Robert Goldwater Library blog

Mystery of Ancient Pueblo Jars Is Solved

via nytimes.com:

By MICHAEL HAEDERLE
Published: February 3, 2009

ALBUQUERQUE — For years Patricia Crown puzzled over the cylindrical clay jars found in the ruins at Chaco Canyon, the great complex of multistory masonry dwellings set amid the arid mesas of northwestern New Mexico. They were utterly unlike other pots and pitchers she had seen.

Some scholars believed that Chaco’s inhabitants, ancestors of the modern Pueblo people of the Southwest, had stretched skins across the cylinders and used them for drums, while others thought they held sacred objects.

But the answer is simpler, though no less intriguing, Ms. Crown asserts in a paper published Tuesday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: the jars were used for drinking liquid chocolate. Her findings offer the first proof of chocolate use in North America north of the Mexican border. [read on]

[image source]

Originally posted in BibliOdyssey:

Pochoir prints of ledger drawings by the Kiowa Five, 1929


Eagle Dance by Stephen Mopope
All images © the Estate of the respective artist

Pochoir Prints of Ledger Drawings by the Kiowa Five, 1929 from the National Anthropological Archives, hosted by the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS). [click on 'Pochoir prints of ledger drawings by the Kiowa Five, 1929.' for a complete illustrated inventory of the twenty-four prints.]

From the SIRIS catalog entry:

The Kiowa Five were a group of painters who earned national and international acclaim during the early twentieth century. The group actually consisted of six individuals, Spencer Asah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Monroe Tsatoke, Lois Smoky, and James Auchiah. A number of the artists attended St. Patrick’s Mission School in Anadarko, Oklahoma, where they received art instruction from Sister Olivia Taylor. Susan Peters, a government field matron, also took an interest in the young artists' work. She arranged for an artist from Chickasha, Mrs. Willie Baze Lane, to provide art lessons. Eventually Ms. Peters persuaded Dr. Oscar Jacobson, head of the school of art at the University of Oklahoma, to provide additional training for the artists. In 1926, Asah, Hokeah, Tsatoke, and Mopope arrived at the University. The artists were not officially enrolled, but they received special instruction from Jacobson and Dr. Edith Mahier, another professor in the school of art. In January 1927, Lois Smokey, a young Kiowa woman, arrived to study with the other artists. In spring, the artists were compelled to return home to attend to agricultral pursuits. They returned in the fall, accompanied by James Auchiah, the sixth and final student. Shortly thereafter, Lois Smokey withdrew from the program and returned home. Dr. Oscar Jacobson arranged for the Kiowa artists’ paintings to be exhibited in 1928 at the First International Art Exposition in Prague, Czechoslovakia. In 1929, Kiowa Art, a portfolio of the artists' paintings was published in France.

For additional information on these artists, see:
Jeanne O. Snodgrass, American Indian Painters - A Biographical Directory. Museum of the American Indian Heye Foundation, 1968.
Patrick D. Lester, The biographical directory of Native American painters. SIR Publications, 1995.
St. James guide to native North American artists, with a preface by Rick Hill; and an introduction by W. Jackson Rushing; editor, Roger Matuz. St. James Press, c1998.
John Anson Warner, “Native American Painting in Oklahoma: Continuity and Change.” The Journal of Intercultural Studies, 23: 14-129, 1996.

Picture of the Day

the americas exhibit, originally uploaded by urinepublic.

From our flickr pool!

Metropolitan Museum launches YouTube initiative

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has embarked on a bold initiative to provide original video content of the Museum's events and programs,  including films, lectures, concerts, guided tours, talks, and family programs, over YouTube.

Of particular interest to blog readers are the playlists for the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas (5 videos at this writing), and 6 videos prepared for the exhibition "Eternal Ancestors".

Here for example is a brief video about the installation of the Asmat bis poles in the new gallery of Oceanic art.

Photographic Analysis Helps in Museum Object Attribution

Chief Smoke's (Oglala Teton Sioux) shirt. 
Credit: Smithsonian Institution, Department of Anthropology.

Johanna Scherer, emeritus anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution, posted a link and description for Material World of an online exhibition she has developed that traces her research into "a historical photograph of a manikin of a Native American and using it as evidence to re-identify museum artifacts that had lost their provenance over the course of more than a century."

The site, Red Cloud's Manikin and His Uncle's Shirt: Historical Representation in the Museum as Seen Through Photo Analysis, includes a discussion of using historical photographs in museum research, the use of manikins in museum displays, biographical information on Red Cloud, and a description of the shirt (above) held by the Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution.

A fuller version of her research will be published at a later date.

The site also links to a slide show produced in conjunction with the exhibition "Picture Puzzles: Red Cloud and His Uncle's Shirt" held at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.
 

 

Heidi King: Peruvian featherwork show

Radiance from the Rainforest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru, By Heidi King. Tribal Art, no. 48 (spring 2008), p. 64-67.

Available in print in the Goldwater Library (A W97 No. 48 (Spring 2008)) or Online via WilsonWeb.

Crown
Chimú 14th–15th century
Fiber, hide, reeds, copper, feathers; H. 10 1/4 in. (26 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Jane Costello Goldberg, from the Collection of Arnold I. Goldberg, 1986 (1987.394.655)

You've read the article, now see the pictures

In a nice display of publishing synergy,  Museum Anthropology (the blog) has just reproduced color images to accompany an article recently published in Museum Anthropology (the journal), Crests on Cotton: “Souvenir” T-shirts and the Materiality of Remembrance among the Kwakwaka’wakw of British Columbia by Aaron Glass (vol. 31, no. 1 (spring 2008), p. 1-16).

Note to our readers: You can access the article online (via Anthrosource) or consult our print copy (A C854).

While in this instance the blog is meant to supplement the print and online journal, the journal will no doubt benefit from visits by blog readers wanting to know more behind the images appearing in the blog post.

Four Maya sites featured on new web site

Originally spotted on ARLiSNAP:

An visually exciting and comprehensive web site on four Maya archaeological sites has just been posted by Charles Rhyne, professor emeritus of art history, and his colleagues at Reed College. [Kudos to Prof. Rhyne, who was my academic advisor at Reed.]

Architecture, Restoration and Imaging of the Maya Cities of Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil and Labná "includes over 1000 photographs ... taken on site, with descriptive captions, including architectural and sculptural details, paint remains, and interior spaces, not previously published. In addition, there are over 250 19th century drawings, prints and photographs and another 300 by early 20th century scholars, many previously unpublished, showing the appearance of these four cities before the extensive restoration campaigns of the twentieth century." While the site was produced by Reed College primarily for the use of its faculty and students, the site will certainly be of interest to a wider audience of specialists and non-specialists alike.

Of particular note to the library research-minded are the extensive scans culled from published works including Waldeck's Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dan la province d'Yucatan (1838), the several works by Stephens and Catherwood from the 1840s, as well as Charnay's Cités et Ruines Américaines (1862-63) and Anciennes  Villes du Nouveau Monde (1885), photographs by Le Plongeon, and Seler's monograph on the ruins at Uxmal.

An extensive bibliography is included, sorted into four separate pdf files by subject, author, title and date.

Portfolio of Hopi Kachinas

another reblog from BibliOdyssey, 4/1/08:

These illustrations are presumably © the estate of Homer H Boelter.
In 1969 Boelter published an album of lithographs of Hopi Indians - 'Portfolio of Hopi Kachinas' - limited to one thousand copies. The first illustration above comes from PBA galleries. The paired image and the balance of the sixteen plates in the series - and background - can be found at Native American Links.

See the originals at the Goldwater Library!

Portfolio of Hopi kachinas by Homer H. Boelter
Hollywood, Calif. : H. H. Boelter Lithography, [1969]
RGL call number: R8E H7B66 Quarto

Shreyas and Mina Ajmera Gallery of Africa, the Americas and Asia-Pacific

The Shreyas and Mina Ajmera Gallery of Africa, the Americas, and the Asia-Pacific, opening on April 5, 2008, will be the first permanent home for the Royal Ontario Museum's collections from these regions in over 30 years.

From ROM's site:

This gallery reflects the ROM’s vast and diverse collections that represent the artistic and cultural traditions of indigenous peoples from Africa, the American continents, the Asia-Pacific region and Oceania. This is the first permanent home for these collections in over 30 years, with many of the 1,400 artifacts on display for the first time.

Ranging from large and dramatic ceremonial masks and colourful robes to archaeological objects such as ceramics and basketry, the collections were gathered from the late 19th century to the present and represent some of the Museum’s founding collections. The artifacts reveal aspects of everyday life, clothing, commerce, ceremony and art of indigenous cultures from around the world. Divided into four geographic areas, this gallery is rich with symbols of heritage and identity that continue to have meaning today.

ROM's site also features a number of behind-the-scenes photographs of the installation.

Pictured above: Diablada dance mask (papier-mâché), Bolivia, c. 1955. [source]