2025-13 Nampeyo playing with a Polacca pot

1880s to 1900 Transition Ware, Eagle Tail Design, Polacca Ware, White-slipped, Nampeyo

The neck is about 1.0-inch high. This rather worn and crudely-painted pot turns out to be a gold mine of information, but learning its story requires an extended investigation and discussion.  As a result of these discussions I can say with high confidence that jar...

2022-13 Modern Sikyatki eagle tail jar

Eagle Tail Design

This large seedpot is both art and experiment.  Its design is a particularly elaborate rendition of an ancient design revitalized by Nampeyo in the late 19th century, inherited by generations of her family, and adopted by other potters at Hopi.  The pot was fired...

2022-09 “M. TAH-VO” jar with eagle-tail variation

Eagle Tail Design

This jar is a miniature masterwork: elegant of form and carrying a creative rendition of a classic design.  It’s also a bit of a mystery since the signature —taken literally— is unknown.  Yet even if it had not been signed, the gentle blushing and the quality...

2019-05 Polacca jar with eagle-tail design

1880s to 1900 Transition Ware, Eagle Tail Design, Polacca Ware

The iconic Nampeyo pot is a Sikyatki Revival low-shouldered jar with her eagle-tail design. This collection contains such a pot (2005-16) dating from about 1905. So identified is this design with Nampeyo that the pot is recognizable as “by Nampeyo” from...

2017-09 Two-potter eagle-tail seed jar

Eagle Tail Design

  This one pot had two makers, two lives, several owners, and is an example of persistent beauty, a modern rendition of  Nampeyo’s more casual eagle-tail jar 2005-16. As on Nampeyo’s jar, the design on 2017-09 is enlivened by 1) the contrast between...

2011-20 Jar with Crude Rendition of Eagle Tail Design

Eagle Tail Design

Attribution of Dalee as the maker of this pot is based on comparison to a similar pot in the Rick Dillingham collection (Dillingham 1994:9). There are some differences between pot 2011-20 and the Dillingham pot, but the similarities are much greater than the...