Contact zones were described in Mary Louise Pratt’s article "Arts of the Contact Zone" as being those points in time in which different cultural groups came together. Positive influences between the groups lead to knowledge and understanding, whereas negative influences lead to conflict and miscomprehension. The history of the Hopi Indians is intertwined with the various contact zones between the Hopi Indians and other cultural groups. It is this series of contact zone experiences that has shaped the development of Hopi pottery.
    The history of Hopi pottery begins with the history of the Native American Hopi Indians and the many peoples that came into contact with their culture and traditions. The earliest pieces of Hopi pottery were made in A.D. 500. It is to this same point in time to which the history of the Hopi Indians can be chronologically traced. Believed to be part of the Pueblo Indians, the Hopi Indians are the surviving members of the Kayenta branch of the Anasazi. The Anasazi, in turn, are the prehistoric inhabitants of what is today the northern Southwest part of the United States (Bartlett 2). This descendant connection between the Hopi and the Anasazi Indians has led to the geographic connection of the two. The Hopi Indians are therefore the only Pueblo Indians to live in the state of Arizona. They occupy three mesas on their reservation, which is in close proximity to the Grand Canyon in the northern Southwest (Bassman 1).
    Traced back to A.D. 500, the first pieces of Hopi pottery discovered were described as being gray with crude black decoration. The Anasazi influence soon followed for the pottery was then quickly redescribed as white pottery decorated in black, or more aptly named Anasazi Black-on-White pottery (Bartlett 2). It is this naming of Hopi pottery by the color, design, and characterization of the pieces themselves that identifies chronologically for us the different periods of Hopi pottery and the different influences with which the Hopi Indians came in contact throughout the ages.
    The positive influence of their Anasazi predecessors continued well into the 1200’s for the Hopi Indians. The Great Drought of 1276 through 1299, though, brought great changes in the making of Hopi pottery (Bartlett 4). Orange and yellow pottery came into existence as wood used for the firing technique was abandoned for the coal fuel found in abundance on the three mesas. Coal became the principal fuel for cooking and heating, as well as for the firing of the Hopi pottery. The Anasazi influence, along with the use of coal, transformed the pottery color and design into what has now been named the Sikyatki Polychrome style of Hopi pottery.
    The Sikyatki style of Hopi pottery was the introduction of artistic quality to the yellow pottery of the Anasazi period. From 1400-1600 A.D., the Sikyatki Polychrome style was described as "flamboyance of decoration" on the yellow pottery now being made (Bartlett 6). The geometric designs of the Anasazi period were abandoned for the Sikyatki use of life-form designs and nature designs. These included mammals, birds, reptiles, as well as rain clouds, stars, and sun symbols.

    The most dramatic turn in the history of the Hopi Indians came with the direct influence by the contact zone between the Hopi Indians and the Euro Americans, or the Spanish missionaries. In 1628, Father Francisco Porras and other priests came to stay at the Hopi villages marking the beginning of the Mission period (Bartlett 6). With the establishment of the missions at the Awatovi village, sheep were introduced to the Hopi Indians. Coal, which up to this point had been used for the firing of Hopi pottery, was replaced with sheep dung as the preferred fuel for the firing technique of the pottery pieces. The pottery itself reverted back to the geometric designs used before the Sikyatki Polychrome period, and Hopi women now crafted imitations of plates with ring bases that they saw from the imported Spanish and Mexican pottery at the missions (Bartlett 7).
    The many influences that helped transform Hopi pottery during this Mission period also brought many changes in Hopi life during its fifty-year duration. The conflicting cultural backgrounds escalated into internal feuds as the Spanish missionaries sought to eliminate the language and religious ceremonies of the Hopi Indians by enslaving them and making them build the churches and become Christian (Bassman 2). The Mission era ended abruptly when the Hopis joined the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico against the Spaniards in the Pueblo Rebellion of 1680. In 1700, the Hopi, in a rare display of violence, killed those Hopi Indians who had welcomed the Spaniards and Christianity at the village of Awatovi (Bassman 2). The village, which had produced the newest forms of the traditional pottery, has lain in ruins ever since. For the next one hundred years little information was recorded about the Hopi Indians or their pottery.
    The Modern Era of Hopi pottery was introduced with the arrival of the Europeans in the mid 1800’s. Their introduction of severe smallpox outbreaks to the Hopi Indian villages, in 1853 and 1854, forced a large number of Hopi families to migrate to Zuni Pueblo in western New Mexico (Bartlett 8). The Hopi Indians stayed for several years, and this developed into a positive contact zone between the Hopi and their Zuni friends. Learning new techniques, shapes, and designs from the Zuni Indians, Hopi potters adopted the grayish-white crackled surface for their pottery.
    The Modern Era is also described as beginning in the late 1800’s with the artistry of Hopi-Tewa potter Nampeyo. It is she who reintroduces the ancient Sikyatki pottery style of the sixteenth century to the new generations of potters of the Modern Era (Bassman 73).
    This Sikyatki revival in Nampeyo’s pottery occurs just at the time that Hopi life begins to change once more with the coming of the Americans. In 1874, the first trading post is established at Keams Canyon on the Hopi reservation (McGee 2). Englishman Thomas V. Keam along with this Navajo wife ran the trading post where Hopi women soon begin to trade their pottery for other commodities that they wanted such as sugar, cloth, and metal cooking utensils (McGee 2). What was once made solely for the Hopi family, relatives, and friends, the Hopi pottery was now being made for sale.

    Many Hopi women strived to be as good businesswomen as Nampeyo during this Modern Era. Just as Nampeyo instilled in her family members that being good pottery artists was going to allow them to survive and to be self-sufficient, self-sufficiency also became possible for all Hopi Indians (Bassman 73). The art of pottery could now provide many hundreds of families total financial support.
    Hopi pottery’s evolution though the ages, and the many contact zones within which it developed, has made for the tremendous improvement in the quality of Hopi pottery. From the prehistoric times of the Anasazi crude designs to the Sikyatki revival of life-form designs, Hopi pottery has become economically feasible for the Hopi potter to spend time and effort into making each piece, for the pottery will bring success and wealth. Further research will perhaps give us a better understanding of the many ways Hopi pottery has been influenced by the contact zone between the Hopi Indians and other non-Native American groups.
 

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Bartlett, Katherine. "A History of Hopi Pottery." Plateau-Flagstaff, Arizona 49 (1977): 2-13.

Bassman, Theda. Treasures of the Hopi. Flagstaff: Northland, 1997.

McGee, Ron. "McGee’s Indian Art Gallery: Hopi Kachinas, Jewelry, Pottery, Baskets." 1999. http://www.hopiart.com/about.htm

Pratt, Mary Louise. "Arts of the Contact Zone." Profession 91: 33-40.