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Presenting 10 essays by experts in the fields of anthropology, ethnography, and ornithology on the native peoples of South America and their use of birds, this volume offers a fascinating view into the lives and customs of some of the indigenous peoples living in the rainforest and coastal areas of Brazil and Peru. This book includes color photographs of South American natives in festival and ritual celebrations and everyday activities, along with spectacular objects of featherwork, textiles, and pottery.

University Museum Monograph 75

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The significance of Pueblo and Navajo textiles transcends simple artistic expression. Through the spiritual activity of weaving, male and female weavers beautify their world and integrate their art into the "web of life." Both the Pueblo and the Navajo believe that the culture hero Spider Woman has taught them to create with patience, understanding, and sensitivity. Yet over the centuries Pueblo and Navajo textiles have developed along distinct paths which reflect the unique historical and individual experiences within each culture. The textiles collection of the Southwest Museum illustrates the rich interplay between these two peoples and their art.

Southwest Textiles tells the fascinating story of the history and evolution of Pueblo and Navajo fabric arts. Over 250 outstanding examples from the Southwest Museum's collection are reproduced in full color, along with 125 illustrations showing details of these works and historical photographs of Native American craftspeople. Also included are absorbing accounts of the early collectors of these superb textiles and some of the colorful individuals who were instrumental in founding the Southwest Museum and shaping its collections. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

BOOK STILL AVAILABLE
I recently went to Southwest Museum and Autry National Center and their shops are still selling this book at cover price!!!It's an amazing book and reflects the rich collections of the museum!

Cheaper price for this same book at Southwest Museum
This is a great book and resource for anyone interested in textiles, weaving, or Native American history. I called the Southwest Museum shop in California and was told that they still have copies of this book and it's at a cheaper price than what's listed here.I believe they can ship as well. ... Read more

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In late prehistory, the ancestors of the present-day Hopi in Arizona created a unique and spectacular painted pottery tradition referred to as Hopi Yellow Ware. This ceramic tradition, which includes Sikyatki Polychrome pottery, inspired Hopi potter Nampeyo’s revival pottery at the turn of the twentieth century.

How did such a unique and unprecedented painting style develop? The authors compiled a corpus of almost 2,000 images of Hopi Yellow Ware bowls from the Peabody Museum’s collection and other museums. Focusing their work on the exterior, glyphlike painted designs of these bowls, they found that the “glyphs” could be placed into sets and apparently acted as a kind of ­signature.

The authors argue that part-time specialists were engaged in making this pottery and that relatively few households manufactured Hopi Yellow Ware during the more than 300 years of its production.Extending the Peabody’s influential Awatovi project of the 1930s, Symbols in Clay calls into question deep-seated assumptions about pottery production and specialization in the precontact American Southwest.

Customer Reviews (1)

Essential but not without faults
Scholarly books about Guatemalan textiles are scarce.Therefore, this is an important contribution; it is not without flaws.Maya Culture &Costume documents an important collection of Guatemalan textiles, thecollection of the Taylor Museum, collected during the late 1920's and early1930's by E.B. Ricketson, archaelogist and ethnographer. Photographs of thepieces from the Taylor collection are supplemented by and compared topieces from other collections. Because the Ricketson pieces were collectedduring such a narrow range of time, the pieces can be dated accurately tostem from 1934 or earlier. Many pieces in other collections cannot be soaccurately dated. This is clearly a strength of the the collection and thebook.Anyone seriously interested in Guatemalan textiles should befamiliar with this book.However, more color plates would have beenhelpful, and some pictures are too small to be useful. ... Read more

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During his lifetime, Joe Quintana was considered one of the most innovative and versatile Native silversmiths. Learning to work with metal as a shipyard welder during World War II, Quintana became a successful artist upon returning to his home at Cochiti Pueblo in New Mexico. His unique designs, craftsmanship and attention to detail, as exemplified by the superlative collection featured here, captured the imagination of many collectors and dealers, earning him a place among the great 20th century silversmiths. Irma Bailey's superlative collection includes jewelry, small boxes and vases made by Quintana. This catalogue accompanies an exhibition at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe. ... Read more

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Navajo weavings, long regarded for their remarkable aesthetics, have never before been investigated from the standpoint of the weaver's process and intent. WEAVING A WORLD explores the patterns and irregularities often overlooked or considered 'flaws' in these beautiful textiles, and it seeks to identify the mythic symbols and historic and personal stories they contain. The inclusion of objects and the use of colour, pattern, and weave variations are found to be significant symbols of the way a weaver thinks about the world. A weaver may pray her way into the centre of the rug, where the most intricate work and colour will appear. Patterns may portray a vision of the world animated by spirits and holy people, recounting the creation of the heavens, the earth, and the loom itself. WEAVING A WORLD includes seventy rugs from the celebrated collection of the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and documentary photographs of today's weaving culture on the reservation. Winner, RMBPA, Trade Book Illustrated, 1997. ... Read more

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Weaving as a Record of History, Art and Expression
Like Lila O'Neale in her early twentieth century study Yurok/Karok Basket Weavers, the authors of this book, Willink and Zolbrod, have set about to "read Navajo rugs" through the eyes and minds of Navajo, mostly older weavers and their families. What we, the readers, get is a somewhat anecdotal filtering of ideas, recognitions, myth and oral history that indeed does lend surprising information about some of the designs.

But, the real jewels of this book are the weavings themselves. Forty separate color plates show rug after rug, over half predating 1900, from the School of American Research Collections in the Museum of New Mexico's Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Each is magnificent in its own way. Accompanying text relates a separate story for twenty-seven of them, organized into: The Mythic Memory; The Collective memory; Ceremonial Practices; Harmony and Disharmony; and A World In Motion.

What I personally love about this collection is the insight into balance, detail, symbolic representation and the fact that each weaving is strictly individual. A great reference for weaver and collector alike, my only criticism is that there aren't more close-up photos. ... Read more

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This is the first in a landmark series of three titles that assembles, documents, interprets, and explores the rich diversity of craft, art, and design being produced today by contemporary Native American artists.

This first volume, which focuses on Native American arts in the Southwest, includes works in a variety of media by approximately ninety artists. This series offers an opportunity to appreciate the work of pioneers defying traditional Native American cultural stereotypes and of younger artists exploring new ground.

Magnificent images of each artist's work (many never before published) are accompanied by artists' statements, biographies, and commentaries. A bibliography of Native American arts today has also been included. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Talented Hands
This 2002 publication gives the reader an excellent overview of contemporary Native American art of the Southwest.Examples from 100 of the top SW Native American artists are represented in the book and in a traveling exhibition sponsored by the American Craft Museum of NY.Both layout and photography are well done and brief bios of each artist are included.I know it was a difficult task to make the final decision of which artists to include and which to exclude.Being a collector of Hopi art, I would have liked to see a few more examples from the Hopi ... especially kachina/katsina dolls (only two in the book).It is a nice addition to any Native American art library. ... Read more

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A comprehensive study of the beadwork of the Crow Indian Nation from 1805 to contemporary times. Between 1907 and 1916 Dr. Robert H. Lowie made repeated visits to the Crow Agency Reservation to study their traditional customs and, as a result, published the first paper on Crow Indian beadwork.Based on this research, in 1918 William Wildschut began to collect specimens for the Heye Foundation.

His work went far beyond merely collecting specimens. He asked questions from his Crow associates and in 1927 produced a manuscript for the Heye in which he concluded that "true Crow beadwork was not borrowed from the neighboring Western Sioux, nor from any other Tribe. It possessed a distinctive character of its own."

In 1957, Dr. John C. Ewers, a truly enjoyable expert, made further inquiries and this book was produced providing an illustrated description and history of Crow Indian Beadwork from the time of its first mention by the fur trader, Francois Larouque, in 1805.Included are sections on Men's Dress Clothing (Shirts, Leggings, Feather Bonnets, Vests, Gauntlets, and Feather Fans); Women's Dress Clothing (Dresses, Leggings and Belts); Robes and Blankets; Moccasins; Riding Gear (Saddles, Head Ornaments, Horse Collars, Cruppers and Saddle Blankets); Containers (Saddle Bags, Quivers, Gun Cases, Sword and Lance Cases, Cradles, Belt Pouches, Ration Ticket Pouches, Mirror Pouches, and Pipe and Tobacco Pouches); Characteristics of Crow Indian Beadwork (Beadwork Techniques, Beadwork Designs, and Bead Colors); Symbolism in Crow Beadwork; History of Crow Beadwork and a bibliography.

18 illustrations; 48 B&W photographs; 3 pages in full color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

a general essay
Perhaps this book is of interest to historians, but in general is a very dry technical essay.Illustrations are black and white and of extremely poor quality.I was very disappointed and but for the fact the invoice and packaging for it and 3 other books purchased at the same time disappeared, I would have returned all 4. ... Read more

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Graced with more than 150 stunning full-colorphotographs, Legacy commemorates the ninetieth anniversary of thefounding of SAR by highlighting ninety objects from its world-renownedcollections of Indian art. The more than 11,000 objects from 48 NativeAmerican tribes; pottery, paintings, textiles, jewelry, baskets,kachinas, leather work, and beadworkserve as resource andinspiration for contemporary Native American artists, researchers, andthe general public. ... Read more

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This new and gorgeously-illustrated book presents important information on Pueblo, Navajo, Rio Grande and Northern Mexican weaving styles of the Southwestern U.S. region. Traditional and modern styles of blankets, clothing and rugs are identified and explained in detail with brief accounts of some of the old trading posts that sold them. Unique to this book are discussions of family styles with active weavers today. The author continues to work with modern weavers interested in preserving old styles and has gained personal insight to the origins of both old and new designs which she shares, for the first time, with her readers. The illustrations are drawn largely from the famous and outstanding collection of southwestern weavings at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of Ne Mexico where the author has been curator for many years. She knows these weavings well and clearly explains them. 194 color plates and 385 beautiful black and white pictures present these outstanding weavings clearly for close inspections. All weavers, collectors, dealers, and historians will welcome this new study. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

More of a catalog of possibilities
This book contains many popular examples of Weaving of the Southwest".It is not a how-to in the sense of how to make the weavings as a collection of weavings showing what can be done or has been made, who made them and a little about each design. This book includes not just rugs but clothing also.

On picture (reference 212) you can see a loom that looks like it was made from available materials such as 4" water pipes, 2 by, and 4 by 4 planks. It is or by this time was viewable in the Navaho Hubble Trading Post.

Warping All by Yourself ... Read more

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Basketry has been woven into the rich tapestry of Native American cultures for centuries. Native American basket weavers have transformed twigs, grasses, roots, ferns, and bark into works of art that are unsurpassed for their beauty and technological skill. The Clark Field collection at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is recognized as one of the most comprehensive basketry collections in North America.

What started as a hobby for Clark Field, a Tulsa businessman, the collecting of Native American basketry soon became an obsession resulting in a collection of more than one thousand baskets. Field’s goal to “collect authentic specimens of baskets made for actual use by all basket-making tribes” resulted in a collection of extraordinary baskets that tell of the remarkable adaptability of native peoples and how basketry enabled many of their traditions and values to continue.

Following Clark Field’s travels in his endeavor to amass his collection, we learn about the weavers and their baskets from eight major cultural areas: the Southwest, California, the intermountain West (including the Great Basin and Plateau), the Northwest Coast, Arctic and Subarctic, Prairie and Plains, the Eastern Woodlands (including the Northeast and Great Lakes), and the Southeast. A color map in each chapter enhances the description of the area and its indigenous cultures, historical information, and a discussion of basket weavers, including some interviews with weavers and/or their families. ... Read more

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New York: Museum of Contemporary Crafts, (n.d.) Softcover + 25 loose b/w plates housed in an illustrated oblong folder. An exhibition catalog including a checklist of all 289 items. Objects range from Prehistoric American Indian examples to such contemporary artists as Gertrud and Otto Natzler, Maija Grotell, Peter Voulkos, Eva Zeisel and Win Ng. ... Read more

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The major essay by renowned art historian J. J. Brody traces the development of southwestern pottery from the prehistoric Anasazi through modern Pueblo. A section on pottery technology examines the different types of clays and details the pottery-makings process. Rebecca Allen has contributed an essay on the history of the Museum's southwestern collection, providing insights into the personalities of the collectors and the ways their personal tastes affected the contents of their collections. The catalogue includes a compendium of the 104 objects in the exhibition, each accompanied by a photograph.

Customer Reviews (1)

Beautiful Book and informative as well
I became interested in this book after meeting Dr. Brody and his wife (also) Dr. Brody an anthropologist in the Yucatan peninsula this past winter. The book has great information and many gorgeous photos of Pueblo pottery. It and they were very inspiring. ... Read more