Intro to Native American Indian Art
I. Naming the People. Why is naming important?
A. All over the globe humans name themselves "The People.
1. Some groups have kept their own names for themselves:
a. Yokuts, Maidu, Atsugewi, Chemehuevi, Yurok, Hupa.
2. Many groups are referred to by names given by outsiders: Cahuilla, Diegueño, Luiseño, Cupeño,
3. Others are regaining their own names: Gabrieleno>Tongva, Diegueño> Kumeyaay, Yuma>Quechan.
a. This implies "insider" and "outsider" roles.
i. All outsiders are outsiders. Cahuilla and Pomo are not the same.
B. How do we refer to Indian people in a respectful way?
II. Use the name they chose for themselves, "the People."
A. Is the term "these people" disrespectful.
III. Divisions of Native American Indian Art. How to get a handle on the subject.
A. The three major temporal divisions of Native North American culture.
a. Precontact - before 1492. Rock art, shell, silver, copper, bone, pottery, charcoal, and stone are the materials which have survived until now.
1. An exception to this is in the dry caves of the Great Basin and Southwestern deserts where coprolites, mummies, hides, feathers, clothing, wooden implements, cotton cloth, baskets, mats, sandals remain after thousands of years.
2. A few objects were taken to Europe before 1500 and they remain there in museums and royal collections.
3. Encapsulation with mud can create anaerobic preservation.
b. Historic - 1493 until 1890. All of the materials already mentioned remain plus a wide variety of introduced materials including, iron, german silver, brass, tin, silk and wool fabric, cotton broadcloth, glass, paper, graphite pencils, crayons, ink, .
c. Contemporary - post 1890. Introduced and synthetic materials. Everything you can possibly imagine.
B. The eight major geographic divisions.
1. Arctic and Subarctic.
2. American West.
3. Eastern Woodlands.
4. Mexico.
5. Latin America.
6. Amazon Basin.
7. Western Highlands.
8. Patagonia/Tierra del Fuego.
C. About sixty-five language divisions.
1. North America north of Mexico - about 300 living languages;
2. Central America including Mexico - about 30 living languages;
3. South America - about 140 living languages.
4. Most language families have many similar languages within them. But a handful seem to have no living linguistic relatives - the split was so long ago as to be untracable
D. The eight ecological divisions of the Americas.
1. Too much cross over to define groups tightly
a. Coastal tidelands collectors.
b. Coastal sea hunters and fishers.
c. Riverine and lake dwellers.
d. Semiarid gatherer/hunters
e. Semiarid hunter/gatherers.
f. Woodlands/forest hunters/gatherers.
g. Desert gatherers and hunters.
h. Agriculturalists.
E. Tribal divisions
1. Impractical on a continental or hemispheric scale.
a. more than 250 tribes in California alone with more than 500 in North America north of Mexico, 100 more in Mexico, 300 more in Latin America and another 600 distinct tribes in South America.