Indigenous America Art Art History Juliette Abbott
When and Where The Americas Between 10,000 B.C.E. and 1492 C.E. What happened in 1492 that marked the ending of independent Indigenous Art?
Regions
Dwellings Teepee Longhouse Pueblo
Teepee Teepees were the homes of the nomadic tribes of the Great Plains. A teepee was built using a number of long poles as the frame. The poles were tied together at the top and spread out at the bottom to make an upside down cone shape. Then the outside was wrapped with a large covering made of buffalo hide. When the tribe arrived at a new spot, the woman of each family would set up and build the teepee. Building a teepee was very efficient and typically only took around 30 minutes to set up. In the summer the covering would be raised to allow for a large gap at the bottom. This gap enabled cool air to flow through the teepee and keep the inside cooled. In the winter additional coverings and insulation such as grass were used to help keep the teepee warm. In the center of the teepee, a fire would be built. There was a hole at the top to let out the smoke. The Plains Indians also used buffalo hides for their beds and blankets to keep their homes warm.
Teepee
Longhouse The longhouse was a type of home built by the American Indians in the Northeast, particularly those of the Iroquois nation. Another name for the Iroquois was Haudenosaunee which meant "People of the Longhouses". Longhouses were permanent homes built from wood and bark. They get their name because they were built in the shape of a long rectangle. Usually they were around 80 feet long and 18 feet wide. They had holes in the roof to allow for the smoke from fires to escape and a door at each end. To build the longhouse home, tall poles from trees were used to frame in the sides. At the top the natives used curved poles to build the roof. The roof and sides were then covered with overlapping pieces of bark, like shingles. This helped to keep the rain and wind out of their homes. A large village would have several longhouses built inside a wooden fence called a palisade. Each longhouse was home to a number of people in a group called a clan. Perhaps 20 people or more called a single longhouse home.
Longhouse
Pueblo The pueblo was a type of home built by American Indians in the Southwest, especially the Hopi tribe. They were permanent shelters that were sometimes part of large villages that housed hundreds to thousands of people. Often they were built inside caves or on the sides of large cliffs. Pueblo homes were built of bricks made from adobe clay. The bricks were made by mixing clay, sand, grass, and straw together and then setting them in the sun to harden. Once the bricks were hard, they would be used to build walls which were then covered with more clay to fill in the gaps. To keep the walls of their homes strong, every year a new layer of clay would be placed on the walls. A pueblo home was made up of a number of clay rooms built on top of each other. Sometimes they were built as high as 4 or 5 stories tall. Each room got smaller the higher the pueblo was built. Ladders were used to climb between the floors. At night they would remove the ladders to keep others from coming into their house.
Pueblo
Cave Art Just like the European cave art we studied last semester, there was also rock art in the Americas!
Just like in Europe, the primary images were animals and hunting scenes. Cave Art
Also, people were stylized and not realistic, just like in Europe! Cave Art
The Nazca Lines are a series of large ancient geoglyphs (a large design on the ground) in the Nazca Desert, in southern Peru. The largest figures are up to 1,200 ft long. Nazca Lines
The vast majority of the lines date from 200 BC to 500 AD, to a time when a people referred to as the Nazca inhabited the region. The earliest lines, created with piled up stones, date as far back as 500 BC. Nazca Lines
Who made them? The Nazca people were an ancient prehistoric culture that was successful in using engineering techniques to bring underground water to the surface for irrigation. Some of the theories regarding the purpose of the lines connect them to this need for water. Nazca Lines
Many Native American Indians expressed themselves with their artwork carved into totem poles. Totem Poles
Totem Poles: History Many believe that all Indian tribes carved totem poles but this is far from the truth. Those Indians living in the southwest, the plains and Inuit Indians did not have trees to carve. Long ago totem poles were found to stand 40 feet tall. Today Indian artists continue to carve trees but some are short and used in homes as decoration. The top section of the Totem Pole often display flamboyant portrayals of Mythical creatures and monsters such as the Thunderbird.
Totem Poles: Meaning Totem poles held messages by those that carved them. Often traditions and tribal life were carved into the pole. Totem poles would not necessarily tell a story so much as it would serve to document stories and histories familiar to community members or particular family or clan members. Totem poles are typically created out of red cedar, a malleable wood relatively abundant in the Pacific Northwest, and would be erected to be visible within a community. Most totem poles display beings, or crest animals, marking a family s lineage and validating the powerful rights and privileges that the family held.
Basket-weaving is one of the oldest known Native American crafts-- there are ancient Indian baskets from the Southwest that have been identified by archaeologists as nearly 8000 years old. Baskets
Different tribes used different materials (all natural), weaving techniques, basket shapes, and characteristic patterns. Baskets
Pueblo Black-onblack ceramic vessel. 20 th century C.E. Ceramic Pottery
Ceramic Pottery Native American pottery is an art form with at least a 7500-year history in the Americas. Pottery is fired ceramics with clay as a component. Ceramics are used for utilitarian cooking vessels, serving and storage vessels, pipes, funerary urns, musical instruments, ceremonial items, masks, toys, sculptures, and a myriad of other art forms. Moche portrait ceramic, 100-700 C.E.
Beadwork Originally, Native American beads were carved from natural materials like shells, coral, turquoise and other stones, copper and silver, wood, amber, ivory, and animal bones, horns, and teeth. Glass beads were not used until colonists brought them from Europe 500 years ago, but like horses, they quickly became part of American Indian culture. Today glass beads, particularly fine seed beads, are the primary materials for traditional beaders of many tribes. Bandolier Bag Lenape, Delaware Tribe 1850 C.E.
Machu Picchu Inka, Peru 1450-1540 C.E. Granite Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was constructed as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti
Machu Picchu
Aztec, Temple Mayor (Main Temple)
Aztec The artist carved the Aztec calendar stone in 1479. It was dedicated to the sun god. It was a massive carving, 3 feet thick, almost 12 feet across, and weighing almost 25 tons). It was carved from basalt - a solidified lava, this being an area where volcanoes were common. But then it was lost - buried under the central square of Mexico City - for over 300 years. Calendar Stone
The famous calendar stone is a brilliant combination of artistry and geometry. It reflects the Aztec understanding of time and space as wheels within wheels. The detailed surface of the stone combines the understanding of the gods the people had created over the centuries as well as their observations of the heavens. Calendar Stone
Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings 450-1300 C.E. Colorado The cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde are some of the most notable and best preserved in the North American Continent. Sometime during the late 1190s, after primarily living on the mesa top for 600 years, many Ancestral Pueblo people began living in pueblos they built beneath the overhanging cliffs. The structures ranged in size from one-room storage units to villages of more than 150 rooms.
Masks
The Olmecs were the earliest known major civilization in Mexico following a progressive development in Soconusco. Masks
Review Indigenous America Art What are the 3 types of Indigenous American dwellings? Describe the Nazca Lines. Be able to identify the Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings and Machu Picchu. What is the purpose of a totem pole? What s usually at the top of a totem pole? Who was the Aztec Calendar stone dedicated to and why?