The Heard Museum is regarded as the best museum in Phoenix. The primary focus is the advancement of American Indian art and history.
Sculpture at the Heard Museum entrance: Intertribal Greeting of the Pima, Pueblo, Hopi, Dine and Apache nations.“Indigenous Evolution” by Tony Jojola and Rosemary Lonewolf, 2004. This art fence references the land of the Southwest and the organic fences built by Native people from materials such as adobe, ocotillo or saguaro cactus. This fence harmonizes colors of the Southwest in clay and glass. The fence begins with darker colors, then continues (right to left in the picture here) with brighter colors representing land and sky.“Tse-ping” by Roxanne Swentsell, 1991. “Tse-ping” means bellybutton. In the Tewa world the bellybutton in the center of the world. Each pueblo has a bellybutton. Here, the bowl is the bellybutton, symbolizing the center of the earth.This from the collection on Katsina dolls of former Senator Barry Goldwater.La Plata black-on-white bowl, 600-800 AD. The circular design, perhaps a sun, was painted on other bowls from the La Plata Valley in New Mexico just south of the Colorado state line. When this bowl was made, people lived in pithouse groupings of from one to twelve houses on the mesa tops.Ancestral Pueblo, Lino black-on-gray bowl, 500-600 AD.Ancestral Pueblo black-on-white mugs from the Mesa Verde area, 1200-1300 AD. These types of mugs are so standardized that archaeologists think there may have been just a few places where the pottery was produced.Pueblo oven.Zuni jewelry.More Zuni jewelry.Navajo Hogan. This is referred to a a female hogan because it simulates the roundness of the female body of Mother Earth. Once this was the primary Navajo home. Although not used as primary homes today, they are still used for Navajo ceremonies.Every year, Hopi farmers plants their fields of blue, white, multi-colored and sweet corn. Each type of corn has its purpose and use in Hopi life. Piki is a bread made from blue corn and prepared in a unique manner. Piki is made on a piki stone with the fire opening on the right.“Kopatsoki” headpieces. Hopi girls wear these headpieces participating in the Butterfly Dance, a social dance held in late summer following the corn harvest. Those in the top row are from 1893-1913, the middle row from the 1950s-1980s, the bottom row from the early 1900s-1950s.Items from a Hopi wedding.Hohokam bowl, 300-750 AD. This is the oldest Hohokam piece in the Heard Museum.Left: Tohono O’odham Celkona (Rain) Ceremony. Right: Tohono O’odham family traveling between a summer and winter village. Both figures were created in 1979.Akimel O’otham basket, 1920s. This design was usually worked on a fairly flat basket. Creating this design on this shape would have been quite difficult.Tohono O’otham basket, 1970s.Masks.On the top row, Apache playing cards, 1885, made of rawhide, based on Spanish cards they obtained in the 1600s. The four suits are clubs, cups, coins and swords.Basket designs from different tribes.Western Apache basket, early 1900s, featuring horses and humans.Apache polychrome basket from the 1920s. They added color – red.Special exhibition on American Indian Boarding Schools.Schoolroom scene.Typical Indian School daily schedule.Dorm room.Clothing from Indian School student.Items from recent Indian School sports.Indian School band and choir clothing.
