Annotated Mona Lisa, The - Strickland, Carol [15]
HOPI: Carved and painted kachina dolls out of cottonwood roots to represent gods and teach religion. Also decorated ceremonial underground kivas in Arizona with elaborate mural paintings of agriculture deities.
KWAKIUTL: Northwest coast tribe that produced totem poles, masks, and decorated houses and canoes. Facial features of masks exaggerated in forceful wood carvings. Mortuary poles and totem poles indicated social status.
ESKIMO: Alaskan tribe that carved masks with moving parts used by shamans; often combined odd materials in surprising ways.
MAYAN: In Guatemala and Mexico, Mayans created enormous temples in stepped-pyramid form. Huge limestone temples were richly carved with relief sculpture and hieroglyphics. Tikal (population 70,000) was largest Mayan site, with highest pyramid reaching 230 feet. Although the Mayans had sophisticated calendar and knowledge of astronomy, civilization withered about A.D. 900.
AZTEC: Capital was Mexico City, the urban center of this large empire. Produced massive statues of gods who demanded regular human sacrifices. Skilled in gold work.
INCAN: Peruvian tribe known for precisely constructed masonry temples and metallurgy; civilization at height when Spaniards arrived.
Ceremonial sand painting, 1968, Navaho, National Museum of the American Indian, NY.
Hopi kachina doll, 1972, National Museum of the American Indian, NY.
Totem pole, Nootko, 1928 , Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Temple mural, Moyon, A.D. 790-800, Peabody Museum, Harvard.
Eskimo shaman mask, before 1900, National Museum of the American Indian, NY.
Gold Figurine of King Tizoc, Aztec, c.1481-86, Mexican, National Museum of the American Indian, NY.
Gold funerary mask, Ineon, 12th-14th century,
MMA, NY.
MOUND-BUILDERS
Native Americans have always been environmentalists. Their philosophy was based on unity between nature — a maternal force to be loved and respected — and humanity. In the Great Serpent Mound of Ohio, Native Americans constructed an elaborate natural shrine as a setting for their religion. About a quarter-mile long, the burial mound was in the shape of a snake holding an egg in its jaws.
from 2000 B.C., tribes constructed these mounds, each some 100 feet high, from Florida to Wisconsin. More than 10,000 existed in the Ohio Valley alone. Some imitated the shape of a tribe’s totem animal, such as an enormous bird with spreading wings. Others were simply shaped like domes, but in each case, the builders hauled millions of tons of earth by hand in baskets, then tamped it down. The volume of the largest mound, near St. Louis, was greater than that of the Great Pyramid. In some cases, inner burial chambers contained archeological treasures, like the body of an aristocrat clothed entirely in pearls.
“The Great Serpent Mound,” 1000 B.C.-A.D. 400, length 1,400’, Adams County, Ohio.
Mound-builders pardy inspired Earthworks, a movement that emerged in the late 1960s to make the land itself a work of art. Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” (now underwater in Great Salt Lake, Utah) is one of the better-known examples of this movement.
Smithson, “Spiral Jetty,” 1970, rock, salt crystals, and earth, coil length 1500’, Great Salt Lake, Utah.
Besides their role in important events like initiations, funerals, and festivals, beautiful objects were also prized because Native Americans valued gift-giving. High-quality gifts bestowed prestige on the giver, and artisans excelled in silverwork, basketry, ceramics, weaving, and beadwork. Native Americans were also skilled at wall painting. Their work tended toward the abstract, with stylized pictographs floating