An Enigmatic Creature
INSIGHTS ON THE HISTORY AND CHARACTERISTICS OF PUEBLO POTTERY OWLS.
Insights on the history and characteristics of Pueblo pottery owls.
In 1879, Col. James D. Stevenson, who was executive officer of the U.S. Geological Survey, headed west to research and collect Pueblo pottery with his wife, ethnologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson. Among the places that the couple traveled to was the Zuni Pueblo, where they discovered not only the traditional utilitarian vessels, but also animal effigies including pottery owls. The analyses and information on what they collected would be chronicled in the Bureau of Ethnology Annual Reports, bringing the knowledge of these items to all parts of the United States.
The following year, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, making Pueblo pottery accessible to tourists, and these often humorous and small-scale owls captured the attention of buyers. Steve Elmore, owner of Steve Elmore Indian Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, says, “Stevenson collecting [pottery owls] before the railroad is important because they’re not just pottery that was made to sell to tourists. There weren’t many tourists in Zuni for a long time because they’re not near the railroad.” While, he explains, the exact reasons why they were created is not fully understood, it is possible they were initially children’s toys.
Lyn Fox, of Lyn A. Fox Fine Pueblo Pottery in Santa Fe, mentions that animal figures—owls and otherwise— may also have been created for ceremonial or ritual purposes prior to the railroad. Adding to Elmore’s sentiment, Fox notes the pieces became popular with tourists because they loved the animal imagery and the works were easy to transport. He says, “[The animal figures] were an important part of the beginning of Pueblo pottery as an art form in the Southwest.”
In Native American cultures, the folklore of the owl varies depending on the tribe. For some the owl is an ominous bird of the night, while others revere the owl for its connections to hunting and its wisdom. Through February 2020, the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, New Mexico, will exhibit Majestic Owls, featuring pottery, katsina dolls, paintings and more depicting the enigmatic creature. The focus of the show, with
34 different objects from the museum’s collection on display, reaches beyond the art to the symbolism of the owl.
“What was interesting to me in doing research for the show was that the tribes that are more isolated from other communities have a completely different view of the owl than those that are farther north,” says Carmela Quinto, curator of collections at the museum. “Up here in the north, there is wariness about owls and their association with witchcraft. As you go farther south, it changes, and there is more of calling on the owl to help with hunting and wisdom.”
She further explains that for many Native, and Hispanic, families in the Southwest, “Elders believed that witches or people who practiced ‘bad’ medicine were believed to be able to shape-shift or transform into owls or to use owls to send death or disease. You could never quite be sure if an owl you saw was a real
owl, a transformed witch or an owl sent on a mission by a witch. Therefore, all owls were avoided.”
Yet, Quinto says, Zunis and Hopis, in particular, associate the animal with wisdom and being a bird of prey. “At Zuni, the owl is the protector of the home and the keeper of the night. He is able to see what others cannot see. He has wisdom and patience. He controls the dark side of nature,” she explains. “At Hopi the owl symbolizes intelligence and wisdom. The Hopi feel the Mongwa Katsina is beneficial to agriculture, keeping their fields free of rodents. Mongwa, the Great Horned Owl, is also seen at village dances to knock sense into the kastina clowns.”
Thus, the predominant makers of pottery owls have been Zuni and its sister Pueblo, Acoma. One of the most recognized of the Zuni artists was Nellie Bica (1905-1998), whose aunt taught her to make the owls in her teens. Bica, who worked steadily on her owl figures from the 1920s to 1960s, then passed down
the artistry to her daughter and three granddaughters. Other Pueblos also have makers who are known for their owl pottery, such as Jemez, and individual artists from San Ildefonso and Cochiti have used the imagery. Regardless of the tribe, all of the pottery owls are three-dimensional figures designed in the form of an owl rather than painted onto vessels. The older versions often have feet and then developed to rounded bases before contemporary artists began making them in a number of styles.
“What I see in pottery owls and animals, and going way back—and maybe it’s continued today— is they served a function for beginning potters and experienced potters,” says Fox. “Beginning potters could make the animals because sometimes they were easier to make than large water jars that had to be painted very precisely. They could get their chops and make money by making animals. There are some that are pretty sophisticated and made by the more sophisticated potters. But sometimes they look like a 7-year-old made them, and sometimes I think that they did…because they started with the animals.”
The pottery owls can also be seen as tied to storyteller pottery. Some are simple designs of just one owl, while other pieces have multiple owls on the same figure. “When artists have added wings to the bigger owls, those were their earlier storytellers,” says Elmore. “Then, adding chicks to the body of the mother owl is a precursor of the storyteller figures out of Cochiti. By the time a potter is putting two or three or four owls on the mother, they are storytellers, but there’s not a story being told so it’s a bit of a gray area. It’s an interesting situation for those of us who are nuts about pottery.”
A number of artists have continued the tradition of making owls, including Maxine Toya of the Jemez Pueblo, Anderson Jamie Peynetsa of Zuni and Jackie Shutiva of Acoma, to name a few. They are using the methods that their families have passed down to them—gathering the Native clay, coiling the form and firing in the earth—but often with more contemporary shapes and visuals. One of Toya’s newer pieces, for instance, has the owl in a cylindrical shape as if it were a totem, while Peynetsa’s owls often have intricate geometric designs painted on the surface.
Past and present, pottery owls have been captivating to collectors and its presence within the marketplace has only continued to grow. Many of the buyers, as Elmore says, have a “passion” for the various sizes, shapes and designs that are available. “It’s up to the collector’s enjoyment and discretion on what they buy,” Elmore adds, “and that’s the fun of it.”