Nov. 3rd - Nov. 7th  2014 - 2015   Native American week 2 Southwest Hopi/ Navajo

Native American of the Southwest

Hopi/ Pueblo cliff dwellers and Kachina ceremony and dry farmers

Desert Hunters Navajo (Hogan dwellers)

Sand painters, weavers, and potters

Transparencies were shown throughout.

Here is a map of the all the different tribal locations.  Last week we studied the Native Am. of the Northwest.  Today we will move to the southwest. ****The Native Americans of the southwest include the Hopi and Pueblo Indians.  These people were primarily farmers who practiced a type of farming called dry farming.  It rains less than 10 inches a year in the southwest desert and sometimes there are droughts ( times when it does not rain for years).  The average temp. is around 100 degrees in the summer.  But with no heat-retaining moisture the temp. get very cold at night year around.  In the winter the temp. plunge well below freezing.  The Native Am’s lives and beliefs of this area are deeply shaped by the environment and geography. First of all, they make their homes from a special  desert clay called “adobe”.  The houses they build out of the “adobe” are called  Pueblos.******1 a

 They are like apartment buildings and many families live in them together. They often build them in the cliffs of the rocks and and on the sides of the mountains.  They are often called cliff dwellers because of this.  This house proctects them from the blistering heat and extreme cold as well as floods and blizzards of winter.  To enter the Pueblo you have to climb a wooden ladder and then descend into the house for protection. In the summer they sleep out on the roof under the stars to keep cool.  In the winter and when  it rains they go inside for shelter.  Their main crop is corn. They grow a special kind of corn with very long roots that can tap into the water underground.  They also learned to build dams and irrigation canals to help keep their crops alive.  Every one had a job to do to keep the corps alive. ****1b

 Some planted, some weeded, some kept the pests away.  They all worked together respected nature and prayed to their Kachina’s or spirits for a great crop when it came time to harvest the corn. ****1c 

The Kachinas were thought to live among them and came to them in a special ceremony where the men of the tribe would wear special Kachina costumes and masks.  They believe that the spirit of the Kachina brought the rains and helped the crops to grow. The also believed that they taught the people how to live and behave and brought peace and harmony to the tribes.  There are hundreds of different types of Kachinas. ****2

Each one brings a different gift.   It took years of training to become a Kachina dancer. During the Kachina festival they hand out small wooden kachina dolls to the children to help teach them about the different Kachina. ***3 They would play hide and seek with them and trade them between each other. ****5, 6, 7

Kachina are a type of art used for a ceremonial purpose. 

Below are some of the students Kachina's

Navajo of the Southwest

Here is a map of the all the different tribal locations.  Last week we studied the Native Am. of the Northwest.  Today we will move to the southwest.  The Navajo of the Southwest live in the desert.*****1 Today the Navajo live in an area of the Southwest called a reservation.   It rains less than 10 inches a year in the southwest desert and sometimes there are droughts ( times when it does not rain for years).  The average temp. is around 100 degrees in the summer.  But with no heat-retaining moisture the temp. get very cold at night year around.  In the winter the temp. plunge well below freezing.  The Native Am’s lives and beliefs of this area are deeply shaped by the environment and geography. 

The Navajo’s home is called a Hogan.****2  At first the Hogan was simply a hole dug out of the ground and covered with a mat of leaves and twigs.  As the Navajo became farmers and sheep herders, their homes became more permanent.  Today a Hogan sit on top of the ground.  It has six sides with a very low roof.  It is made of wooden logs for structure and packed with adobe mud or clay.  There is a single doorway which is covered with a woven rug.  The doorway of a Hogan always faces the direction that the sun rises in the morning. A hole is left in the center of the Hogan to allow the smoke from their fire out.   It only has one room. They do not live together with others, but live one family at a time very far apart.  The Navajo like all other Native American Either make their art for Functional purposes, ceremonial purposes or narrative purposes to help them tell a story.  The rug and baskets  they weave serve a functional purpose of keeping out the weather from their homes and to help keep them warm and to help them carry things in everyday life.***3 , 4  They use a loom to make their beautiful creations.***5  They make the different dies for the wool they get from their sheep from different plants they find growing around them.****6  They are also wonderful potters and made clay pots for everyday use that were decorated with designs or pictographs that could also tell a story or just be for decoration. It is said that their designs emerge from the weavers’ memories and that their is always a break in the pattern so that the spirit of the maker could escape.***7 In other words all things a thought to have a spirit and therefore are sacred.  They also made beautiful jewelry out of silver and turquoise found in that area of the country.***8  Another art from is called sand painting.  They colored the sand and made beautiful designs with it. This is a temporary form of art that would be erased and started over after time.****9

Below are their Navajo rug designs.