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One of the most fascinating and influential figures in the storied history of the American Southwest is the renowned

Hopi school teacher, author and accomplished pottery artist, Polingaysi Qoyawayma (1892-1990) or Elizabeth Q. White, as she was later known. Her given Hopi name Polingaysi means "butterfly sitting among the flowers in the breeze”.

Over the course of her very long life of 98 years, Polingaysi witnessed and was herself directly part of a massive cultural change both at Hopi and across the greater Southwest. She herself lived astride two completely disparate cultures, that of the traditional Hopi and that of the 19th and 20th Century Christian white American. Her Father worked for Mennonite missionary, Henry R. Voth, who built a mission school in Oraibi village on Third Mesa in 1893 and attempted without a great deal of success to convert the Hopi to Christianity. In 1906, Polingaysi was sent away from her Hopi home to be educated at The Sherman Institute in Riverside, California after which she went to live with a Mennonite family in Newton, Kansas and to receive missionary training at Bethel College. This is when her name was changed to “Elizabeth”, a name which she retained for the rest of her life.

After this, she returned to Hopi to work as a teacher, a position in which she served with great distinction for the next four decades until she retired in 1954 at which point she became an artist and a uniquely skilled and creative potter. Polingaysi studied ceramics with the renowned Hopi ceramicist, painter and jeweler, Charles Loloma (1921-1991), who taught pottery making classes in the 1950's at Arizona State University in Phoenix and The University of Arizona in Tucson. Under Loloma’s tutelage and with his influence and inspiration she developed a unique and highly-distinctive style of Modernist plainware Hopi pottery sometimes using a pinkish clay and making wonderful organic forms which always have a distinctly spare Modern look and totally unique feel. The clay was always left unadorned, unpainted and unslipped in her vessels, but she sometimes used corrugation and occasionally added molded raised bas-relief designs on some of her pottery pieces. Polingaysi’s pottery is extremely rare and difficult to come by due to the fact that she made so very few vessels in her fairly short pottery-making career at the end of her life. Polingaysi’s unique natural clay and molded bas-relief pottery designs provided the inspiration for a number of contrmporary and subsequent Hopi potters such as her nephew, Al Qoyawayma, and Dextra, Hisi and Iris Nampeyo.

Above left, Charles and Otellie Loloma in their pottery studio and showroom at The Kiva Craft Center, Scottsdale, AZ. , c. 1956. Above center, Polingaysi Qoyawayma documented her extraordinary life in a very interesting and powerful book, "No Turning Back”, published by The University of New Mexico Press in 1964. It is the story of a young Hopi girl's struggle to bridge the gap between the ancient traditional world of her people and the modern world of the white man. Above right, Charles Loloma's star pottery student, Polingasysi Qoyawayma demonstrating pottery-making, c. 1957.

Above left photo source and © Museum of Northern Arizona Photo Archives. Above right photo source and © University of New Mexico Press.

A final note on the extraordinary firing and resulting and remarkable color palette of the canteen. The firing method Polingaysi employed here was the treacherous and exteremly difficult to execute ancient traditional Hopi pottery firing method of pottery firing using ultra-high temperature Lignite coal from the Hopi mesas. This was the method employed by 14th to 16th Century Hopi potters making their fabled Sikyatki Polychrome type vessels. It died out more or less after around 1800 until the late 19th Centiury when it was revived by the great Hopi Pottery Matriarch, Nampeyo of Hano. Coal firing is what gives this vessel its almost bone-white porcelain color and its exceptionally beautiful firing clouds or "blushes" in a range of color from light yellow to dark yellow to orange to dark orange.

These clouds are yet another beautiful artistic enhancement that adds immeasureably to the overall beauty of the vessel. The clouds are caused when pieces of the hot burning coal come into direct or partial contact with the vessel walls which has led some pottery authorities to speculate upon the possibility that certain very skilled potters like Polingaysi have manipulated the process deliberately to, in effect, intentionally decorate or "paint" the walls of their pottery vessels with the fire clouds. The strength of the vessel walls imparted by the ultra-high temperature coal firing also allows the vessel walls to be made thinner which in this instance gives the pottery a remarkable lightness, uniquely noticeable in such a large vessel. In creating this vessel, Polingaysi has taken here the somewhat rough, common, earthy form of the traditional centuries-old, thick-walled and very heavy form of Hopi utilitarian water-carrying pottery canteen and transformed it into something exceptionally aesthetic; at once light, delicate, feminine, streamlined and modern while retaining every bit of its essential strength, dignity, unique form and cultural integrity, which is quite an artistic accomplishment indeed.

And now a few more words regarding the canteen’s exceptionally unique and distinguished provenance. The exceptional beauty and uniqueness of this canteen was officially recognized by its original owner who was none other than Polingaysi’s pottery teacher and primary creative influencer and inspiration, the world-renowned Hopi painter, pottery maker and jewelry artist, Charles Loloma, who purchased or traded this piece from Polingaysi shortly after it was made sometime in the 1970’s and kept it in his personal collection for the rest of his life. There is perhaps no greater tribute or honor to Polingaysi’s amazing Hopi artistry than to have it appreciated, admired and acquired by such a distinguished Hopi artist and art teacher as the great Charles Loloma. It is a real testament both to Polingaysi’s abilities and to Loloma’s own knowledge and taste. It’s an official acknowledgment of the artistry involved in elevating what had previously always been viewed as a utilitarian Hopi pottery form into the exalted realm of a distinguished work of art. After Loloma’s untimely death in 1991, his widow Georgia Voisard Loloma kept and treasured this canteen for the rest of her life after which we acquired it from her estate in 2023.

In a brief and interesting historic sidebar, Polingaysi was joined in elevating previously only utilitarian type Hopi pottery forms into modern-day artworks by her fellow, contemporary Hopi potters, the talented sisters, Garnet Pavatea (1915-1981) and Myrtle Young (1904-1984) who also achieved in their wonderful Hopi plainware pottery “Piki” dough bowls a similar kind of kind of artistic refinement and recognition than Polingaysi achieved here with this fine canteen.

As we previously mentioned, due to her very brief career and tiny output, Polingaysi’s pottery pieces are among the rarest of the rare and are extremely difficult to come by. In fact, in our 40 years of enthusiastically buying and selling historic Pueblo and specifically Hopi pottery, this canteen is only the sixth piece of Polingaysi’s pottery that we have ever had and only the third canteen. And while the others were certainly all very good, we have never seen the like of this extraodrinary and extraordinarly large vessel; by far the largest and most dramatic piece of Polingaysi's pottery which we have ever had or ever seen. This exceedingly rare and lovely vessel is a very special and marvelous prize indeed, the fabulous product of the fertile mind and skilled hands of an extraordinary individual possessed with an incredible life story and a unique artistic and cultural sensibility. This beautiful artwork with its uniquely distinguished provenance should proudly occupy a prized place in a distinguished collection, museum or private.

We have been extremely fortunate over the past four decades to have handled a number of the finest historic

Hopi ceramics in existence, the majority of which are now in the collections of prominent museums and collectors.

In our knowledgable and experienced opinions, this outstanding vessel is the artistic equal of any and all of these.

SOLD

PROVENANCE

The Artist, Old Oraibi, AZ, c. 1970’s

Charles Loloma Personal Collection, Hotevilla, AZ c. 1970's-1991

by descent to Georgia V. Loloma Collection, AZ/NM 1991-2023

Acquired from the above by Fine Arts of the Southwest, Santa Fe, NM, 2023

The canteen measures a most impressively-sized 14” in height by 13” in width and 11” in depth. This distinguished one-owner piece (more on that in a moment) is in outstanding original condition overall and it is very beautifully and properly signed “Polingaysi” in her customary, bold, incised signature on the bottom. The canteen has beautiful light yellow to dark orange fire clouds from its high-temperature firing with lignite coal and a really marvelous and completely sensuous stone-polished surface. (More on these details in a moment.) There are some areas of several large pottery “pop-outs” in evidence on the front of the canteen which appear to us to have been popped out and then deliberately put back in to achieve a certain artistic effect.

This effect is quite possibly from the indirect creative influence of Polingaysi's personal friend, the late contemporary Santa Fe pottery artist and Pueblo pottery expert and consultant, Rick Dillingham, who in his own distinctive ceramic works often deliberately broke, then re-arranged and re-assembled certain pieces of his vessels, but that is not known for certain. What we do know is that these pop-outs and their re-placements into the vessel wall were done deliberately and intentionally by the artist. The all over hand done stone polishing of the vessel is also quite noteworthy being beautifully accomplished and adding a lovely and slightly textural value to the polished surface of the pottery.

This extremely large pottery canteen is a modern-day personal homage to Polingaysi’s ancient and traditional Hopi heritage and culture if you will; a large traditionally-inspired plainware pottery canteen that she made in the 1970’s decades after the use of such canteens for hauling water up to the mesa-top villages from the springs below was made completely unnecessary by advances in modern technology such as plastic buckets, bottles and jars or running water. However, such large plainware pottery canteens still hold a very deep cultural significance for the Hopi people. In the first place, no pottery vessels are more central to the survival and perpetuation of an ancient desert culture than those made to hold and carry life-sustaining water and second, these large canteens were frequently also used in the great Hopi Snake Dance, one of the most significant of all Hopi religious ceremonies, to hold the sacred rattlesnakes in the ceremonial kiva before the dance begins.

In this capacity, they are sometimes referred to as “Snake Canteens”. The protruding shape of the canteen vessel itself is very strongly suggestive of that of a woman’s breast, which, of course, is no accident at all in that the human breast itself provides life-sustaining liquid nourishment to the people from birth. This lovely canteen is quite typical of Polingaysi’s  pottery and it displays the stark simplicity and discipline of the Hopi lifeway. It is frugal and spare in its design—being perfectly plain—with only firing clouds visible. Although Polingaysi seemed to diverge from traditional Hopi customs as a girl, it seems that she always somehow retained the belief in their fundamental logic and rightness.

Above left, Old Oraibi, Polingaysi’s native village, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the United States. Above center, a Hopi woman carrying water up to the village from the spring below in a traditional, large plainware pottery canteen, c. 1900. Above right, Hopi pottery matriarch Nampeyo forming pottery in her home with a large historic plainware "Snake" canteen positioned to her right. Below left, right and center, views of a similar historic Hopi plainware "Snake" canteen. Note that Polingaysi's canteen created as an artwork and not as an utilitarian object, has no carrying lugs.

“I tell the young people this: Evaluate the best there is in your own culture and hang onto it, for it

will be foremost in our life; but do not fail to take the best from other cultures to blend with what you already have. Don't set limitations on yourself. If you want more and still more education, reach out for it without fear. You have in you the qualities of persistence and endurance. Use them.”

-Polingaysi Qoyawayma

At lower right, a large grapefruit for scale.

The elaborate and complex hand-woven Hopi cotton webbing surrounding the canteen is also particularly lovely and most beautifully-crafted. In Hopi culture, it is the men who traditionally do the weaving and this webbing is woven in the same manner and with the exact same materials and methods as Hopi cotton leggings and Kachina sashes. We think there is the distinct possibility that the canteen's original owner, Charles Loloma himself created and added this beautiful webbing surround after he purchased the canteen, but that is impossible to know for certain. We asked Loloma’s niece, Verma Nequatewa, about this but she could not say for certain if Charles had done this weaving. What we do know is that the woven webbing and sash adds a very lovely organic appearance and distinctively Hopi cultural dimension to the canteen’s already considerable artistry and appearance. Skillfully woven into the center bottom area of this cotton webbing is a round black plastic disc which serves as an integral pottery stand should one wish to display the vessel upright. A round acrylic pottery display base or stand as shown below could also be used, if desired.

“We do not walk alone. Great being walks beside us. Know this and be grateful.”

-Polingaysi