Living Traditions

LIVING TRADITIONS

THE UNBROKEN THREAD

IN NATIVE AMERICAN ART

This packet is designed to help elementary school classes connect the Montclair Art Museum’s Native American collection with classroom curricula and the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards. Museum visits and related activities developed for this packet address numerous subject areas that are often cross-disciplinary and therefore can combine two or more frameworks. We can also help you organize your Museum visit and pre- or post- visit activities to correspond with your grade and the following relevant classroom topics:

Arts & HumanitiesLanguage Arts/LiteracyHistory and Social Science

Science & TechnologyMathematicsWorld Languages

How to Prepare your class for a visit to the Museum

• Discuss the visit with your class before you come. This packet and a pre-visit to the Museum can help you inform students about what they will see and do on their trip.

• Teachers are encouraged to preview the galleries and exhibitions before your scheduled group tour. Please present this Curriculum Packet or your tour confirmation letter to Museum staff during normal operating hours for one free admission.

• Remind students that they will need to remember: stay with the group, raise hands to ask and answer questions, no touching the artwork or walls, no running, no food or gum, and no pens, photography or backpacks are allowed in the galleries.

• Additional information about the artists and exhibitions is always available on request. Please contact the Education Department at 973/746-5555 ext. 257.

OBJECT COMPARISION:

STORY TELLER FIGURE AND ACOMA JAR

There are many types of Native American pottery designs. The most elaborate and beautiful designs are traditionally from the Southwest, particularly from the pueblos. These villages, located along major drainage rivers in the Southwest, are home to some of the greatest Native American potters who have been working with clay for thousands of years. Clay objects began as everyday items used to cook or store things such as grains and water. Over the years these items became more and more beautiful as Pueblos developed distinct styles that still exist today.

Most Southwestern pottery, whether in the form of jars, containers, or figurines, is made with the coil/scrape method. Ropes of clay are wound to make a pot, and then meticulously smoothed or scraped to make a finished piece. The pots are glazed with a watery coating made of various clays and natural pigments or minerals. Native American potters fire or harden the clay using old methods taught by their elders. The tradition is carried on today both in traditional pots and in pottery such as the storyteller figure below. The concept of storyteller figurines was developed in the 1960’s by Helen Cordero of Cochiti Pueblo in New Mexico.

Helen Cordero first worked with clay in 1964, when she was 49 years old. She felt that her pots were not very good, so she he carried on the clay tradition in a new manner by creating storytellers modeled after her grandfather. Native American elders remember the stories of the family and pass them down to the children both as teaching tools and for entertainment. Helen’s art became a new Native American art form. The figurines are very popular and many other potters currently make them as well. This storyteller is from Cochiti pueblo. Her open mouth shows she is speaking to the children. Notice her beads and pendant. This figure represents a new 20th century use of clay by Native American artists. As with other groups, new and wonderful art forms are always being developed by Native Americans.

Acoma is another pueblo in New Mexico, which is famous for pottery that is covered with beautiful designs using fine lines and patterns. Acoma is one of the oldest inhabited settlements in the United States. Acoma is known as “Sky City” because it is located 100 feet off the ground on a mesa, near ancient dormant volcanoes. The volcanic ash and minerals provide unique tempering and glazing materials for the ceramics; the ash strengthens the clay and allows the walls of the jars to be very thin and lightweight. There is no running water or electricity there. Most Acoma people now live in surrounding villages. This Acoma pot was made around 1880, more than 100 years before the storyteller figure. Design styles referred to important elements in the region: stair-step lines refer to rain clouds or feathers, while the curved lines represent bird beaks. Native Americans made utilitarian objects beautiful. Today, the pottery tradition continues at Acoma, although most pieces are created for the tourist trade.

Discussion Questions

1. How do you think people found the clay and made the glazes? In which areas of the United States is it more likely to find pigments or natural colors for pottery?

1. What do you think the person who made the Acoma jar 100 years before the storyteller figure would think of the storyteller? Would she like it? Why or why not?

1. Does your family have storytelling traditions? How and when are the stories told? Who tells the stories?

Art Vocabulary

Acoma—A New Mexican pueblo, otherwise known as “Sky City,” because it is located on a mesa 100 feet above the ground in the desert.

Bisque—Clay that has been fired once but not glazed.

Ceramic—pottery or hollow claysculpturefired at high temperatures in a kiln or oven to make them harder and stronger.

Cochiti—a pueblo near Albuquerque, New Mexico, that is known for its drum-making and storyteller figurines.

Firing—a process of applying heat to make hard pottery in either an oven or an oven-like enclosure called a kiln. Also the means of fixing colors to ceramic surfaces.

Glaze—a term used in ceramics to describe a thin coating of minerals that produces a glassy transparent or colored coating on ceramics. Typically applied either by brushing, dipping, or spraying, it is fixed by firing the bisque ware in a kiln. Glazing makes the surface smooth, shiny, and waterproof.

Kiln—a special oven or furnace that can reach very high temperatures and is used to bake or fire clay. Kilns may be fired by electricity or gas, or they may be handmade and fired with wood. Traditional Native Americans fired ceramics over an open fire.

Mesa—a Spanish word for flat table; flat lands high up in the desert where many Native American pueblos are built.

Pigment—a solid colored material that is in the form of powder-like particles. It is the basis for all paint and glaze. Pigment can come from plants, minerals, and other substances. It is mixed with oil or other materials to make paint.

Pottery—objects, especially vessels, which are made from fired clay, including earthenware, stoneware and porcelain.

Pueblo—a Spanish word for town. Native Americans have inhabited these towns for thousands of years. Many great Native American potters are from the various pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona.

Storyteller Figure—a clay figure that is created to illustrate a person, story, or legend.

Temper—refers to minerals or ingredients that provide elasticity to allow the clay to expand and contract while being heated.

Writing Activities

1. Look for the storyteller figures and write a story about one. Pretend that you can “hear” the story that he or she is telling. Will the story be about family history, adventures, or perhaps a myth explaining the mysteries of nature? Remember that these people lived in stone and mud villages.

1. The pieces that you have seen show a progression in Native American pottery from a traditional jar to a new type of figure, the storyteller. Think about artworks that you have seen during the Museum visit and that you have studied. Can you compare some modern and traditional artists? Select some artifacts that you see in the gallery and write about them. Do you notice how art constantly changes through time?

Classroom Activities

1. Create your own storyteller figure. First, look at pictures of the storytellers and discuss the overall shapes, designs, and colors. Make a round ball for the head out of self-hardening clay, and shaping it. Next make a thick cylinder for the torso and bend it at the waist. Then make the feet and smaller figures of children, glue all the parts together, and let the piece dry a few days. When the clay is hard, paint the clothing and details (white, brown, ochre, burnt sienna and blue were frequently used) and let them dry. Look at and discuss your classmates’ work.

1. Create a jar using designs from Acoma pottery. Make coils with “model magic” that are about 12 inches long and 1/2 inch thick. Wind the coils up to create a jar and smooth out the exterior of the jar with their fingers. The next day, paint the whole jar cream with acrylic paint and let it dry. On the last day, sketch fine lines with markers and paint the large areas with black paint and let the jars dry overnight.

Pre-Visit Activities

1. All people have a form of oral history in their culture. Native Americans have one that is highly developed and is an integral part of the cultural life. Think about your background and discuss with your family who the “storytellers’ are in the family. What special stories have been handed down? Think about the way you feel and what you learned about family members when you share stories and history. Write down some stories and remembrances that are your family treasures. Share your history with your classmates.

1. Find an object at home that has been handed down to your family from your ancestors. These objects may be precious or a simple thing like a cooking pot that has been used on holidays. Draw or photograph it and write a few sentences about what it means to your family.

OBJECT COMPARISON:

TWO PAIRS OF MOCCASINS FROM THE PLAINS REGION

There are two distinct ways of life in the Plains: one group of Native Americans roamed the landscape, following the natural movements of animal herds such as buffalo or bison to hunt for food. The second group remained relatively in the same area and relied more on agriculture. Most American Indians in the Plains were nomadic and lived in tipis, which could be picked up, dismantled and carried to the next campsite. There were so many buffalo at one time that when a herd was running together they sounded like thunder! The entire body of the bison was used, providing food, hide for tipis and clothing, bones for tools, hooves for glue, and tails for whips and brushes. The skin of the hind legs was used to make moccasins or the shoes of the people.

Native American people have used materials from their environment to adorn clothing throughout history. One of the most interesting and ingenious materials for decoration is the use of porcupine quills, which are similar in shape to hollow straws. They are flattened and dyed and stitched on to make decorations. Quillwork was seen on many types of clothing including moccasins. In early times thread was made from sinews from an animal’s muscle fiber and needles were created from bone. Quill designs were mostly geometric. Patterns would be made of a person’s foot by tracing it onto the hide.

These moccasins on the right are a beautiful example of Plains quill and beadwork. Women were the traditional moccasin makers and have always taken great pride in making them beautiful. The colorful embroidery combines flattened quills that are dyed and tiny glass beads. When the Europeans came in the 1700s, they brought tools and thread were brought that were made from metal, cotton, and wool fiber. By the mid nineteenth century, glass beadwork was more popular than quillwork on moccasins and other garments. Glass beads became the hallmark of Plains art as the people created more complicated designs and sometimes copied the patterns that European settlers brought with them. Women tanned animal hides for various types of clothing, such as of dresses, leggings, and shirts, then decorated them.

Discussion Questions

1. How do you think the lives of Native Americans were affected when settlers moving west destroyed the buffalo herds? Think about the food supply, clothing and tools. Did this destruction change a whole way of life?

1. Moccasins and other clothing are made by hand in a process that is time consuming and painstaking. Would you care more about a piece of clothing that someone took such care to create? Would you take better care of it? Do you think that Native American people would have taken special care of these beautiful things? Do you have any handmade garments?

Art Vocabulary Terms

Geometric—a shape or form is typically created with straight lines or shapes, including circles, ovals, triangles, rectangles, squares, and other quadrilaterals and polygons such as pentagons.

Moccasin—The shoe invented by the Native Americans made of hide and decorated with beads and quillwork.

Plains—the region in North America that spans from the western banks of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains; most of the environment is relatively flat, open space for herds of animals such as buffalo and Native American tribes to roam.

Quills—The spiny, sharp needles of a porcupine. These quills were flattened, dyed, and used for decoration.

Quillwork—decoration that is created using porcupine quills, which were often flattened, dyed, and sewn onto hide with animal sinew as thread.

Tipi—The portable home of the nomadic tribes of the Plains people. These homes could be moved to follow the bison herds. They were made from bison hides and wood poles.

Pre-Visit Activities

1. Locate the Plains region on a map of the United States. Notice how this area and Native American nations extend up into Canada. Research where current Native American reservations are located today. Discuss what a reservation is.

1. Native Americans traditionally believe that the land or Mother Earth is sacred and cannot be owned. In the 1800s, settlers took the land and fenced it off it from Native Americans, who were forced from the sacred lands where their ancestors were buried. Why did the settlers take land away from the Native Americans? Put your self “in the moccasins” of a Native American child of that time. How would you feel?

Writing Activities

1. There is a saying, “You don’t know how someone feels until you have walked in his moccasins.” What does this mean to you? Can you give an example that would illustrate this saying? Put yourself in the “moccasins” of Native Americans who lost their lands to European settlers. How do you think they felt?

1. Native Americans hunted and killed only the number of animals needed for food and clothing. Most of the animal was used to in some form to create clothing, tools, or housing. The animal is respected for its spirit and what it gives to help man. Think about this philosophy and imagine you are a Native American of long ago. Write a story of thanks to the great buffalo that roamed the West and gave a unique form of life to the Plains people. Can you think of any animal in America today that gives a lot to us?

Classroom Activities

1.Trace your feet on brown butcher type paper or paper bags that are flattened. After cutting the shapes out, decorate the moccasins with crayon, paint and pencil. Decide how to decorate your moccasins using designs that resemble quillwork or glass beads. The beads will have bright colors and the quills will be muted colors. When finished, cut these out and mount the moccasins on black paper.

2.Read the book, Brother Eagle, Sister Sky, illustrated by Susan Jeffers, (Dial Books New York, New York, 1991). This is the message of Chief Seattle, one of the great Native Americans of the 19th century. Discuss and write what you think about this speech. How is this speech a statement about ecology? Was he right to be worried about the land he loved? What city is named for him?

TEACHER RESOURCES

RELEVANT BOOKS

Berlo, Janet C., Ruth B. Phillips. Native North American Art. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). Contains a broad index of information on Native American art including region and tribal descriptions, materials and techniques, as well as community and family traditions.

Feest, Christian F. Native Arts of North America. (New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1980). The introduction is particularly interesting because it claims that Native American art, is not in fact art, since the objects were made out of necessity, rather than for “art’s sake.” This book also provides historical context along with modern interpretations of textiles.