Indigenous Arts of the Americas
Course Revision

This course is international in scope, presenting an overview of the tribal and pre-Columbian arts of the native peoples of North, Central and South America. An encapsulated version of Art 24 is also part of Art 20, "Art Appreciation," which I also teach. I designed Art 24 two years ago, following the traditional geographical model of similar courses taught at the college freshman-sophomore level. Several areas, however, have always been problematic, for the following reasons:

• Most of the survey textbooks available on the arts of American Indians, as well as museum exhibitions, limit illustrations and objects to past activities and achievements. Thus, native peoples, if not presented as disappeared, are treated in the ethnographic present.



• Archaeological materials may or may not be included in either text or exhibition, but little acknowledgement is given to the fact that the descendants of indigenous pre-contact peoples are alive, well and living among us.



• Current American Indian art forms, often created out of different materials or techniques, and which may appear dissimilar to pre-Columbian forms, nevertheless often contain the same meanings as their pre-contact counterparts.



• The American Indian artist is, for the most part, anonymous. This is true with African studies as well.

The introduction section of the course includes

• The familiar geographical setting and archaeological and historical records, but also emphasizes the oral histories of native peoples.



• An overview of the American Indian artistic tradition that includes contemporary, tribal, shamanic, Pan-Indian, ethnic, folk and mainstream categories. The students are made aware that many American Indian artists cross categories. Three articles taken from Native American Expressive Culture, Akweikon Journal/NMAI, "The Old and the New: Different Forms of the Same Message" (Richard Hill), "Continuity and Change in Native Arts" (Fred Nahwooksy), and "Strategic Adaptations: Native Aesthetics Through Time and Space" (Simon Brascoupe) provide the foundation for the "new methodology," and thus American Indian artists and tribal art are not frozen in time.

Each geographical unit has been revised to contain or did contain the following materials:

• Instead of starting with the earliest archaeological finds for each people studies, we begin in the present and work backwards. This is an attempt to reinforce the idea that the American Indian has had a long and continuous history from the present back to and earlier than European contact.



• Each block now includes poems, quotations, mythologies, legends, American Indian articles, videos made by American Indians, and/or and American Indian guest speaker who informs the object(s). In addition to the usual materials such as maps, terms and diagrams, new materials include:



• Maritime Tradition: Students read "Magic Words," about a time when men could become animals and animals could become men. This concept, foreign to most Euro-Americans, is crucial in understanding Inuit art.



• Pacific Northwest: The video "The Spirit of the Mask" quotes Chief Joseph (Kwakiutl), who notes that masks for his tribe are "snapshots of endless time."



• Woodlands: This block has been most revealing because the students never realized that prehistoric American Indians constructed huge earthen mounds throughout the southern and midwestern portions of the U.S.



• Great Plains: We study the ledger drawings first, then the painted bison robes and winter counts, and then the ancient pictographs, demonstrating that materials may change but not the historical/archival traditions of the Plains peoples.



• Southwest: Although we study art and culture of the Hopi and Zuni peoples, much of the focus has been on the Navajo. We have viewed a Navajo made video, "Sandpainting, A Navajo Tradition," that not only gives the students the experience of watching a sandpainting process, but the Singer speaks Navajo exclusively, while his assistant translates into English. This video is very unusual from those typically offered as educational tools, and most closely approximates the field worker's experience of sitting, listening, and not interrupting with comments or questions. Also, while the tradition is ancient, the practitioners wear modern dress, which startled some of the students. The "Spiderwoman Legend," which is the Navajo history of the origins of weaving, is also part of this block. The discussion of Southwest pottery included Talking with Clay, a book of Pueblo pottery that concentrates on the Pueblo women artists' description of their art, their families and their histories.



• California Mission: This section included guest speaker and basketweaver Marian Walkingstick of the Juaneno band. She brought starter baskets for each student in the class, and spoke of the significance of basketweaving as social and cultural identity. While I attempt to do this with the arts, nothing is better than hearing an American Indian relate what the particular activity means to her/him: how she/he prepares for that activity, including purification, seeking out the materials, the difficulties encountered, and then actually participating in the process. Another Indian made video, "From the Roots: California Indian Basketweavers," is part of the learning experience. Ms. Walkingstick gave the students one of her handouts of the grasses used in the types of baskets she weaves. I included a handout of different weaving techniques used by California Indians that points out the complexities of weaving and the dexterity of the weavers.



• Mesoamerican and South American: These sections are also presented from the present moving back to the time of the conquest, and then into preColumbian studies.

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