NATIVE AMERICAN PUEBLO POTTERY
Pottery making was practiced in the southwestern United States for at least two thousand years. Zuni and Cochiti potters created the three vessels here: two water jars and one drum jar, which would have had a hide stretched over the top for beating with drumsticks. Historically, women were the potters, collecting their own clays, coiling and finishing each pot by hand, and firing the pieces in open fires.

Pots were often traded and exchanged between pueblos, so that new ideas were constantly being generated. During the 1880s the advent of the railroad brought an influx of trading posts and tourists into the Southwest and entrepreneurial potters began selling to the non-Native market. Today, both male and female potters continue to form traditional works as well as generate exciting new forms of Pueblo pottery.

Riggs Pueblo Pottery Fund

Museum Expedition 1903, Museum Collection Fund

Museum Expedition 1938, Dick S. Ramsay Fund

Signed: "Potter Sofia Medina decorator Rafael Medina".

This water jar of classic Pueblo shape by Marcellus and Elizabeth Toya Medina, a husband and wife team, illustrates both the old and the new. Circling the jar, in the background, are depictions of traditional masked Kachinas who perform in religious ceremonies. Bursting into dance in front of these figures are naturalistic, muscled, male Pueblo dancers in very active dance positions, also wearing traditional regalia.

Museum Expedition 1904, Museum Collection Fund

Large water jar form with flowing floral design in red and black on white ground on the body. Base is red.

Museum Expedition 1941, Frank L. Babbott Fund

Museum Expedition 1941, Frank L. Babbott Fund