Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery

"At the turn of the twentieth century, the Southwest saw an influx of wealthy and privileged Anglo patrons from the East who had a profound fascination with Pueblo Indian culture...The thoughts of these cultural “authorities” were filtered through the lens of Euro-American notions of the American Indian and of American exceptionalism, and they consequently resulted in limited, Eurocentric understandings of Pueblo culture—understandings relying on scientific or art historical interpretations that rarely considered Pueblo intellectual contributions. This exploitative legacy left contemporary Pueblo people and culture often as an afterthought and, in so doing, hindered the study of a more “authentic” and primitive aboriginal past."

“Given the multilayered relationships between Pueblo people, pottery, and other interconnected aspects of Pueblo life, pottery is ingrained with multiple layers of reference—and reverence—that are all part of a highly contextual and culturally specific Pueblo worldview. We should view Pueblo pottery as being within a larger ritual order of meaning, an order that museums, anthropologists, collectors, and art historians can only begin to observe in the material record. Following this view, we cannot always observe the specific meanings and content of the ritual activity that informed and created the trends we see in pottery over time.“

“In order to give voice appropriately to Native American views of material culture and history, and to challenge the prevailing codified museum and anthropological narratives, we must take a holistic approach to understanding Pueblo cultural patrimony, one that involves both museology and engagement with Indigenous perspectives. Representation of Pueblo cultural patrimony cannot be conceived solely from within a Western framework. This does not simply involve “adding in” Indigenous voices, but rather entails acknowledging the right of Indigenous peoples to express our own accounts of our cultural patrimony.”