Ute Indian Arts Culture

Focuses on arts and culture of the Ute tribes. This book contains essays contributed by Ute cultural leaders and by other scholars, revealing the richness of Ute material culture. It is illustrated with colour photographs of 139 historic artefacts and over 40 contemporary works, as well as many historic photographs of Ute life.

American Indian art has a long history and a vibrant and active modern-day community, something that has long interested collectors, historians, and anthropologists. In My Tree of Life as an Appraiser of American Indian ArtMy Viewpoint, author Leona M. Zastrow offers an examination of the past and present of American Indian art from her viewpoint as an art appraiser. She presents facts and details about Southwest American Indian art, considering its history and transitions and offers snapshot views of American Indian art. She also describes how people can donate their work to nonprofit organizations, explains several federal laws concerning Indian artists, and profiles several American Indian artists who created many of the items featured in these pages, including potters, jewelers, weavers, carvers, printers, and painters. Presented from the unique perspective of an appraiser, this collection of articles, originally written for a Santa Fe area publication, shines a new light on American Indian Art. A perfect reflection of a life lived in harmony with her roles as friend, teacher, appraiser, and collector of American Indian Art. Throughout the pages, we are offered a unique insight into a many-faceted world of wondrous American Indian art. Dr. Ginny Brouch, Phoenix, Arizona

The baskets, blankets, rugs, pottery, jewellery, sandpaintings, dolls, and beadwork created by the Native Americans of the Southwest are all so unique and fascinating. This book is a good introduction to the work that goes into the creations.

“This book is the most comprehensively global and critically sensitive synthesis of what we now know of the material and socio-cultural evolution of the so-called First Societies. Written by a distinguished architectural historian and theorist, this truly remarkable and indispensable study shows how the material culture of our forebears, from building to clothing, food, ritual and dance, was inextricably bound up with the mode of survival obtained in a particular place and time...It is a study that will surely become required reading for every student of material culture.”—Kenneth Frampton Starting with the dawn of human society, through early civilizations, to the pre-Columbian American tribes, Architecture of First Societies: A Global Perspective traces the different cultural formations that developed in various places throughout the world to form the built environment. Looking through the lens of both time and geography, the history of early architecture is brought to life with full-color photographs, maps, and drawings. Drawing on the latest research in archaeological and anthropological knowledge, this landmark book also looks at how indigenous societies build today in order to help inform the past.

The first collection of essays on public history in the American West.

Social and behavioral scientists study religion or spirituality in various ways and have defined and approached the subject from different perspectives. In cultural anthropology and archaeology the understanding of what constitutes religion involves beliefs, oral traditions, practices and rituals, as well as the related material culture including artifacts, landscapes, structural features and visual representations like rock art. Researchers work to understand religious thoughts and actions that prompted their creation distinct from those created for economic, political, or social purposes. Rock art landscapes convey knowledge about sacred and spiritual ecology from generation to generation. Contributors to this global view detail how rock art can be employed to address issues regarding past dynamic interplays of religions and spiritual elements. Studies from a number of different cultural areas and time periods explore how rock art engages the emotions, materializes thoughts and actions and reflects religious organization as it intersects with sociopolitical cultural systems.

This study focuses on the cultural-historical environment of the 88,900-acre (35,560-ha) Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) over the past four centuries of Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. governance. It includes a review and synthesis of available published and unpublished historical, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic literature about the human occupation of the area now contained within the VCNP. Documents include historical maps, texts, letters, diaries, business records, photographs, land and mineral patents, and court testimony.‍?‍?This study presents a cultural-historical framework of VCNP land use that will be useful to land managers and researchers in assessing the historical ecology of the property. It provides VCNP administrators and agents the cultural-historical background needed to develop management plans that acknowledge traditional associations with the Preserve, and offers managers additional background for structuring and acting on consultations with affiliated communities.