Cleveland Museum of Art

Canteen with a Katsina-like Face

Date

1890

Medium

ceramic, slip

Culture

Native North America, Southwest, Arizona, Pueblo, Hopi

Department

Art of the Americas

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Since the 1500s, Hopi women made big-bellied canteens, based on Spanish prototypes, and used them to carry water. By the late 1800s, canteens became popular with Euro-American tourists, who increasingly flocked to the Southwest in search of encounters with “exotic” Native American cultures. Thus, Hopi artists embellished their wares to improve their appeal. This example is painted with a face similar to a Katsina’s, a spirit being central to Pueblo religion—but it is a fanciful rendition, not an actual Katsina. Could the maker have been taking control of her culture and its consumption by outsiders?

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