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Fast forward now to the Hopi mesas around 1885-1890 or so, where Nampeyo and a few of her fellow Hopi potters have initiated the so-called “Sikyatki Revival” of the ancient Hopi pottery style in their more modern era, in effect making their own new pottery versions and re-interpretations inspired by the ancient designs on and shapes of the ancient vessels as her quotation here below states. That process was somewhat aided and accelerated by the 1895 Smithsonian Institution expedition which excavated the ancient ruins of the actual Sikyatki Village on The Hopi First Mesa led by archaeologist, Jesse Walter Fewkes, also as shown below.

Seeing the hundreds, if not thousands of their ancient pottery vessels unearthed at Sikyatki quite literally and figuratively blew the modern-day Hopi potter’s minds, inspiring and motivating them in a cultural and artistic revival that continues on to this day with great commercial success. These "Sikyatki-Revival" pieces of Nampeyo’s, her daughters, Annie, Nellie and Fannie, Paqua Naha and other Hopi potters of the time sold very widely and very well

in the early 20th Century to museums all over the world and to various ethnologists, Indian traders and intrepid tourists as well. As previously mentioned, Nampeyo was a star visitor attraction at Hopi and elsewhere at exhibitions in Chicago, at The Grand Canyon and elsewhere in the early decades of the 20th Century.

Nampeyo Plainware Pottery Canteens

Plainware utilitarian pottery canteens of various sizes have for centuries been an absolute bedrock necessity in Hopi Village life; to get and carry water home from the springs; larger-sized canteens to store the household’s water for various family use, medium-sized and smaller canteens for men to carry to work in the cornfields, for the ladies to drink from while making Piki bread in the Piki house and for personal travel between villages and elsewhere. The largest-sized Hopi plainware canteens have also been variously described by some Ethnologists as sometimes being used as temporary holding receptacles for the snakes used in the great Hopi Snake Dance and thus these larger vessels are, accurately or not, often euphemistically referred to today as being “Snake Canteens.”

Above left, a Sikyatki Polychrome low-profile jar with "Eagle Tail" designs, c. 1450-1500. Above right, a later "Sikyatki-Revival" style version of the "Eagle Tail" design by Nampeyo, c. 1905.

Left photo source and © Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, photo by Randy Dodson. Right photo source and © by Addison Doty, Santa Fe.

“When I first began to paint, I used to go to the ancient village and pick up

pieces of pottery and copy the designs. That is how I learned to paint. But now,

I just close my eyes and see designs and I paint them.”

-Nampeyo

"Nampeyo makes her designs after some she has seen on ancient ware."

-Hopi Ethnologist Alexander M. Stephen, 1893

An original Fred Harvey Company commercial postcard featuring Nampeyo seated in front of her home at the Hopi Hano Village with a display of her pottery for sale, c. 1905. Note the large "Eagle Tail" style jar at the far upper left of the photo.

A magnificent, historic Hopi Polacca Polychrome pottery “Eagle Tail” canteen

by Nampeyo of Hano, c.1898-1900

____________________________

The “Queen of Hopi canteens” strikes again here. Nampeyo of Hano (1858-1942) was the undisputed Queen

Mother of historic Hopi pottery canteens. Nobody in the past 350 years ever made them better or with more beautifully-painted, unique and elaborate designs. We also believe that Nampeyo also made wonderfully and uniquely formed large Hopi plainware pottery utilitarian canteens and we’ll have more to say on that subject later on.

For the moment, let’s concentrate our efforts on this exceptional beauty. Painted Hopi canteens were generally made for some other than strictly utilitarian purposes, after all you don’t necessarily have to go to all this fancy artistic time and trouble to make something to just hold and carry water unless you have good reason to and maybe that reason is simply because you feel like it or perhaps because you want to express something in particular and possibly there were certain commercial considerations for doing it as well. Nampeyo was a bit of a Native American rockstar artist in the first decades of the Twentieth Century and there was a very brisk tourist trade in her work as many Anthropologists, Ethnologists, Museum Curators, Indian traders and intrepid tourists literally lined up at her blanket on the ground pottery display in front of her small stone Hopi mesa-top village home as seen here below to buy pieces of her pottery.

We are dating this canteen within a fairly narrow time frame at the very end of the 19th Century, from around 1898-1900. The specific reason for this is the presence of a very finely-crackled Kaolin white clay slip on the front section of the canteen. In the last two decades of the 19th century the prominent Hopi pottery type was known as “Polacca Polychrome”, specifically Polacca Polychrome “Style D”. Polacca Polychrome was characterized by the use of a crackled white Kaolin clay slip. Towards the very end of the Polacca period when this canteen was made the crackled slips became incrementally finer in texture and less crackled until they eventually disappeared entirely around 1900-1903. This piece was made during that period of transition from Polacca Polychrome to what is today known as Hano Polychrome pottery.

The canteen measures a very nicely-sized 10” in height, 9 3/4” in width and 6 1/2” in depth. It is in generally excellent completely original condition and particularly so considering its 125-plus years of age. There are no cracks and no major chips, only a few minor scrapes, a small surface flake and some scratches here and there. There is nothing anyone could really call damage and a thorough examination of the vessel under Ultraviolet

light reveals no evidence of restoration or overpainting.

At left, a view of the un-excavated ruins of the ancient Sikyatki Village on the Hopi First Mesa, 1895. At right, Sikyatki archeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes examining archeological specimens, 1926.

Left photo source and © Bureau of American Ethnology, 17th Annual Report, Plate CXV. Right photo source and © Alamy Stock Photo.

The commercial success of Hopi "Sikyatki-Revival" style pottery continues today and now there has even the beginnings of a Sikytaki re-Revival of sorts with certain contemporary Hopi potters such as Jake Koopee, Nathan Begaye, Nyla Sahmie and Bobby Silas, re-visiting even more closely and faithfully reproducing the old Sikyatki-style pottery designs, vessel varieties, unique materials and methods.

This superb historic canteen features a stylized signature Nampeyo “Eagle-Tail” and feather design with stylized prayer plume end finials, a Sikyatki-derived motif which Nampeyo used often and presented in various different ways on different vessels. There is also a stylized profiled bird design near the top of the design field. Note the presentation of this design in the large Nampeyo low-profile jar which we sold to The Art Institute of Chicago in 2002 shown here below alongside a photo of a Sikyatki-Period presentation of this same Eagle-Tail design.

The design as presented on the canteen is extremely graceful, flowing, dynamic and visually complex, very rich and satisfying to contemplate. The elegant and dramatic use of positive/negative spaces in the design, a Nampeyo signature design touch is also well worth noting.

In the ancient Hopi “Sikyatki” Polychrome pottery tradition (c.1375-1625 A.D) which inspired Nampeyo’s finest artistry, very large and very elaborately-painted pottery canteens were made for ceremonial purposes with complex designs like large painted Kiva wall murals. They were extravagantly decorated with a wide variety of various clan totems, stylized animal, bird and plant figures and other sacred and secular symbols, filled with ceremonial water and stood upright on prominent display in niches in Kiva walls during various rituals and ceremonies. An example of one of these large Sikyatki-Period pottery canteens is shown here below. These canteens are generally larger and flatter in profile than the later Modern-day versions and they can resemble even more closely the specific shape of a woman’s breast, the natural original human source of nourishing moisture.

The all-over stone polishing of the canteen is quite remarkable and is well worth noting. The painted surface is extraordinarily smooth and softer than a baby’s bottom. Also, interestingly, there is an ancient Hopi dried-out corn cob stopper in the canteen’s spout. It’s impossible to know if this stopper is original to the canteen’s time of creation, but it certainly looks old and it adds a nice touch of period authenticity as a corn cob is a common native Hopi material which would have been commonly used as a canteen stopper at Hopi at that time.

That’s about all there is to say here except to mention that in our 40 or so years of buying, selling and collecting Nampeyo’s pottery this is one of the finest, most interesting and visually exciting pieces of hers that we have ever seen and that is saying something. The stock superlatives fall somewhat short here; superb, sublime, spectacular are all appropriate, but somehow not resonant enough. "Satisfying" perhaps work best for our experience. We have personally gotten a great deal of satisfaction owning and observing this magnificent canteen for the time we have owned it and we think that anyone else who appreciates high-end historic Pueblo pottery would feel the same way should they be fortunate enough to become its next owner.

Price available upon request

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Note: The acrylic Ply-Mor brand display stand shown here is not included in

the sale of the canteen. These stands can be readily purchased on Amazon.

At left and at above right, a large Sikyatki Polychrome pottery canteen, c. 1500-1550 A.D. Below right, a large historic Hopi plainware pottery "Snake"canteen, c. 1880.

Left and top right photo source and © Heritage Auctions.