A selection of Nampeyo's pottery from ASM's permanent collections.
ASM’s Nampeyo Pottery
ASM’s peerless Southwest Indigenous ceramic collection includes more than 700 historic Hopi and Hopi-Tewa pots. Many of them came to the museum with excellent historic and cultural documentation. Over two dozen are identified as having been made by renowned Hopi-Tewa potter Nampeyo (c. 1858–1942), either alone or with family members. ASM also cares for pottery by her children, grandchildren, and subsequent generations, who have carried on the family traditions that Nampeyo inspired almost 150 years ago. This exhibit presents pieces that have been attributed to Nampeyo, and to extend the Nampeyo family story, pottery made by her three daughters and her oldest granddaughter is also presented.
Who Was Nampeyo?
Nampeyo, Arizona’s best-known Native potter of the twentieth century, was born in the Hopi-Tewa village of Tewa Village (Hano) on First Mesa. Her mother, White Corn, was Hopi-Tewa and her father, Quootsva, was Hopi from Walpi. Nampeyo learned to make utilitarian pottery in the Tewa style from her mother. She learned Hopi decorated pottery traditions when she married a Hopi man named Lesso (sometimes spelled Lessou), also from Walpi. Nampeyo drew upon both traditions as she developed a style that was to launch her artistic career and inspire many of her descendants to become potters as well.
Nampeyo is her mid-70s, holding a jar she is smoothing, 1935. Tad Nichols, photographer. Northern Arizona University Library, #NAU.PH.99.3.6.16b.
Nampeyo coiling a vessel in a basin used as a "puki" (base mold), 1901. Adam Clark Vroman, photographer, Smithsonian Institution photo #32357-F. Note utilitarian pottery in the background.
Gallery of Nampeyo Pottery | Timeline of Nampeyo's Life
Quotskuyva Family Commentary | Nampeyo's Pottery-Manufacturing Stages
Additional ASM Pottery with Possible Nampeyo Attributions | Daughters in Clay
References and Acknowledgements
Sikyatki Polychrome jar, c. 1350–1625 CE. Nampeyo’s signature "flying saucer"–shaped jars, with complex design composition derived from Sikyatki Polychromes, such as this stunning example. Diameter 41.1 cm. (ASM #GP-4730).
This jar has a design that to the modern eye reads as a propeller. Dextra Quotskuyva used elements from this jar in one of her pots: "I designed this one already (see Struever 2001:Fig. 22 for one example). Now, I remember when I saw it, because I remember when somebody asked me what that was. No, it's not a propeller….The Martians were here early (she chuckles)..." Dextra Quotskuyva, 1998
Nampeyo Family Collaborators
Because Nampeyo worked in tandem with relatives, especially as she aged and her eyesight declined, identifying her solo work can be a major challenge. (The timeframe for the progression of her loss of sight is not known exactly.) Beginning at least by the early 1900s, Nampeyo would form vessels, and the designs would be painted by her daughters Annie Healing, Fannie Lesou Polacca, and Nellie Lesou Douma, and later by her granddaughters Rachel Healing Namingha and Daisy Healing Naha Hooee, along with her neighbor Lena Charlie (whose father was a member of the Corn Clan, but was not directly related to Nampeyo), and perhaps others.
Nampeyo’s husband, Lesso, more than likely also painted pots. This possible shared effort has been the source of considerable spirited discussion among Nampeyo scholars and enthusiasts through the years. So far, no pottery definitively known to have been painted by Lesso has emerged, although one vessel at the Denver Art Museum has his name penciled on its base. Nor are there any photographs that corroborate such a role. Hopi Edmund Nequatewa wrote, after Nampeyo’s death in 1942, that Lesso helped Nampeyo with her pottery and was a good painter: “He really was as good as his wife and should rightly get credit” (1943:42). Pottery making at Hopi, as in other Pueblo communities, is a family affair, so it is reasonable to assume that Lesso would have pitched in somehow. Nequatewa may have overstated Lesso’s skill, however. Given the extensive publicity that fellow Tewa potters Maria and Julian Martinez of San Ildefonso garnered while working as a couple, surely Lesso’s contributions would have received credit if he had been willing.
Lesso’s descendants have commented on his pottery painting. Daughter Daisy Hooee was quoted by Rick Dillingham (1994:41) as saying: “Her [Nampeyo’s] husband Lesso, he helped – he sure could paint, that old man too.” And Lesso’s great-granddaughter Dextra Quotskuyva noted that “Lesso drew designs for Nampeyo to use based upon Sikyatki pottery being excavated, and because of this it confirmed he knew how to paint” (King 2017:35, 157).
Lesso’s absence from the many photos of Nampeyo at work might be explained as either a marketing decision, hesitancy on Lesso’s part to be photographed engaging in a traditionally female occupation, or his reluctance to be photographed at all (see photo below of the family at the Grand Canyon, with Lesso’s back toward the photographer). He did agree to pose alone for several photographs by Adam Clark Vroman (Blair and Blair 1999:76). Lesso’s involvement in the Nampeyo family enterprise is a subject ripe for further investigation. However, it may prove challenging unless new information comes to light.
Nampeyo (right) and her daughter, Annie, c. 1900. Sumner W. Matteson, photographer. Courtesy Denver Public Library.
"An Indian Living Room," Hopi House, Grand Canyon, 1905. William Henry Jackson, photographer. Colorado Historical Society #WHJ18137. Nampeyo with children and husband, Lesso, tending a pottery firing in the room's corner fireplace.
The Nampeyo Imprimatur
Selected examples of pottery in the ASM collection are signed with Nampeyo’s name or are otherwise labeled as Nampeyo’s in writing directly on the base. One jar has a paper label, identified as a Fred Harvey Company tag, which reads: “Made by Nampeyo-Hopi.” It is likely that her daughters, at times, signed their mother’s name to collaborative works, and traders and dealers may have as well. In one instance, a collector’s name, along with “Nampuya,” was written before firing onto the base of a jar (ASM #E-2273, discussed later). Through publication of these "signatures" on ASM vessels, it is hoped that researchers can gain further insight into the past practices of labeling Nampeyo’s pottery.
Gila Polychrome pottery with the birdwing designs that Nampeyo favored. Both came to ASM as gifts from the Gila Pueblo Foundation in 1950. Left: Gila Polychrome jar, Salado, Globe-Miami Province, c. 1300–1450 CE, Gila Pueblo, Gila County, AZ. Diameter 19 cm. (ASM #GP-8702). Right: Gila Polychrome bowl, Salado, Tonto-Roosevelt Province, c. 1300–1450 CE,
Keystone Ruin. Diameter 29 cm. (ASM #GP-49023).
Ancestral Hopi Pottery
Contributed by Dr. E. Charles Adams, 2000
Nampeyo is famous for her Sikyatki revival–style pottery. Sikyatki is the name of an enormous ancient Hopi village on the east flank of First Mesa that was abandoned about 1500. The abandonment of Sikyatki is said in Hopi oral tradition to have been due to a dispute with Walpi, whose descendants still reside on top of First Mesa, that resulted in the destruction of Sikyatki.
Sikyatki was partially excavated by Jesse Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian Institution in 1895. His excavations focused on the Sikyatki cemetery areas as well as the rooms of the pueblo. Nampeyo visited the excavation with her husband, Lesso, and was inspired by the finely made, impeccably decorated pottery jars and bowls that were being removed.
Fewkes noted Nampeyo and Lesso’s visits to his excavation:
Nampeo [Nampeyo] and her husband, Lesou [Lesso], came to his [Fewkes’s] camp, borrowed paper and pencil, and copied many of the ancient symbols found on the pottery vessels unearthed, and these she has reproduced on pottery of her own manufacture many times since that date (Fewkes 1919:279n2).
However, it is clear that Nampeyo was making innovative pottery based on ancient forms and designs before Fewkes’s work at Sikyatki. She was encouraged by Thomas Keam, who operated the trading post at what is now known as Keams Canyon beginning in 1875 (Blair and Blair 1999:33). The brilliantly painted pottery from Sikyatki continued to exert an influence on Nampeyo’s style throughout her life. The largely polychrome designs particularly emphasized highly stylized birds, especially macaws, although Sikyatki period potters employed a wide range of imagery. Unfortunately, the identities of any late-nineteenth-century potters, who also may well have possessed skill and creativity, are still largely unknown.
Nampeyo also drew inspiration from, and at times replicated, earlier ancestral Hopi pottery types, such as Jeddito and Awatovi Black-on-yellow, plus some of the earlier regional black-on-white traditions. In addition, some motifs found on these wares, dating around 1300–1500, are incorporated into the designs of later Sikyatki pottery.
Fewkes published several books on the pottery at Hopi, especially Sikyatki wares. These publications have since been reprinted from the original Bureau of American Ethnology series (see Bibliography below). In these, he uses Hopi and his own classifications of the iconography to interpret the meaning of the designs.
An example of Sikyatki Polychrome pottery from Homol'ovi II, c. 1390, depicting a katsina. 1992-99-152