THEY CAME BACK
Poeh Cultural Center reunites more than 100 years of Tewa Pueblo ancestral pottery with the descendants of the original makers.
Ah, the emotions a homecoming can generate…for those who greet and welcome home the traveler, and for those who have been away from home so very long and at long last have returned. While some may not consider a new gallery exhibit a homecoming, for members of the six Tewa Pueblos, the one debuting in October at the Poeh Cultural Center in the Santa Fe, New Mexico, area is just that, and so much more.
“Di Wae Powa,” which translates to “They Came Back,” is the name of this amazing display of pottery on loan from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Approximately 100 pots were culled out of the Smithsonian’s vast collection of well over 500 pieces just in Tewa pottery alone. Dr. Cynthia Chavez Lamar, who is the assistant director of collections with the NMAI, says the museum acquired all of this pottery through purchases and donations.
“It could have been directly from Pueblo people themselves,” she says. “Or it could have been other collectors, or it could have been from at that time, maybe a trading post. It just varied.”
Keeping items like this pottery goes to the heart of what the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is all about, according to Chavez Lamar. She says, “We store collections from Native communities across the Western Hemisphere. Part of our mission and our purpose is to make these collections accessible to Native and Indigenous communities, so we’re 100 percent on board with working with them to acquire a loan of the collections here.”
This partnership started with some questions back in 2010 if this was even possible. Chavez Lamar says it started getting serious in 2015 when the Smithsonian began offering different sessions at the cultural
research center in Maryland where the collection is kept, as well as at the Poeh Cultural Center back in New Mexico. “Part of this initiative is not just about making the loan, but it’s also figuring out how and what can we learn from one another,” she says. “What can NMAI offer in terms of technical assistance and professional development to the Poeh Cultural Center…and what can the Poeh Cultural Center and its staff and advisors teach NMAI about the significance and meaning of this pottery?”
It started with nine of the pots coming to the Center a few years ago as sort of a trial run. Those have been proudly displayed in the Poeh Cultural Center, and with the success of this first loan, both sides pushed ahead with getting the rest of the chosen pots back to New Mexico.
Poeh executive director Karl Duncan says he and his staff are very excited about the project. “We’ve been working on this for years with a lot of Pueblo advisors,” he says. “And going from concept on paper to the building renovated and ready for it…it’s hard to believe it’s going to happen.”
The Poeh Cultural Center celebrates the culture of the six Tewa-speaking Pueblos in Northern New Mexico: Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, Ohkay Owingeh, Santa Clara, Tesuque and Nambe. The center reached out to Pueblo potters and potter families to become advisors and help pull this together. This team also took part
in deciding which 100 pots ranging from the mid-19th century to 1930 would make the final cut.
“We talked with the potters on what pots they wanted to bring back,” says Duncan. “The requirements were nothing after 1930, or pots that had any signatures on them and the pots couldn’t be of any ceremonial or sacred use. We wanted the public and the Native community here to feel comfortable with them and be able to utilize them.”
It’s a wide variety of styles and sizes as well, from the small to “really big dough bowls,” which Pueblo potter Evonne Snowflake Martinez says are huge. “I was just amazed about how the polish was, how even, polished all the way around. Some of them are polychrome, and they have beautiful designs.”
Chavez Lamar says the Poeh Cultural Center also wanted to show the depth of Tewa pottery over two centuries, which is why they deliberately chose not to include signed pieces. “Typically, when you see exhibitions of Pueblo pottery, they’re highlighting known potters… so we tend to see in exhibitions some of the same kind of pottery,” she says. “So in this case, they wanted to really highlight other pieces that showed the diversity of the pottery traditions across all of the Pueblos.”
Martinez is from a Pueblo potting family and teaches sewing classes for traditional dresses over at the cultural center. She’s on the advisory committee for this exhibit, and has been to Washington, D.C., to go through the collection. When she first stepped
inside the room where the pots are stored, she was overtaken with emotion. “It was just overwhelming with the pots there, the connection, and just… walking into the room, where you’re seeing it, and you just feel that spiritual connection,” she explains.
Martinez remembers when she was 4 or 5 years old, watching her own grandfather, Joe Aguilar, work on pots, often lulling her to sleep with his quiet words while working his artistry on a piece. “He used to make brushes with yucca,” she recalls. “So he would be chewing on that, and he’d be telling me stories, or talking to me, with his very steady hand, painting his pot… and I would just stay there, just go to sleep.”
According to Martinez, when a pot is made, the creator should always have positive, good thoughts, because that spirit becomes part of the piece as it comes together. That spirit is believed to be there still, which makes this exhibit, and the return of these clay vessels back home to the Pueblos so visceral for these current potters. It means bringing ancestral elders back home at last. “Each pot has a spirit, because we gave it breath, and because we gave it breath, we gave it that life,” says Martinez. “And so when you see these old pots, you can feel that breath from your ancestors that made it.”
Another of the advisors, Clarence Cruz, an Ohkay Owingeh potter who also teaches at the University of New Mexico, agrees with the spirituality connected within each piece. He says, “The thing that I’ve always told my Native students when they visit a vault of pots is
always give them [the pots] that respect… and take the breath of their breath, the space where they are being housed, as a gesture of being… returning that being, your breath, back into that space… as a respect of joining together, of connecting.”
It’s respect for the spiritual, as well as the practical side of this momentous transfer of these historic pieces which is included in preparations. Once all the pots arrive, special protocols are already in place, according to Duncan.
“When the pots come here, we have to keep them in the crates, unopened, for about four days or so,” he says. “That acclimates them to the humidity here, or lack of it as it’s really humid back there, and it would just be a shock if we opened them right away.” He continues, “Even that… just the care in the organic structure, but also the spiritual care for them is greatly considered… we’ll be taking care of them in that way as well.”
Martinez believes these pieces from the mid-1800s up to 1930 aren’t used to the world as we know it now. “That’s what I was telling Karl,” she says. “We have to remember the technology we have today… even the lighting… this is not what they’re used to… we have to remember that spirit,” she says, “and to do it gently, acclimate them back here and then talk to them in their Native language and let them know this is going to be a change… but it’s all good. It will be okay.”
“There’s a big protocol that needs to happen before they’re actually brought into the space by our elders who belong to different societies, so like a blessing, and honoring and welcoming them home,” explains Cruz.
Duncan says after the private welcoming it will be open for everyone, as of October 12: “We’ll have the public opening, with speakers and dances and all of that in October.”
Major renovations at the center have been ongoing, according to Duncan, who says all 100 pots will be sitting in one gallery. He explains, “We’ve installed some very large cases… and then the adjacent gallery will be joined to that with a new door, so it can flow into the next gallery. That’s going to have the majority of all the labels in there, and interpretation, and also it’s going to be used for hands-on activity.”
That is what makes this exhibit so different from others in museums and galleries, as some will be able to do more than just look at the pieces. They’ll be able to touch it as well—certainly not the norm with other collection loans made by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. “There’s only a handful of tribal museums they work with,” says Duncan. “They’ve done other loans to tribal museums in the past, but I think we’re kind of the pilot for other tribes to do similar things with their own tribal collections.”
“This has definitely been a different kind of process for a loan, in that we’re working as partners,” says Chavez Lamar. “There’s been a lot of interaction between NMAI and the Poeh Cultural center and the pottery advisors…so we see ourselves working as a team, and also figuring out ways of how we can support one another’s professional development.”
The hope from everyone involved is that these Tewa Pueblo pots will connect tribal culture and art with the youth. “Hopefully, it will also renew creativity with the imagery that he [or] she may be seeing on those pieces,” says Cruz. “And possibly bringing that imagery, the design into the forefront as well…getting them a glimpse of shapes, forms that were being done that actually may not be seen today within their particular community, where they can revive that back.”
“When you touch the pot,” says Martinez, “it’s like you’re feeling that inspiration come true, making it strong, like ‘I want to try this shape,’ or ‘I want to try this design’ or ‘I wonder where they got this color?’ and the meaning of some of the designs that they put in it.”
Chavez Lamar has witnessed the effects of the Pueblo potters coming in contact with their ancestors’ artistry. “There’s a strong, emotional and spiritual connection with these collections,” she says. “When you are in the presence of people, coming into contact with items, ones they’ve never seen before, or they know that their ancestors have touched and held…it’s very impactful.”
“We want to create programming with youth and with other potters to be inspired to see the old styles,” says Duncan. “Also, to bring together maybe elders and their stories about the designs, or what they mean… the value, stories that come out of there, talking about how important water is, or just types of animals, plants, that may be depicted on the pots. Then, new potters or youth can learn from those stories that come up when we have these sessions with the community.”
Nothing could make Chavez Lamar, who is also from San Felipe Pueblo, happier. “We know when Native people are able to directly see and interact with these collections, there’s a lot of inspiration that can happen in terms of artistry, but also cultural traditions and practices.”
While the Tewa Pueblo pots are at the Poeh Cultural Center on loan, which will be reviewed on a regular basis, everyone on both ends of this partnership hope it will become a permanent loan. Cruz sees that as a good thing, especially for young potters getting exposure to the ceramic legacy of their ancestors. “Hopefully it will also renew creativity,” he says. “And getting them a glimpse of shapes, forms that were being done that actually may not be seen today within their particular community, where they can revive that back.”
Martinez is just happy to have the pots back in their homeland, as she described in a video on the Poeh Cultural Center’s website: “It’s bringing the ancestors home. It’s very spiritual for me because they’re my great grandparents, my great aunties, my great uncles that are being brought back—very important because it’s our culture, it’s our spirit, it’s our wholeness and it’s our heart.”
Di Wae Powa. They Came Back.