Winner, Society for American Archaeology Book Award, 2017 San Antonio Conservation Society Publication Award, 2019 The prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, created some of the most spectacularly complex, colorful, extensive, and enduring rock art of the ancient world. Perhaps the greatest of these masterpieces is the White Shaman mural, an intricate painting that spans some twenty-six feet in length and thirteen feet in height on the wall of a shallow cave overlooking the Pecos River. In The White Shaman Mural, Carolyn E. Boyd takes us on a journey of discovery as she builds a convincing case that the mural tells a story of the birth of the sun and the beginning of time-making it possibly the oldest pictorial creation narrative in North America. Unlike previous scholars who have viewed Pecos rock art as random and indecipherable, Boyd demonstrates that the White Shaman mural was intentionally composed as a visual narrative, using a graphic vocabulary of images to communicate multiple levels of meaning and function. Drawing on twenty-five years of archaeological research and analysis, as well as insights from ethnohistory and art history, Boyd identifies patterns in the imagery that equate, in stunning detail, to the mythologies of Uto-Aztecan-speaking peoples, including the ancient Aztec and the present-day Huichol. This paradigm-shifting identification of core Mesoamerican beliefs in the Pecos rock art reveals that a shared ideological universe was already firmly established among foragers living in the Lower Pecos region as long as four thousand years ago.

Bold, inventive and highly graphic, the indigenous art of the Northwest Coast is distinguished by its sophistication and complexity. It is also composed of basically simple elements, which, guided by a rich mythology, create images of striking power. This indispensable and beautifully illustrated book is the first to introduce everyone, from the casual observer to the serious collector of Northwest Coast prints, to the forms, cultural background and structures of this highly imaginative art. The elements of style are introduced; the myths and legends which shape the motifs are interpreted; the stylistic differences between the major cultural groupings are defined and illustrated. Raven, Thunderbird, Killer Whale, Bear: all the traditional forms are here, deftly analyzed by a professional writer and artist who has a deep understanding of this powerful culture.

This collection of essays provides a historical and contemporary context for Indigenous new media arts practice in Canada. The writers are established artists, scholars, and curators who cover thematic concepts and underlying approaches to new media from a distinctly Indigenous perspective. Through discourse and narrative analysis, the writers discuss a number of topics ranging from how Indigenous worldviews inform unique approaches to new media arts practice to their own work and specific contemporary works.

As the international art market globalizes the indigenous image, it changes its identity, status, value, and purpose in local and larger contexts. Focusing on a school of Australian Aboriginal painting that has become popular in the contemporary art world, Robyn Ferrell traces the influence of cultural exchanges on art, the self, and attitudes toward the other.

Aboriginal acrylic painting, produced by indigenous women artists of the Australian Desert, bears a superficial resemblance to abstract expressionism and is often read as such by viewers. Yet to see this art only through a Western lens is to miss its unique ontology, logics of sensation, and rich politics and religion. Ferrell explores the culture that produces these paintings and connects its aesthetic to the brutal environmental and economic realities of its people. From here, she travels to urban locales, observing museums and department stores as they traffic interchangeably in art and commodities.

Ferrell ties the history of these desert works to global acts of genocide and dispossession. Rethinking the value of the artistic image in the global market and different interpretations of the sacred, she considers photojournalism, ecotourism, and other sacred sites of the western subject, investigating the intersection of modern art and postmodern culture. She ultimately challenges the primacy of the "European gaze" and its fascination with sacred cultures, constructing a more balanced intercultural dialogue that deemphasizes the aesthetic of the real championed by western philosophy.

The white-tailed deer had a prominent status in Maya civilization: it was the most important wild-animal food source at many inland Maya sites and also functioned as a major ceremonial symbol. Offering an in-depth semantic analysis of this imagery, The Beast Between considers iconography, hieroglyphic texts, mythological discourses, and ritual narratives to translate the significance and meaning of the vibrant metaphors expressed in a variety of artifacts depicting deer and hunting. Charting the importance of deer as a key component of the Maya diet, especially for elites, and analyzing the coupling of deer and maize in the Maya worldview, The Beast Between reveals a close and long-term interdependence between the Maya and these animals. Not only are deer depicted naturalistically in hunting and ritual scenes, but also they are assigned human attributes. This rich imagery reflects the many ways in which deer hunting was linked to status, sexuality, and war as part of a deeper process to ensure the regeneration of both agriculture and ancestry. Drawing on methodologies of art history, archaeology, and ethnology, this illuminating work is poised to become a key resource for multiple fields.

A stunning survey of the indigenous art, architecture, and spiritual beliefs of the Americas, from the Precolumbian era to the 20th century This landmark publication catalogues the Art Institute of Chicago's outstanding collection of Indian art of the Americas, one of the foremost of its kind in the United States. Showcasing a host of previously unpublished objects dating from the Precolumbian era to the 20th century, the book marks the first time these holdings have been comprehensively documented. Richard Townsend and Elizabeth Pope weave an overarching narrative that ranges from the Midwestern United States to the Yucatan Peninsula to the heart of South America. While exploring artists' myriad economic, historical, linguistic, and social backgrounds, the authors demonstrate that they shared both a deep, underlying cosmological view and the desire to secure their communities' prosperity by affirming connections to the sacred forces of the natural world. The critical essays focus on topics that bridge traditions across North, Central, and South America, including materials, methods of manufacture, the diversity of stylistic features, and the iconography and functions of various objects. Gorgeously illustrated in color with more than 500 vibrant images, this handsome catalogue serves as the definitive survey of an unparalleled collection.

A River Apart presents multi-vocal perspectives on the pottery of Cochiti and Santo Domingo Pueblos, located along the central Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico. Separated by a great river, Cochiti and Santo Domingo Pueblos shared a ceramic tradition for centuries until increasing contact with outsiders ushered in tumultuous changes that set the pueblos on divergent paths. Cochiti Pueblo more freely modified its traditional forms of painted pottery to appeal to new markets while the Santo Domingo Pueblo shunned the influences of the tourist trade and art market, continuing an artistic trajectory that was conservative and insular. A River Apart brings together a distinguished a team of anthropologists, artists, and art historians from Native and non-Native perspectives to examine the pottery traditions of the two Pueblos and decipher what discoveries can be made and identities established through these representations of material culture. As the essays reveal, the pottery represents more than anthropology's artifacts and art for the marketplace. From the pottery we learn much about the pueblos' history, myths and legends, communities, and the artist's responses to influences from the outside world. This volume is a fascinating case study in how cultures develop; how art, culture and community are interwoven; and how art is created, interpreted, valued, bought and sold. This publication is companion to an exhibition to open at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (Museum of New Mexico) in Santa Fe in Fall 2008 and featuring over 200 Santo Domingo and Cochiti pots. A River Apart is a valuable addition to the libraries of those interested in Pueblo Indian pottery, Native American arts andculture, and southwestern history and anthropology.

This book takes a generational look at the fast-changing world of the woodcarvers of Oaxaca, Mexico. These artisans became famous in the 1980s for their colourful novelty figures, a contemporary folk art that Shephard Barbash and Vicki Ragan documented in the book Oaxacan Woodcarvers. Fourteen years later, beginning in 2004, Barbash and Ragan returned to Oaxaca and discovered many changes in the lives of the woodcarvers they had known. Barbash effectively presents their personal stories in narratives drawn from interviews accompanied by Ragan's arresting black-and-white photographs of the carvers and their lives today. A series of diptychs of the same people taken in 1989-90 and again fifteen years later are accompanied by extended essay-captions on the changing circumstances shaping their lives.Faced with a glut of carvings on the market, declining sales abroad, and an unsteady supply of tourists at home, a number of Oaxacan artisans put aside their craft to become mojados, or foreign workers, drawn by the economic opportunities north of the border. With eloquence and insight, the book puts a human face on bilateralism, a fancy term to denote divided souls. From the dusty villages of Oaxaca to the orchards of Oregon and the kitchens of Chicago, the carvers have joined millions of Mexicans who, unable to find good work or sustain their recent prosperity in their own country, have fled across the border: artisans and aliens. Changing Dreams is a moving story of change and survival, conveying the growing aspirations and changing dreams of a people struggling to catch up without leaving too much behind, whose creations we enjoy but whose lives we barely understand.

This wide-ranging survey, now established as the best single-volume introduction to Andean art and architecture on the market today, describes the strikingly varied artistic achievements of the Chavin, Paracas, Moche, Nasca, Chimu and Inca cultures, among others. For this fully revised third edition, Rebecca Stone has rewritten and expanded the text throughout, touching on many of the recent discoveries and advances in the field. These include new work on the huge stone pyramids and other structures at Caral; continued excavations of Inca child sacrifices perched on mountaintops throughout the empire, with their perfectly preserved clothing and miniature offerings of metal, ceramics and shell; spectacular murals and the remarkable burial of a tattooed female warrior-leader at the Moche site of Huaca Cao Viejo; and many new finds of high-status textiles, along with fresh analyses of weaving technology and new interpretations of designs and motifs.

"This is a much needed, important collection-a goldmine of sources for scholars and students. The texts articulate the key Primitivist aesthetic discourses of the period, offering crucial insight into the complex and always changing nexus between culture, politics, and representation. Because of the breadth of the materials covered and the controversies they raise, this anthology is one of the all too rare volumes that not only will provide reference materials for years to come but also will feature centrally in classroom discussions."--Suzanne Preston Blier, author of "African Vodun: Art, Psychology, and Power

"For almost a century art historians have fretted about the notion of primitivism in the arts. This comprehensive-in both senses of the word-anthology is a peerless source of the history of responses to works categorized as 'primitive.' In its range, the book touches upon all the troubling questions-formal, anthropological, political, historical-that have bedeviled the study of the arts of Oceania, Africa, and North and South America, and provides the grounds, at last, for intelligent pursuit of keener distinctions. I regard this book as a superb contribution to the study of Modern art; in fact, indispensable."--Dore Ashton, author of "Noguchi East and West

"An extraordinarily useful and complete collection of primary documents, many translated for the first time into English, and almost all unlikely to be encountered elsewhere without serious effort. Its five sections, each with a lively and scholarly introduction, reveal the diverse views of artists and writers on primitive art from Matisse, Picasso, and Fry to many far less known and sometimes surprising figures. The bookalso uncovers the politics and aesthetics of the major museum exhibitions that gained acceptance for art that had been both reviled and mythologized. Recent texts included are all germane. This book will be invaluable for any college course on the topic."--Shelly Errington, author of "The Death of Authentic Primitive Art and Other Tales of Progress

"An exceptionally valuable anthology of seventy documents--most heretofore unavailable in English--on the ongoing controversies surrounding Primitivism and Modern art. Insightfully chosen and annotated, the collection is brilliantly introduced by Jack Flam's essay on the historical progression, contexts, and cultural complexities of more than one hundred years' ideas about Primitivism. Rich, timely, illuminating."--Herbert M. Cole, author of "Icons: Ideals and Power in the Art of Africa

The Safaitic rock art of the North Arabian basalt desert is a unique and understudied material, one of the few surviving traces of the elusive herding societies that inhabited this region in antiquity. Yet little is known about this rock art and its role in the desert societies. Why did these peoples make carvings in the desert and what was the significance of this cultural practice? What can the rock art tell us about the relationship between the nomads and their desert landscape? This book investigates these questions through a comprehensive study of over 4500 petroglyphs from the Jebel Qurma region of the Black Desert in north-eastern Jordan. It explores the content of the rock art, how it was produced and consumed by its makers and audience, and its relationship with the landscape. This is the first-ever systematic study of the Safaitic petroglyphs from the Black Desert and it is unique for the study of Arabian rock art. It demonstrates the value of a material approach to rock art and the unique insights that rock art can provide into the relationship between nomadic herders and the wild and domestic landscape.

The Arts of Kingship offers a sustained and detailed account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalākaua, the nativist and cosmopolitan ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891. Stacy Kamehiro provides visual and historical analysis of four key monuments--Kalākaua's coronation and regalia, the King Kamehameha Statue, 'Iolani Palace, and the Hawaiian National Museum--drawing them together in a common historical, political, and cultural frame. Each articulated Hawaiian national identities and navigated the turbulence of colonialism in distinctive ways and has endured as a key cultural symbol. These cultural projects were part of the monarchy's concerted effort to promote a national culture in the face of colonial pressures, internal political divisions, and declining social conditions for Native Hawaiians, which, in combination, posed serious threats to the survival of the nation. Kamehiro interprets the images, spaces, and institutions as articulations of the complex cultural entanglements and creative engagement with international communities that occur with prolonged colonial contact. Nineteenth-century Hawaiian sovereigns celebrated Native tradition, history, and modernity by intertwining indigenous conceptions of superior chiefly leadership with the apparati and symbols of Asian, American, and European rule.

Winner, 2018 Canadian Museums Association Award of Outstanding Achievement in EducationShortlisted, 2018 Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association Best Atlantic Published Book AwardNunatsiavut, the Inuit region of Canada that achieved self-government in 2005, produces art that is distinct within the world of Canadian and circumpolar Inuit art. The world's most southerly population of Inuit, the coastal people of Nunatsiavut have always lived both above and below the tree line, and Inuit artists and craftspeople from Nunatsiavut have had access to a diverse range of Arctic and Subarctic flora and fauna, from which they have produced a stunningly diverse range of work. Artists from the territory have traditionally used stone and woods for carving; fur, hide, and sealskin for wearable art; and saltwater seagrass for basketry, as well as wool, metal, cloth, beads, and paper. In recent decades, they have produced work in a variety of contemporary art media, including painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, video, and ceramics, while also working with traditional materials in new and unexpected ways. SakKijAcjuk: Art and Craft from Nunatsiavut is the first major publication on the art of the Labrador Inuit. Designed to accompany a major touring exhibition organized by The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery of St. John's, the book features more than 80 reproductions of work by 45 different artists, profiles of the featured artists, and a major essay on the art of Nunatsiavut by Heather Igloliorte. SakKijAcjuk -- "to be visible" in the Nunatsiavut dialect of Inuktitut -- provides an opportunity for readers, collectors, art historians, and art aficionados from the South and the North to come into intimate contact with the distinctive, innovative, and always breathtaking work of the contemporary Inuit artists and craftspeople of Nunatsiavut.

The Northwest Coast is the land whose aboriginal in habitants are distinguished by their large rectangular wooden houses, totems and dug-out canoes, and their dependence upon the products of the sea for their food. They placed great value upon purity of family descent and the virtue of benevolence in the disposition of property; but most conspicuous of all their traits is their highly original art.

This is a standard reference for American Indian jewelry, a source for factual information, neatly organized and lavishly illustrated in full color. Each profile identifies the artist by tribe, clan, active years, styles, lifespan, residences, education, teachers, students, awards, exhibitions, demonstrations, collections, photographs, and publications. Many profiles feature original quotations from the artists, as well as comments from scholars, collectors and veterans in the field. Personal portrait pictures and close-ups of their jewelry help to bring their biographies to life.

This book shows, through painstaking research and documentation of artifacts and practices, how art pervades the everyday life of the people of the Sulu Archipelago, such that no divide exists between beauty and function, between artistry and utility.

Native art on the Northwest Coast is very much alive and increasing in both artistry and volume. Over 400 color photographs of old and recent artwork have been selected with the collector in mind. Totems, drums, rattles boxes and canoes join the many masks displayed here. Many pieces are shown from several sides and the back to give a complete picture of the work. Master carvers as well as younger artists are featured. The text guides readers to better understand the complex society, its artwork, and current values.

Sandpainting has it origin in the religious tradition and practice of the Navajo people. It forms a central part of their religious chants, being a place where Earth People and Holy People come into harmony, giving healing and protection. Sandpainting is understood as being very powerful, and for many years it was deemed unwise and even dangerous not to erase the paintings when the ritual was completed. In the course of the twentieth century this attitude has modified allowing for many representations to be made, while still not violating the religious traditions. Sandpainting thus have come to be an internationally appreciated and collected art form. In this newly revised and expanded volume, over 400 sandpaintings are illustrated in full color. They range from the most traditional to the new forms that are being developed today. The sandpaintings are organized by artist, making this an important reference for collectors.