TANTOO: This beautifully preserved Pueblo storage jar is nearly a thousand years old. Brian Vallo, Governor of New Mexico’s Acoma Pueblo, says it was probably used to store food:

BRIAN VALLO: The way you can tell this is the form, the size, and the neck – the neck being a smaller opening at the top, which is usually stopped up with a piece of a corn cob wrapped in buckskin to keep the foodstuffs fresh.

TANTOO: But this jar was not just functional. The interlocking shapes on its surface had deep meaning for the people who created it – and the power of these symbols endures for their descendants today.

BRIAN: Historically and today, the idea of rain and clouds are very key to the survival of our people.

[SFX: RAIN?]

This particular design, which is a series of clouds – which would be the black, and then the lines representing rain – you see this type of symbology on water jars, on storage jars, because we would continuously be hoping for good crops, and in times of drought, that the rains would come and that they would bless the people, bless the land, bless the fields.

TANTOO: The hand symbol that appears within the designs may be the signature of the pot’s maker.

BRIAN: In Acoma culture, we refer to these pots as cotia munishi[sp?]. Cotia Munishi is a reference to the ancient people. And there was a time when our ancestors arrived at places like Mesa Verde, and Chaco Canyon, that vessels like these were made. And so when we utilize and recreate these forms and these designs today, we are paying tribute to those locations, those settlements of our ancestors.

TANTOO: For Native American Nations and Indigenous peoples, artistic expressions assert sovereignty, identities, and kinship ties to communities and homelands. They weave complex narratives that pull from history, memory, culture, and environment – to link past, present, and future.

On our tour today, we’ve only begun to examine the diversity of Indigenous art. We hope we’ve inspired you to delve more deeply into the work of Native American artists – to explore the many facets of Indigenous creative expression – as you continue your journey in the Museum, online, and in your own communities.

Thanks again for joining us.