Private collection forms exhibit of American Indian art

Photo by Frank H. McClung Museum

This weapon was called a gunstock club because of its shape. It carvings include a man holding a club like it as well as stars and a crescent moon.

Two small Indian dolls bought as vacation souvenirs 30 years ago in New Mexico began a Tennessee couple's collection of diverse, detailed and colorful American Indian art. Now 74 of their objects - from baskets to beaded pipe bags to masks - are exhibited at the Frank H. McClung Museum.

The exhibit "Discovering American Indian Art" opens Saturday, Aug. 29, at the University of Tennessee museum. The items come from the collection of an adventurous and anonymous Tennessee couple, said McClung Director Jeff Chapman.

UT professors of anthropology Michael H. Logan and Gerald F. Schroedl curated the exhibit. The items represent the diverse lives of 10 American Indian cultures and 35 to 40 individual tribes across the United States and Canada. Historic photos show how Indians used many pieces. "Discovering American Indian Art" includes some contemporary pieces by known artists, but most of the objects were made in the later 19th century; the people who made or used them are no longer known.

The oldest item is a pair of tanned hide mittens decorated with porcupine quills dyed red and blue circa 1820-40. Most frightening is an 1870s weapon called a gun stock club because of the shape of its milled wood. In the club's bend is a sharp blade whose iron could have come from a white settler's wagon rim.

Some objects, like baskets, were useful. Others, like wooden masks of Indians of the Arctic and Northwest coast, were ceremonial. Items like the 1860s beaded bag an Iroquois woman made for a Niagara Falls tourist were made to sell. There's even a toy wooden kayak with tiny paddles made in the 1940s or earlier.

Yet Indians of the past didn't consider their creations art. Items were always made with a purpose. "What we call art, they didn't think about. … Art for the sake of art was pretty foreign to them," said Schroedl.

Objects illustrate their makers' talent - and patience. A flat-bottomed "pomo" basket artist Rose Anderson wove with blue and black feathers in the 1970s fits in the palm of a hand. Even the soles of Lakota "honoring" moccasins are beaded. A woman made the shoes to show love and admiration for a man. The footwear also earned their maker respect for both her beading skill and endurance.

Some pieces illustrate the Native Americans' plight. Beadwork on a Lakota child's vest includes repeated images of the American flag. Why would a mother dress her child in a garment decorated with the symbol of their oppressor? "It was a visual plea for improved treatment, or to say, 'No more, please,' " said Logan.

Indian artisans also adapted items or ideas from European-Americans. A 1940s tin salt shaker became a peyote rattle. A Santee Sioux woman sometime between 1890 and 1920 sewed large cuffs on commercially made gloves, then added elaborate beadwork on gloves and cuffs. An early 20th-century Indian bridal veil is decorated with shells, arcade tokens, Chinese coins and brass sewing thimbles.

The same type of objects show artistic and cultural differences. Three long pipe bags that held pipes and tobacco are shown. Created in the late 19th century by Cheyenne, Blackfoot and Oto Indians, each is decorated differently. Such differences are important, said Logan.

"There's a great diversity of the range of these items culturally," he said. "What's important is how diverse the materials, the cultures and the lifestyles (of Native Americans) were - and still are today."

Amy McRary may be reached at 865-342-6437.

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