Smithsonian Institution. Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Introduction:
The Spanish colonials and the Indians of the Southwest shared an affinity for building with adobe. The basic materials used to make it were common to both continents. In addition, it had unique qualities that made it an ideal building material for arid climates. During the day, adobe absorbed the heat of the sun, leaving the house interior much cooler than the outside. As the outside air cooled in the evening, the walls reflected the stored heat into the houses, taking the chill off the night air. Adobe was also an infinitely adaptable construction medium: it could be shaped in many forms to meet a wide range of social, cultural, and physical housing needs.
Most Pueblos were attracted to certain features of the Spanish tradition. They began to mold their own bricks, using the Spanish wooden form. An exception were the Hopi, who until this century held onto their stone and mud-masonry tradition. Nearly all the Pueblo peoples adopted the Spanish fireplace and chimney. Before this, Indian homes had been heated by central fire hearths; smoke exited from the ladder hatch where one entered through the roof. The Indians placed the Spanish-style fireplace in the middle of a wall or at corners where it seemed to blister out above the floor. They also adopted the beehive-shaped outdoor ovens to let their own unleavened corn bread, formerly peeled from a heated stone into parchment-like rolls, rise into baked loaves; these ovens became fixtures of the Pueblo village.
But adobe gave way before the demand for lighter, synthetic building materials. Today's adobe makers are small-scale home builders with a passion for the aesthetics and history of the material as well as its ancient virtues of providing coolness and warmth in their arid land. They have innovated new techniques of brick making and its use, even building solar adobes. Pueblo architectural traditions are very much alive today. When plastering takes place at Hopi villages, it occurs in the old way, especially for the ritual upkeep of their underground kivas.
The 1981 Festival program, supported by funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, included demonstrations of building an adobe house and oven, making adobe bricks, cooking Southwestern Native American foods, and narrative sessions.
Participants:
Joe Paul Concha, 1932-, adobe oven maker and adobe brick maker, Taos Pueblo, New Mexico
Rose Concha, 1932-, adobe oven maker and bread baker, Taos Pueblo, New Mexico
Fedelina Cruz, 1915-2003, adobe plasterer, Taos, New Mexico
David Gutierrez, 1927-, adobe builder, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Eloy Gutierrez, 1928-2007, adobe builder and viga peeler, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Michael Gutierrez, adobe builder and wood carver, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Lawrence Lujan, 1963-, adobe oven maker and adobe brick maker, Taos Pueblo New Mexico
Lorencita Lujan, 1934-, adobe oven maker and bread baker, Taos Pueblo, New Mexico
Crucita Mondragon, 1932-, adobe oven maker and bread baker, Taos Pueblo, New Mexico
Albert D. Parra, 1954-, adobe builder, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albert R. Perez, 1946-, adobe builder, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Hilario Roybal, Jr., 1940-, adobe builder, Silver City, New Mexico
Felipe A. Valdez, 1934-, adobe builder, Fairview, New Mexico
Carmen Romero Velarde, 1928-, adobe fireplace builder, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico
José Ramon Sanchez, 1943-, adobe maker, Belen, New Mexico
Collection Restrictions:
Access to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is by appointment only. Visit our website for more information on scheduling a visit or making a digitization request. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: 1981 Festival of American Folklife, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Copy prints
Place:
Pueblo of Laguna (N.M.)
Walnut Canyon National Monument (Ariz.)
Zuni (N.M.)
Date:
1911
Scope and Contents note:
Photographs made by Arthur W. Dow during a trip to Arizona and New Mexico with photographer Alvin L. Coburn. They document the Laguna and Zuni Pueblos and cliff dwellings in Walnut Canyon National Monument.
Biographical/Historical note:
Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922) was a landscape painter, teacher, and printmaker from Ipswich, Massachusetts. Influenced by Ernest Fenollosa, Dow pioneered the use of Japanese art principles in American art. He taught art at Pratt Institute, 1895-1904, and at Teachers College, Columbia University, 1904-1922.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 77-69
Reproduction Note:
Copy prints and negatives made by Smithsonian Institution, 1977.
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The Archives of American Art holds the Arthur Wesley Dow Papers and William H. Elsner papers relating to Arthur Wesley Dow.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum holds art by Arthur Dow.
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Watercolor
Prints
Graphite drawings
Photographs
Watercolors
Drawings
Date:
undated
Scope and Contents note:
Mostly images of artifacts, architecture, peoples, and some maps published in various Bureau of American Ethnology publications, particularly the Annual Reports. Most of the line drawings were made by Henry Hobart Nichols, while most of the graphite drawings were possibly created by Edward Schumacher.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 78-51
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Additional illustrations for various BAE publications can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 133 and in the records of the BAE.
Information on these illustrations and publications can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in the records of the BAE.