Protestants and Mormons established missions and churches throughout Arizona.

      The 1800s were a period of great change for American Indians in Arizona. During this century, the Spanish withdrew and Anglo-American settlers forcibly flooded the Southwest. In 1848, the United States won the war with Mexico, leading the country to acquire the New Mexico and Arizona Territories. American soldiers built forts in traditional American Indian homelands, such as within Navajo lands. Due to fights between native peoples and the new settlers in their homelands, the U.S. government relocated American Indians, redistributed lands and established reservations. American Indian groups were allotted smaller portions of their original homelands or were forced to relocate to entirely new areas. Reservation policies resulted in devastation and poverty.

      During the twentieth century, U.S. federal Indian policies included assimilating tribes into the dominant culture, as well as protecting tribes as cultural entities. The government established compulsory Indian boarding schools, wherein children were removed from their families and homelands. In an effort to support western acculturation, the children’s traditional clothes were destroyed, and their long hair was cut. In school, where they were often permitted to speak only in English, they learned vocations and participated in western sports.

      Today, Arizona has one of the largest American Indian populations in the United States. The capital, Phoenix, is considered the third-largest city in the United States with the most American Indians, accounting for approximately 5 percent of the state’s total population. According to the most recent U.S. census report, of the twenty-five reservations with the largest American Indian and Alaskan native populations, seven are located in Arizona, including the Navajo Nation and the Hopi tribe. In addition, nearly 25 percent of the land in Arizona is covered by reservations, and approximately 63 percent of American Indians in this state live on these reservations. The remote locations of many reservations enable these communities to thrive, supporting American Indians in retaining many of their cultural traditions.

      NATIVE ART FORMS IN ARIZONA

      Traditional native art forms in Arizona include basketry, jewelry, sculpture and pottery. Weavings, such as Navajo rugs, and sculptures, such as Hopi katsina dolls, are also well known. Originally, ancient nomadic tribes in the Southwest created art forms that were easily transportable, such as baskets, rather than objects that were fragile, such as pots.

      With the establishment of trading posts on reservations in the nineteenth century, native artists began selling and trading their artworks. They traded weavings, sheep hides and other local products for goods like flour, canned foods and tools. The oldest Navajo trading post currently in operation—since 1876—is the Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado, Arizona.

      With the establishment of the transcontinental railroad in the late 1800s, the Southwest was connected with the rest of the United States, enabling tourism in Arizona to skyrocket. Tourists contributed to native economies by purchasing crafts and goods, watching craft demonstrations and performances and taking tours of reservations and villages. The types of artworks purchased by tourists influenced what native artists were making.

      During the twentieth century, federal policy reforms led to the period of the Indian New Deal, wherein art was promoted for economic development. The federal government’s support of American Indian art affected whether art education was in schools. Many schools began having systems for selling student art. In 1935, there was a federal law that established a criminal penalty for misrepresentation of Indian goods or products for the purposes of sale.

      In 2015, contemporary native artists have a range of diverse art forms, including sculpture, jewelry, fashion, photography, ceramics, weavings, paintings and mixed media. Artists are responding to both their lived experiences, as well as local and global events. Many contemporary American Indian artists mix traditional forms with new forms of media. For example, in 2014, the Arizona State Museum featured Neoglyphix: All-Indigenous Aerosol Art Exhibition by native graffiti artists from Arizona.

      American Indians are not a people of the past. They are living, breathing peoples contributing to a dynamic world. This book presents individuals from an array of Navajo and Hopi artists from Arizona who use different tools, materials and processes to express themselves in visionary ways. The next section is an overview of the Navajo Nation, which provides a foundation for understanding how culture and traditions influence the artists featured in this book.

      Part II

      Contemporary Navajo Artists

      2

      THE NAVAJO NATION

      THE DINÉ

      Many Navajos refer to themselves as Diné, meaning the People, as the term, navajo, meaning enemy, was given to them by the Zuni Pueblos. In their homeland, about 80 percent of Navajos speak their own language. Today, Navajo school curriculum includes their culture and language, called Athabaskan.

      Families play a vital role in Navajo society. The clan system unites the people. Each person belongs to a clan, and clan membership dictates responsibilities. This kinship system, K’é, follows the lineage of the women; children belong to their mother’s clan. Each person belongs to four unrelated clans in the following order: the mother’s first clan, the father’s first clan, the maternal grandfather’s first clan, and the paternal grandfather’s first clan. Navajo men are not permitted to marry someone from their own clan, even if the person is not related by

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