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.

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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.

A

1

Prehistoric Period

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.

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