Indian Arts & Crafts - a new thread...
Gud E.Tushus
I'm repeating some of what I posted in another
thread because I'd like to see a new thread
opened that discusses the subject of Indian
Arts and Crafts as practiced by Native Americans,
of both American continents - south and north.
It's a fascinating subject that takes one into
the fields of archeology, anthropology, religion,
etc etc to say nothing of "art and craft."
Erik Matilla offered:
>Dockstader, Frederick J., "Indian art in America; the arts and crafts of
>the North American Indian." Greenwich, Conn., New York Graphic Society
>[1961]
I posted:
I DO recall the first time I was made aware
that ceremonial "kivas" were painted with murals.
What really stunned me was learning that the
plaster used for the murals was not your usual
mud daubs but rather a stark white - very likely
gypsum hauled from the White Sands of the Tularosa
Basin (my guess - not something I learned). And
the other thing I learned is that these murals
had a finite life, being plastered over and a new
mural created for whatever purpose the murals
served in their day. As you may know, many of the
traditional rituals have survived only through
hand-me-down recounting, and some are now being
declared "tribal secrets" once again.
An aside: Kiva structures were also used as
storage bins - below ground round cache rooms.
Mostly for grain storage, I'd assume. They existed
virtually side by side with the ceremonial kivas.
Erik A. Mattila
I didn't know about the plaster - that's interesting. David Sequieros
wrote once about a trip to Italy to learn something about fresco
painting, and he discovered that the technology was almost exactly the
same as mesoamerican frescos.
The "secrets" is interesting too, since they played a key role in the
development of the "First Self-taught" period in the Pueblos. It went
like this. "Anthropology painting" was the result of anthropologist
commissioning artists to paint pictures of ceremonial regalia and so
forth, and the Governors had a fit about these budding artists revealing
clan secrets, and took action against them. Serious stuff - these guys
were banned from the Pueblos, and they were down and out in Sante Fe,
Espanola or wherever, and had lost the only support structure they had
ever known. But they began to make friends with local non-indian
artists, and out of that began to construct the basis of the several
styles that ultimately emerged, and also laying the foundation for the
famous Santa Fe Indian art market, since selling their pics to tourists
was the only income they had.
>
> An aside: Kiva structures were also used as
> storage bins - below ground round cache rooms.
> Mostly for grain storage, I'd assume. They existed
> virtually side by side with the ceremonial kivas.
Yeah, I visited an old (1604) Jesuit Mission in Mulege, in Baja, once,
and many of the rooms there were used for storage. I mean stuff that
was piled in there two or three hundred years ago.
Erik
>
>
>
Gud E.Tushus
>> An aside: Kiva structures were also used as
>> storage bins - below ground round cache rooms.
>> Mostly for grain storage, I'd assume. They existed
>> virtually side by side with the ceremonial kivas.
>
>Yeah, I visited an old (1604) Jesuit Mission in Mulege, in Baja, once,
>and many of the rooms there were used for storage. I mean stuff that
>was piled in there two or three hundred years ago.
>
>Erik
There is a great deal of debate, even among the
archeologists who specialize in southwestern
cultures, about kiva usage. There seems to be
some agreement that "some" kivas were specific
ceremonial chambers, especially amongst the
latter-day Pueblo cultures. But many kivas appear
to have been nothing more than the ancient's
version of our modern-day "family rooms." This
is speculated because of the smaller size and
the fact that many have contained domestic
artifacts - cooking wares, parts of looms used
in weaving, etc. As a frustrated wannabe archeologist,
I love this stuff...
Gud E.Tushus
Anyone unfamiliar with aboriginal American
rock art, and those who know more than they
want to about it, will find this web site
equally fascinating:
http://my.execpc.com/~jcampbel/
It has some of the finest photographs I've
ever come across that document the art work
at all variety of sites. Anyone who has ever
attempted to photograph "in the wild" knows
of the extraordinary challenge of getting
worthwhile photos.
The text accompanying the photos reflects
the mostly contemporary viewpoints of many
experts who interpret these rock art images.
It's a controversial subject - interpretation -
and therefore a very interesting study.
Gud E.Tushus
>I didn't know about the plaster - that's interesting. David Sequieros
>wrote once about a trip to Italy to learn something about fresco
>painting, and he discovered that the technology was almost exactly the
>same as mesoamerican frescos.
Here is a web site that goes into
some detail, sans illustration, about
the "plasters and washes" used inside
various Amerindian structures:
http://www.upenn.edu/gsfa/hspv/mesaverde/interpretation.htm
Note the reference to 're-plastering' and
the possible reasons for it - soot from
the fire pit fires being one factor. I
don't think the methods used could be
compared to fresco, but who knows. It could
be the images were created while the plaster
was still wet, but because of the very
fragile nature of most of the discovered
works, and their subsequent disappearance,
it's more likely the images were "painted"
on later.