Continuity and Change in the Native American Commerce
Prior to the colonization of North America by Europeans, Native Americans produced goods primarily for household use. They exchanged items with neighboring communities through reciprocal kin and friendship ties. Native Americans also traded for exotic goods from great distances. However, they used these objects not to amass personal wealth but to build alliances, perform sacred rites, or redistribute goods to ensure the loyalty of followers.
European contact resulted in tremendous mortality due to disease and conflict, and reduced many native communities to desperate poverty. The invaders also brought a new economic institution -- the market -- that measured goods by their monetary value and profoundly altered the relationship between producer and consumer. By the end of the 19th century, most Americans believed that native cultures would inevitably die out.
Despite predictions, Native Americans did not abandon their traditions. The objects in this exhibit demonstrate the resilience of native traditions in the face of massive pressure to change. This exhibit characterizes the nature of production and exchange among Native Americans during the initial adoption of European goods. It then investigates production of craft items to sell in the market to bring needed income to native communities. These goods reflect the ability of Native Americans to maintain significant connections with their cultural heritage while participating in the modern market.
The Economic Impact of First Contact
Native Americans in Pennsylvania crafted the objects below from European brass trade kettles. Based on archaeological data from Susquehannock sites in Pennsylvania, they probably date between A.D. 1550 and 1650. At that time, Europeans exchanged goods such as beads and kettles with Native Americans for furs, which were highly desired in Europe. Initially, only groups in direct contact with Europeans had access to plentiful trade goods. Interestingly, they cut up kettles to fashion indigenous objects rather than used the objects as intended. These fragments eventually made their way to groups farther inland through existing trade relationships. On display are an axe head, an arrowhead, and a tinkling cone or jingler. The latter item was an ornament that was woven into hair or hung on clothing. Once Native Americans obtained intact kettles, they stopped making brass ornaments and tools.
The rate of adoption of European goods varied from group to group, but participation in the fur trade ultimately had profound consequences. Over time natives devoted more time to obtaining furs and other products sought by Europeans. This practice cut into the time available to gather food through traditional practices. As Native Americans became more reliant on European goods, trade became a means to amass personal wealth rather than a way to bolster alliances and kin ties. Soon, fur-bearing animal populations plummeted due to over hunting, which increased conflict among Native Americans as they sought new sources of furs.
Who Made this Wedding Basket?
The Navajo of the southwestern United States used this early twentieth century basket in their sacred wedding ceremony and other rituals. The weavers intentionally disrupt the design along the rim to allow the basket to be oriented to the east. During wedding rites, the bride and groom must face east to take their first bite of food as a married couple. Even though this kind of basket is called a 
“wedding basket”, it also serves as a drum, mask, and storage container for sacred items.
During the 19th century, Navajo women were prevented by taboos from weaving wedding baskets. They were only allowed to weave in a low place at a certain time of the day. These customs became so prohibitive that the Navajo had to get their baskets from the Utes and Paiutes who could make them without restrictions. These tribes retained the classic design, thereby preserving the meanings intended by the Navajo. For instance, the red bands of color symbolize life, and the black triangles stand for the under and upper worlds. However, the basket weavers shifted from vegetable to commercial dyes in the early 20th century because making natural dyes was time-consuming.
Navajos still use the baskets in wedding ceremonies. Navajo women have recently circumvented the taboos and are producing the baskets again. The baskets are not only made for personal use, they have also become popular tourist items. By switching to commercial dyes, weavers can make baskets more quickly to meet the growing demand.
Carving War Clubs on the Northwest Coast
Native Americans living along the northwest coast of North America are renowned for their woodworking abilities. Groups such as the Kwakiutl, and Tlingit carved wood, especially cedar, to make a wide variety of objects, including canoes, totem poles, boxes, and weapons. Craftsmen cut down trees and roughed out the form of wood objects with adzes like the one below. The age of this jadeite adze from British Columbia is unknown, although woodworking tools have been employed in the area for hundreds of years prior to European contact.
The war club (below) from Vancouver Island probably dates to the late 19th or early 20th century. Traditionally, Northwest Coast Indians fought with plain wooden clubs. Clubs that were decorated with family and clan totems such as whales and thunderbirds were 
displayed to enhance the status of chiefs in ceremonies such as the potlatch.
Suppression of intertribal warfare and the potlatch resulted in a decline in the production of war clubs. However, ceremonial war clubs became highly sought after by non-native collectors. How Northwest Coast natives made wood objects changed as iron tools became available in the marketplace. New technology enabled them to produce tourist items more quickly. However, some carvers still use time-honored carving practices to make sacred objects as a way to revitalize their cultures.
High Demand for Navajo Textiles
The 15th century expansion of the Navajo into what is now Arizona and New Mexico brought them into contact with two groups of people that transformed their way of life. In the 17th century, women learned weaving from Pueblo peoples. The Navajo shifted to a pastoral economy when they acquired sheep and horses from the Spanish. Sheep’s wool quickly replaced the cotton that they had traditionally used.
As early as A.D. 1706, the Spanish described the exceptional wool blankets woven by the
Navajo. Local indigenous groups were already trading for highly valued Navajo textiles. Widespread demand for these textiles skyrocketed in the late 19th century. By this time, the Navajo were settled on the reservation and the railroads had come, bringing tourists and other people to the region. Reservation traders, licensed by the U.S. government, sold Navajo goods to consumers nationwide. Indeed, Navajo rugs graced many Victorian homes.
The weaving on display exhibits a design and colors typical of the Classic Period of Navajo weaving. From A.D. 1650 to the late 1860s, Navajo women often wove wool blankets with elaborately terraced zigzags and diamond motifs. Most dyes were extracted from plants, although weavers usually obtained red wool by unraveling commercial Spanish cloth and spinning it into yarn. The Navajo continue to derive much of their income from the manufacture of these traditional textiles.
Selling Candy with Tesuque Rain Gods
The rain god figurine below was made by the Tesuque -- a Pueblo tribe located north of Santa Fe, New Mexico -- in the 20th century. Although Tesuque women made this figurine using traditional techniques, its style and image bear little relationship to pre-contact 
customs and beliefs. Pueblo peoples believe in spirits related to rain and other aspects of the natural world. Indeed, rain is critical in a landscape where water is scarce. Rain not only ensures the corn harvest, it is also intimately linked to the annual spiritual renewal of their way of life through a cycle of rituals. However, Pueblo Indians do not believe in a rain god fashioned like these figurines.
Rain gods were probably styled after a Mexican figurine introduced to the Southwest by the Spanish. The Tesuque made them for a Midwestern U.S. candy manufacturing company who gave them away as collectible knick-knacks. Today, the Cochiti Pueblo produces rain god figurines quite similar to the early 20th century type, albeit more colorful to satisfy today’s consumer tastes. Rain god figurines are intriguing examples of the use of a traditional medium to produce objects that actually draw little inspiration from Indian beliefs, despite claims to the contrary by non-native collectors.
The Revival of Santa Clara Pottery
Prior to contact with the Spanish and Americans, Pueblo Indians of the southwestern United States made pottery for use in domestic chores and ceremonial activities. These groups had almost completely ceased pottery production by the middle of the 19th century. The expansion of the railroads; the establishment of government-sponsored trading posts; and the desire for Pueblo crafts on the part of anthropologists, tourists, collectors, and museums instigated a revival in pottery manufacture. Pueblo groups began making pottery again in the early 1900s to satisfy demand and to bring income into impoverished communities. The drought that devastated agriculture out West in the 1920s prompted many Indians to produce pottery for sale.
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People of the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico made the pottery shown here around the turn of the century. The double-spouted wedding vase (above) has the same shape as vases made before A.D. 1880. The bride and groom drink from the different spouts during weddings to ensure marital success. Much of the later pottery, however, was tailored toward non-Indian collectors. “Curio” wares -- items molded into shapes familiar to tourists such as candlesticks and ashtrays -- were produced. Potters made small objects, like the pitcher below, because they could be easily carried to trading posts and railroad stations for sale to tourists.
Collecting Calumet Pipes on the Great Plains
A Chippewa or Sioux Indian named Little Crow made this reproduction of a ceremonial calumet pipe in Minnesota. The pipe is made from a red stone called catlinite. According to Sioux oral tradition, the Great Spirit cleansed the earth with a great flood, leaving behind their ancestors’ blood, which colored the pipestone red. Afterwards, the Great Spirit gave them a catlinite pipe for ceremonial use. Decorations are added to the pipe’s stem to summon blessings from revered animals, the cardinal directions, and other spirits. Eagle feathers symbolize messengers who carry prayers to the gods.
In 1934, George West aptly described the significance of the calumet to Native Americans of the Southeast and Great Plains:
“No pipe was ever regarded by the American Indian with greater reverence than the calumet… Its sanctity is seldom violated. It was used in the ratification of treaties and alliances; in the friendly reception of strangers, as a symbol in declaring war or peace, and it afforded its bearer safe transport among savage tribes. It was employed as a medium of appeal to the gods that their blessings might be secured or their anger appeased.”
Collectors have sought so-called peace pipes for centuries. Charbonneau, Lewis and Clark’s interpreter on their 1805-1806 expedition, collected pipes. While Plains Indians fiercely protected certain sacred pipes, they began manufacturing pipes for sale to Americans well before their settlement on reservations and the extermination of the buffalo.
Protective Amulets versus Good Luck Souvenirs
Among tribes of the Great Plain, amulets were personal items that were intimately tied to spiritual beliefs. Small and easily carried as people moved
from camp to camp, amulets were made for a person shortly after birth and worn throughout his or her life. After drying the baby’s umbilical cord, the baby’s grandmother stored it in a small hide pouch, which she decorated with beadwork. Turtle-shaped amulets were given to girls and lizard-shaped amulets were made for boys. These animals were chosen for protective amulets because they represent longevity. Mary Ashford, a member of the Blackfoot tribe in Montana, crafted the modern replica of the turtle-shaped amulet below.
Although the anthropomorphic amulet (below) is older, it appears to have been tailored to suit the tastes of tourists. The wife of Chief Blow Snake made this amulet in 1937. She was a member of either the Sioux or Winnebago tribes, who lived near each other along the eastern edge of the Great Plains. At the bottom is a rabbit’s foot, a decidedly Western good luck charm representing fertility. The style and colors of the beadwork, however, are traditional. Plains Indians believe that blue represents the heavens while red 
symbolizes the Earth. These amulets show that Plains Indians have retained some traditional designs and production methods that proudly reflect their heritage while at the same time successfully participating in the market.
