International studio (41.1910)

Ceramic Art of the Pueblo Indians

cooking vessels of taos, picuris and nambe

pueblos. As the two mouths are joined by a bar
convenience in handling may have had something to
do with this shape. The San Juan pottery is thin
and light, and it will be interesting to see whether it
will eventually gain the crown of excellence which
Santa Clara, because of too much American kinder-
gartening, has lost.

The group of black cooking vessels from Taos,
Picuris and Nambe presents another sort of Pueblo
art. Where the proper kind of clay is not readily
obtainable near the village, or where the activities of
the people find more congenial exercise in other lines
than the potter's, the people are content to make
only cooking vessels, crude in form and bare of de-
sign, obtaining by trade from other Pueblos the
carefully molded and decorated ware which is the
delight of every Pueblo household.

Besides the commoner shapes of Pueblo pottery
employed in the every-day business of the household
there are some forms especially designed for use in
connection with religious ceremonials. A group of
these ceremonial vessels for holding the sacred meal
which is sprinkled upon participants in religious
rites and dances is shown in the illustration. The
steps that rest upon the rim of the San Ildefonso
bowls, symbolizing clouds, the frog, the tadpole and
the water skate, symbols of the smaller Zufii pieces,
show how important a part the element of water—
that ever-present need in desert life—plays in the
prayers of these people. A characteristic Zufii de-
sign is the molded form—utilized as a handle—of
Koloowissi, the sacred serpent, which in the myths
of that people is represented as having brought
seeds from the gods to ancient Zufii.

So much for this native American art, which,
thanks to a few discriminating traders scattered
through the Pueblo country of Arizona and New
Mexico, still survives in its beauty, but which bids
fair to pass out of existence within another decade.
The cause is to be found in the system of American

lxx

schooling which the United States Government
compels the children to accept, and in which instruc-
tion in drawing is part of a general educational
scheme that seeks to turn these red people into
white. The Pueblos are a gentle, biddable race,
unconscious of the marvels of their own artistic
gifts, and in the hands of a pushing, inartistic
schoolmistress from New England or the Middle
West the children produce feeble copies in bright-
colored crayon of the white man's art, which their
ignorant teacher shows with pride to visitors as
"what an Indian can do when he is taught." Mean-
time this teacher is utterly unappreciative of the
superiority of the beautiful examples of native pot-
tery, gifts from her timid pupils, which gather dust
in corners of the schoolhouse. The natural result
of such pseudo-education is that the young genera-
tion of Pueblo women are growing up in compara-
tive ignorance of the art of their mothers and of the
art symbols and traditions of this race.

The idea that there is an Indian art worth atten-
tion did get dimly into the mind of a former head of
the Government's Indian department, but such at-
tempts as he instituted with the view of condescend-
ingly fostering the art have been in the hands of em-
ployees who seem to be quite incapable of intelli-
gently handling the case. It appears impossible for
the average American to dispossess himself of the
conceit that his nation's way is the only really cor-
rect way. To Americanize Pueblo art is as absurd
as to ask Japanese artists to learn kindergarten
methods. The art of these Indians is the expres-
sion of their nature and of a long, traditional past,
and to set such a people to drawing copybook de-
signs can teach them nothing, while it does stifle
absolutely the real art sense in them.

The truth is, the Pueblos are to be learned from,
not taught at all. They are a body of conservative
artists, who can be trusted, if not interfered with, to
develop in their own way the inherited gift of cen-
turies, and to perpetuate the one native American
art of to-day. Cannot the more enlightened minds
of the country realize that the only right policy for
this nation to pursue toward such a people is that of
"hands off," and to begin it at once before the old
generation of potters is dead and their traditions
dead with them ?

A useful book on "Porcelain, Oriental, Conti-
nental and British" has been prepared by R. L.
Hobson, of the British Museum, and is published
by Frederick A. Stokes Company, with forty-nine
plates. This handbook for collectors discusses the
early Chinese and Japanese wares, European porce-