Beautiful silver jewelry is a well known icon for the Navajo, or Dine, people. But how are they able to create such intricate work out of silver? One method was to use a mold carved from tufa stone. Tufa is a type of limestone that is relatively easy to carve […]
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The Pacific Northwest is well known for its amazing baskets made from cedar and local grasses. Some baskets made in this are were woven so tightly they were able to easily hold water! The lidded basket that pictured here is approximately 2 inches tall and is common to the Makah […]
Pipes for the natives typically evoke images of “peace pipes” with long, decorated, stems and a small bowl at the end. But not all tribes used that style of pipe. This example is a traditional pipe, carved in soapstone by David Big Bear. The pipe here is a fetish pipe […]
Many of the Plains tribes are known for their exceptional beadwork. A design that is seen most often is a rosette, as pictured here. While a European or American rosette will typically be a flower made out of ribbon, the Natives depicted flowers and stars with tiny seed bead which […]
A tool that most are familiar with when discussing Native artifacts are the grinding stones. A common image brought to mind is a large stone with a gentle bowl sloped in the center. While the most prevalent understanding is to grind food such as acorns, corn, and other grains into […]
Pottery was a huge part of native living. Before pottery became available, cooking and water carrying was done with baskets. Baskets used for water carrying were woven with a high level of expertise. However, desert areas provided few plants to use for weaving material. The black, white and orange designs […]
Each tribe has its own design of moccasin; some have hard soles to deal with rocky ground while others have multiple layers of leather to help with colder weather. The beading adorning a moccasin is also indicative of which tribe created it. These moccasins are made by the Ojibwe (commonly […]
Each tribe has very distinct patterns that are used in their basketry. This geometric “step-like” pattern is seen often in the crafts of the Tohono O’Odham (formally known as the Papago). The Tohono O’Odham are primarily in the deserts of southeast Arizona. Traditionally, it was the women of the tribe […]
Here is a splendid animal fetish of an Owl. The main carving is done out of deer antler. You are able to see the different color variations from the white, inside of the antler on the front of the owl to the dark, outer brown of the antler on the […]
This delicate basket is from a California tribe named Karuk, meaning “upriver people”. The Karuk were the only tribe in California to grow tobacco plants. Traditional basket materials for the Karuk are willow, pine root, bear grass, maidenhair fern, and woodwardia. The four central ‘lightning’ lines utilize a quilled technique […]
Bags and pouches were used for many things. This photo shows an Arapaho paint pouch. The beadwork covering this item is done in a pattern called “lazy stitch”, meaning that several beads were strug at a time and set into rows. Even putting 10 beads on at a time, it […]
Natives used these tiny little glass beads (often called “seed” beads) to bring color to so many different aspects of their life. Because of their size, it is easy to form them into delicate patterns as well as large spaces of color. But where did they get the beads? While […]