Visitors know New Mexico as the Land of Enchantment, because of the richness of its cultures as well as the beauty of the land. And many pueblo peoples know this vibrant land as their place of origin, where they first emerged from the earth.

Here, they learned to create adobe homes from the soil, and to form the rich clay of the earth into vessels for holding water and food. Nineteen pueblos, or traditional villages, exist throughout the state, and they still produce beautiful pottery.

Many antique pueblo pots still exist today as well, telling stories about the cultures that created them.

Pueblo tribes have been creating pottery for more than 2,000 years, says anthropologist Ruth Bunzel. Between A.D. 400 and 1500, pueblo peoples experimented with many techniques, dyes, and clays, forming a variety of regional styles, according to Santa Fe’s Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. In the 1880s, potters began producing larger numbers of traditional yet innovative pots to sell to tourists, Carol Prisant and Chris Jussel explain in Antiques Roadshow Primer.

Today, each pueblo has a distinct style, although they share many similarities because of their proximity to one another.

To create their pots, pueblo potters traditionally used materials gathered from near their homes. Thus, their works took on the distinct color of the land where they lived.

The process of gathering this clay, as well as grinding rocks or boiling plants to create paint, is time consuming by many people’s standards. And traditionally, the potter stacks coil after coil of clay to gradually form the shape of a pot, smoothing the clay before firing it, instead of using a wheel. But for the traditional pueblo potter, this timeless process cannot be rushed.

Types of Pots

Traditional pots were often large and highly detailed. These pots are the best investment for collectors, says Jody Vignale, co-owner of Four Winds Gallery of Southwestern American Indian Art in Pittsburgh. Smaller, less detailed pots were mass produced for tourists beginning in the 1930s, he adds.

They can still make great vintage collectibles, he says, but someone interested in more traditional, authentic work should look for larger pots (often 11-12in high) with more intricate and complex designs.

Pueblo pots are used for many purposes, such as carrying water, as well as preparing, cooking, serving, and storing food. Large pots called ollas, which have a wide shoulder and a narrow opening at the top, are used for carrying water. After the Spanish arrived, potters began creating canteens, similar to ollas but with small handles near the top.

Meanwhile, a low, round type of jar with a smaller opening in the middle, called a seed jar, served as a container for seeds. Smaller decorative jars with a little hole, often sold to tourists, are also known as seed jars. Pueblo peoples sometimes gave pots as gifts as well, and used them for ceremonial purposes. Many southwestern tribes used double-spout pitchers, for instance, in wedding ceremonies.

These jars were called wedding vases, with the handle between the spouts representing two lives joined by marriage, say Gerald McMaster and Clifford E. Trafzer in Native Universe. The bride and groom each drink from one side of the jar during the ceremony, and then it’s passed around the room, with men drinking from one side and women from the other, says NewMexico.org.

Symbols

Pueblo potters often painted or carved ornate designs into their work, even for items used in daily life. "Pueblo potters have a remarkable ability to instill in a common household object a life and spirit of its own," says Colin F. Taylor in The American Indian. These designs often incorporated symbols infused with meaning, such as humans, other animals, plants, and the elements. Zuni pottery often displays designs representing thunderclouds, say Prisant and Jussel, because of the importance of rain in their arid homeland. Deer with heartline motifs, which display an arrow leading through the deer’s mouth and into the heart, also appear frequently in Zuni work, as well as in some Acoma pottery. The heartline represents the breath, or life force, of the animal. Animals and insects such as dragonflies, frogs, tadpoles, and horned water serpents also symbolize the presence of water, although they sometimes hold other meanings such as power and unpredictability, says Trudy Griffin-Pierce in Native Peoples of the Southwest.

Meanwhile, the firing process often created smudges on the outside of a pot, if fired on a windy day. Any such markings were not intentional, and may detract from the value of a pot.

Pueblo pots also commonly feature a band wrapping around the upper part of the pot. However, the potters usually didn’t close these circular bands. Instead, they left a narrow gap between both ends. "Old time potters or weavers felt they were weaving their spirit into a piece of pottery or a blanket, so they left a small break for their spirit to escape," says Vignale.

A pot’s contents also infused the pot itself with their spirit, says Taylor. A water jug, he says, would become infused with the spirit of water, the source of life.

Styles

Acoma pueblo is known for bold, often geometrical designs on a whitish background. Many pieces display fine, intricate designs that continue in perfect proportion around the vessel. Often these pots feature birds in their designs, says Vignale. The Laguna style bears many similarities to Acoma’s, because of their proximity, he adds.

Cochiti pueblo is known for its figurative work, says Vignale, such as its storyteller figures.

These figures gather groups of children into their laps, or join hands with them in a circle, while telling a tale, testifying to the centrality of stories in pueblo cultures.

Traditional Hopi pots are known for their orange background, with darker red and black paint designs, says Vignale. In 1980, the Hopi artist Nampeyo began reinterpreting black-on-yellow designs from ancient shards of pottery, and her works are much sought after, Taylor says.

Jemez pueblo is known for its bright red, blue, and yellow polychromatic designs, according to Vignale. Meanwhile, Santa Clara pots have a highly polished black surface. Potters from this pueblo carve designs on their pots in bass relief, as NewMexico.org says.

San Ildefonso pots also have a shiny black surface, but potters from this pueblo paint their designs rather than carve them, says Vignale. Santa Clara and San Ildefonso potters sometimes create polished redware pots, too, he adds. The artist Sarafina Tafoya helped to develop San Ildefonso’s signature pottery style in the early 1900s, explains Dennis Gaffney in a PBS article. This style involves monochromatic red or black pots, with designs carved or pressed into them, he says.

Santo Domingo pots feature geometric designs, and sometimes flowers, birds, and other animals, while human figures usually aren’t displayed on pots created for sale, says Susan Lamb in A Guide to Pueblo Pottery. Meanwhile, Zuni potters often painted large motifs, Vignale says. Picuris Pueblo pottery usually lacks any ornamentation, however, says the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.

The different pueblos influenced each other stylistically, so neighboring pueblos sometimes display strong similarities in style. The Navajo are located near the pueblos, too, and they have influenced each other a great deal over the years.

The Anasazi, the people who predate the current pueblo cultures, created much pottery as well, although a collector would be unlikely to stumble upon an Anasazi pot today. Those that exist are far more frequently found in museums.

For more information about the 19 pueblos of New Mexico, visit the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center’s website for information and links.