Encounter the People

Navajo Pottery

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Navajo Pottery: Pitcher
Photo (c) 2009
Michele Mountain
Mus. of Northern Arizona The earliest pottery attributed to the Navajo, dating from the late 1600s, is a thin-walled utility ware used for cooking and storage of food and water. Known as “Governador Indented” or “Dinetah Grey, Gobernador Variety,” it resembles much Pueblo pottery of the same period. Its exterior finish bears an indented or striated pattern due to the use of corn cobs, corn husks, and other natural materials as smoothing tools. What distinguishes this Navajo pottery from its Pueblo counterparts is its characteristic shape. It typically bears a high neck that gradually slopes down and then expands to a bulbous shape before quickly narrowing again into a very small rounded or pointed bottom.

In the eighteenth century, Gobernador Indented, another type of pottery owing a debt to Pueblo peoples, made its appearance among at least some of the Navajo. This pottery type bears a ground color ranging from yellow to orange, and is painted with red, black, and sometimes white geometric designs. While the Navajo continued to produce utility wares, prohibitions on the painting of pottery, stemming from a belief that to do so would invoke misfortune, predominated from this point on. In the mid-eighteenth century, nonpainted surface design in the form of an appliquéd, incised band began to appear around the necks of Navajo jars. Thicker-walled vessels also became the norm, and incised or indented decoration of vessel lips became common.

With the coming of the railroad to the Southwest in the late nineteenth century and a rapid increase in the availability of mass-produced goods such as metal pots and pans, pottery production among the Navajo diminished significantly. Ceramic wares continued to be produced for specific ceremonial use, but crafting of utility wares nearly ceased. By the mid-twentieth century, the Shonto/Cow Springs region was the only area of the Navajo Reservation where pottery making continued to any great extent. Bill Beaver, a non-Native trader at Shonto Trading Post, is widely credited with helping to spur the revival and stimulate a market for the work of Shonto/Cow Springs potters starting in the early 1950s.

As tourism in the Southwest increased, potters of the Shonto/Cow Springs area responded to market demands, introducing innovations that made their work more appealing to consumers. Raised and incised surface decoration became more elaborate, and a wider variety of shapes developed. Appliqué took on new forms, including plant motifs such as oak leaves and ears of corn. Eventually, yeibichai (traditional masked dancers) and animals such Navajo Pottery
Photo (c) 2009 Michele Mountain
Museum of Northern Arizona as horned toads appeared as applied surface decoration. While Navajo potters have adopted such raised and incised surface decoration, the prohibition on painted design is still widely observed. However, the application of colored slips to the surface of vessels has afforded decorative color variations.

A long-standing tradition of production of small, unpainted clay figurines representing a variety of birds and animals has also received new stimulus from the growth of the tourist and collectors’ markets.

Navajo pottery is produced entirely by hand via a simple coiling technique. Clay is rolled into coils of even thickness that are stacked one upon the other until the desired height is achieved. After the coils are fused together by pinching and smoothing and the pot’s final form is achieved, the surface is scraped. Then, in some cases, after the pot has partially dried, the surface is burnished with a smooth stone. Raised decoration is applied once the surface has been smoothed. After the pot has thoroughly dried it is fired and then, while still hot, it is glazed with pinyon pine pitch. This darkens the surface and imparts a soft gloss, giving the work the rich brown color and subtle sheen that have become identifying characteristics of contemporary Navajo pottery.

Text (c) 2009 Jennifer McLerran, Ph.D., Curator of the Museum/Museum of Northern Arizona

Additional Information

Websites:

Navajo Pottery: Beautiful Objects ( http://artswork.asu.edu )
Pottery by American Indian Women ( http://www.cla.purdue.edu)

Readings:
  • Bell, Jan. “Techniques in Navajo Pottery Making,” Plateau, vol. 58, no. 2 (1992): 16-23.
  • Berger, Guy and Nancy Schiffer. Pueblo and Navajo Contemporary Pottery: And Directory of Artists. Schiffer Publishing, 2004.
  • Brugge, David M. “Navajo Pottery in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” Plateau, vol. 58, no. 2 (1992): 3-7.
  • Musial, Jan, Stephen Trimble, and Russell P. Hartman. Navajo Pottery: Traditions and Innovations. Northland Press, 1987.
  • Wright, Diane H. “Revival in Navajo Pottery: 1950 to the Present,” Plateau, vol. 58, no. 2 (1992): 8-15.
  • Wright, H. Diane and Jan Bell. “Potters and Their Work,” Plateau, vol. 58, no. 2 (1992): 24-31.