One hundred years ago, in 1923, tourism was impacting American Indians. Tourists encountering Indians wanted to buy souvenirs and the Indians, in response to market demand, began to make traditional items not for tribal use, but for sale to the tourists. As with any entrepreneurial enterprise, the Indian craftspeople paid attention to what sold and what did not, thus they began to make more of the items which sold well. In addition, non-Indian traders who sold Indian crafts often made suggestions regarding designs, styles, and colors. The non-Indian tourist stereotypes of what was Indian and what was not began to shape the Indian art market.
Also, by 1923 a number of people—museum curators, archaeologists, tribal elders, and others—were concerned with preserving and understanding America’s Indian heritage, a heritage that predated European colonization by thousands of years.
Tourism
El Navajo Hotel in Gallup, New Mexico was built for the Fred Harvey Co. to serve passengers of the Santa Fe Railroad. A Navajo theme was used throughout the hotel, including Navajo rugs, pottery, and baskets for decoration. The walls were decorated with exact reproductions of Navajo sandpaintings. According to anthropologist Nancy Parezo, in her book Navajo Sandpainting: From Religious Act to Commercial Art:
“This was the first use of Navajo sandpaintings as purely secular wall decorations in a public building.”
The dedication for the Hotel included a Navajo House Blessing ceremony and marked the first time this ceremony had been conducted for a non-Navajo public structure.
In Arizona and New Mexico in 1923, there were 5,500 Navajo weavers who were producing $750,000 worth of goods each year. Traders actively promoted Navajo rugs as alternatives to oriental carpets. The traders also encouraged the weavers to produce designs that appealed to their Anglo customers.
In San Ildefonso Pueblo, in New Mexico, potters María and Julián Martínez began to sign their work. Traditionally, Pueblo potters never signed their works, but in the commercial art market an artist’s signature enhances the value of the piece. In response to the increased demand for signed pieces, potters began to sign their works. With regard to San Idelfonso pottery, Norman Feder, in his book AmericanIndian Art, reports:
“These pots are painted after polishing, so that the painted area appears as dull black on a polished black surface. The painting is done by men after the women have made the basic ware, an unusual departure from the common practice where women make the pots from start to finish.”
Regarding the black-on-black designs pioneered by María and Julian Martinez. Rick Dillingham, in his chapter on historic and contemporary Pueblo pottery in I Am Here: Two Thousand Years of Southwest Indian Arts and Culture, writes:
“The Black-on-black technique involves an initial overall polishing of the vessel with red slip. Then, using a thinned mixture of slip, designs are painted over the polished surface. Before the firing the jar is a matte red-brown on polished red, and after the firing the more recognizable matte and polished black.”
American Indian Heritage: Archaeology
The Mississippian moundbuilding tradition dates from 700 CE to 1731 CE. The most spectacular characteristic of Mississippian material culture is the construction of earthen pyramids. The pyramids, usually called mounds, have a flat top which provided a space for a ceremonial building or a chiefly residence. Access to the top of the pyramid was made possible by a ramp or stairs up one side.
In Alabama, the Moundville Historical Society was formed in an attempt to preserve the Mississippian mounds at Moundville which were being looted and vandalized. The group campaigned to establish a state park at the site.
With state efforts to acquire the site stalled, Dr. Walter B. Jones of the Alabama Museum of Natural History asked his Board of Regents to purchase the site:
“We robbed the Indians of everything they had, and the least we can do is to preserve this wonderful monument which they left behind.”
The museum began to buy portions of the site. Jones also made purchases, mortgaging his house to obtain the cash.
Near Chillicothe, Ohio, the Hopewell site attracted the attention of early archaeologists and gave its name to a much broader cultural tradition. The Hopewell tradition dates from about 200 BCE (300 BCE in some sources) to about 400 CE (300 CE in some sources). At the Hopewell site, there were thirty-eight earthen mounds within a rectangular earthen enclosure which encompassed 110 acres. In her book America Before the European Invasions, Alice Beck Kehoe writes:
“Overall, Hopewell is the earliest civilization to impress Euroamerican archaeologists with displays of wealth objects reminiscent of European concepts of wealth and status displays.”
In his book The First North Americans: An Archaeological Journey, Brian Fagan writes:
“Hopewell is a ‘great tradition’ or an ideology in the spiritual sense, a set of understandings, as it were, shared by numerous small regional societies over much of the Midwest, accompanied by distinctive artifacts and mortuary rituals.”
In 1923, the Hopewell Culture National Park in Chillicothe, Ohio was established to protect of Hopewell mounds.
American Indian Heritage: Museums
In Wisconsin, the Neville Public Museum of Brown County purchased a wampum belt from Phoebe Quinney, the widow of Osceola Quinney, the sachem of the Stockbridge-Munsee Indians.
In Utah, three ancient buffalo-hide shields were found in a cave near Capital Reef National Park. Because the shields were found on federal land, they were turned over to the National Park Service and eventually were displayed at the museum in Capital Reef National Park. Radiocarbon dating later established that the shields had been made between 1420 and 1640.
American Indian people have always had an interest in their history and recorded their history in a variety of ways. Among many of the Indian nations of the Plains Culture Area, tribal historians would make a pictographic record of the events of the previous year. Candace Greene, in an entry in the Handbook of North American Indians, reports:
“A tribal historian gave each year a name based on a memorable occurrence of the season, and other events could be placed in time by reference to that year name.”
This record, usually recorded on a hide, is called a Winter Count. Dennis Smith, in his chapter on the Fort Peck Sioux in The History of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Montana, 1800-2000, writes:
“Winter counts were a means of recording history, in which the most important events of each year was recorded in art form on a bison hide.”
In New York, George Heye obtained the Lakota Winter Count of Long Soldier which spans 104 years.
Art Fund
In New Mexico, the Indian Art Fund was established to conserve Native American Arts for research and study practices.
Book
The Seneca way of life is described by tribal member Arthur Caswell Parker (Cawaso Wanneh) in Seneca Myths and Folk Tales.
More twentieth-century American Indian stories
In many accounts of the American twentieth century Indians are invisible, their stories and histories confined to earlier eras. In the twentieth century, American Indians are an invisible people.
Indians 101: The U.S. Government replaces the Navajo Council in 1923
Indians 101: Reservations 100 years ago, 1923
Indians 101: Some American Indians events of 100 years ago, 1922
Indians 101: Art, Education, and Sports 100 years ago, 1922
Indians 101: American Indian religions 100 years ago, 1922
Indians 101: American Indian art 100 years ago, 1921
Indians 101: The Northwest Coast Potlatch 100 years ago, 1921
Indians 101: American Indian Art in 1918