Chavin De Huantar 900200 Bce Ap Arts Structure 40 Yaxchilan Ap Arts

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, the Dakotas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming—all state names derived from Native American sources. Pontiac, moose, raccoon, pecan, kayak, squash, chipmunk, Winnebago. These mutual words also derive from different Native words and demonstrate the influence these groups have had on the Usa.

Pontiac, for instance, was an 18th century Ottawa chief (also called Obwandiyag), who fought against the British in the Great Lakes region. The word "moose," offset used in English language in the early on seventeenth century during colonization, comes from Algonquian languages.

Stereotypes

"Balboa and the Indian Princess," 1906, in Frederick A., Ober, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa (New York, Harper, 1906), p. 68

Stereotypes persist when discussing Native American arts and cultures, and sadly many people remain unaware of the complicated and fascinating histories of Native peoples and their art. As well many people yet imagine a warrior or chief on horseback wearing a feathered headdress, or a beautiful young "princess" in an animal hide dress (what we now phone call the Indian Princess). Popular civilization and movies perpetuate these images, and homogenize the incredible diversity of Native groups across North America. There are too many dissimilar languages, cultural traditions, cosmologies, and ritual practices to adequately make broad statements about the cultures and arts of the Indigenous peoples of what is now the United states and Canada.

In the past, the term "archaic" has been used to depict the art of Native tribes and Starting time Nations. This term is deeply problematic—and reveals the distorted lens of colonialism through which these groups take been seen and misunderstood. Subsequently contact, Europeans and Euro-Americans ofttimes conceived of the Amerindian peoples of North America equally noble savages (a primitive, uncivilized, and romanticized "Other"). This legacy has affected the reception and appreciation of Native arts, which is why much of information technology was initially nerveless by anthropological (rather than art) museums. Many people viewed Native objects as curiosities or equally specimens of "dying" cultures—which in role explains why many objects were stolen or otherwise acquired without blessing of Native peoples. Many sacred objects, for example, were removed and put on display for non-Native audiences. While much has changed, this legacy lives on, and it is important to be enlightened of and overcome the many stereotypes and biases that persist from prior centuries.

Repatriation

One pregnant step that has been taken to correct some of this colonial legacy has been NAGPRA, or the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1992. This is a U.S. federal police force that dictates that "human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony, referred to collectively in the statute equally cultural items" exist returned to tribes if they can demonstrate "lineal descent or cultural affiliation." Many museums in the U.S. have been actively trying to repatriate items and human remains. For example, in 2011, a museum returned a wooden box drum, a hide robe, wooden masks, a headdress, a rattle, and a piping to the Tlingít T'akdeintaan Clan of Hoonah, Alaska. These objects were purchased in 1924 for $500.

In the 19th century, many groups were violently forced from their ancestral homelands onto reservations. This is an important cistron to call up when reading the essays and watching the videos in this department considering the art changes—sometimes very dramatically—in response to these upheavals. You might read elsewhere that objects created afterward these transformations are somehow less authentic because of the influence of European or Euro-American materials and subjects on Native fine art. However, it is crucial that nosotros do non view those artworks as somehow less culturally valuable simply considering Native men and women responded to new and sometimes radically changed circumstances.

Many twentieth and 20-offset century artists, including Oscar Howe (Yanktonai Sioux), Alex Janvier (Chipewyan [Dene]) and Robert Davidson (Haida), don't consider themselves to work outside of so-called "traditional arts." In 1958, Howe even wrote a famous letter commenting on his methods when his work was denounced by Philbrook Indian Art Annual Jurors as not existence "authentic" Native fine art:

Who e'er said that my paintings are not in the traditional Indian style has poor noesis of Indian art indeed. There is much more to Indian Fine art than pretty, stylized pictures. There was too power and strength and individualism (emotional and intellectual insight) in the old Indian paintings. Every bit in my paintings is a true, studied fact of Indian paintings. Are we to be held back forever with one stage of Indian painting, with no right for individualism, dictated to equally the Indian has always been, put on reservations and treated like a child, and only the White Man knows what is best for him? Now, even in Art, 'You little kid do what we think is best for you, nothing unlike." Well, I am non going to stand for it. Indian Fine art can compete with any Art in the world, simply not every bit a suppressed Fine art…. ^ane

More than terms and issues

The word Indian is considered offensive to many peoples. The term derives from the Indies, and was coined after Christopher Columbus bumped into the Caribbean islands in 1492, assertive, mistakenly, that he had found Republic of india. Other terms are every bit problematic or generic. You might encounter many different terms to describe the peoples in North America, such as Native American, American Indian, Amerindian, Ancient, Native, Ethnic, First Nations, and First Peoples.

Native American is used here considering people are most familiar with this term, yet we must be aware of the issues it raises. The term applies to peoples throughout the Americas, and the Native peoples of North America, from Panama to Alaska and northern Canada, are incredibly various. Information technology is therefore important to stand for individual cultures as much equally we possibly tin can. The essays here utilise specific tribal and Get-go Nations names so as non to homogenize or lump peoples together. On Smarthistory, the artworks listed under Native American Art are just those from the United States and Canada, while those in Mexico and Central America are located in other sections.

You lot might also run into words like tribes, clans, or bands in relation to the social groups of unlike Native communities. The U.s. authorities refers to an Indigenous grouping as a "tribe," while the Canadian government uses the term "ban." Many communities in Canada prefer the term "nation."

Identity

In guild to exist legally classified as an Indigenous person in the United States and Canada, an individual must be officially listed equally belonging to a specific tribe or band. This effect of identity is obviously a sensitive one, and serves as a reminder of the continuing touch of colonial policy. Many gimmicky artists, including James Luna (Pooyukitchum/Luiseño) and Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith (from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Indian Nation), accost the problem of who gets to decide who or what an Indian is in their piece of work.

Luna'sArtifact Slice (1987) andTake a Picture with a Real Indian (1993) both confront issues of identity and stereotypes of Native peoples. InArtifact Piece, Luna placed himself into a glass vitrine (similar the ones we oftentimes see in museums) as if he were a static artifact, a relic of the past, accompanied by personal items like pictures of his family. InAccept a Picture with a Existent Indian, Luna asks his audience to come up accept a pic with him. He changes clothes three times. He wears a loincloth, so a loincloth with a feather and a bone breastplate, and and then what nosotros might call "street clothes." Nigh people choose to take a picture with him in the former ii, and so Luna draws attention to the problematic thought that somehow he is less authentically Native when dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

Even the naming conventions applied to peoples need to be revisited. In the past, the Navajo term "Anasazi" was used to name the ancestors of modern-day Puebloans. Today, "Ancestral Puebloans" is considered more adequate. Likewise, "Eskimo" designated peoples in the Chill region, only this word has fallen out of favor considering it homogenizes the Offset Nations in this expanse. In general, it is always preferable to use a tribe or Nation'due south specific name when possible, and to do then in its own language.

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1. Oscar Howe and the Philbrook Museum of Art, 1958

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Boosted resources:

Interview with James Luna for the Smithsonian

The National Museum of the American Indian

NAGPRA explained by the NMAI

Janet Catherine Berlo and Ruth B. Phillips, Native North American Art , 2d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

Brian M. Fagan, Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent , 4th ed. (London: Thames and Hudson, 2005).

David Due west. Penney, N American Indian Fine art  (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2004).

Karen Kramer Russell, ed., Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art  (New Oasis: Yale University Press, 2012).

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Source: https://smarthistory.org/terms-and-issues-in-native-american-art-2/