FREE: Native American Pueblo Wedding Vase Signed CT Jemez Vintage

The listing, Native American Pueblo Wedding Vase Signed CT Jemez Vintage has ended.

Beautiful Pueblo pottery of a traditional wedding vase. It is in good condition, except for one minor chip on the top handle. See picture please. Signed by C T Jemez. This vase measures 8" high by 6" at widest point.

Jemez pueblo lies west of the Rio Grande on Jemez River. Like other neighboring pueblos, their tradition traces their ancestry back to the Four-Corners prehistoric Anasazi people. Anthropologists say that the Jemez people abandoned the making of pottery sometime after the Spanish conquest, buying their utilitarian ware from neighbors.

The Jemez speak the Towa language, and by this anthropologists can trace some of their lineage to prehistoric times. Some of the present-day Jemez families can trace their heritage back to the pueblo of Pecos, a ruined Towa pueblo a few miles east of Santa Fe. Several potters went back to their ancestral home, so the story goes, and picked up and copied pottery shards found at the ruins and museums. And, if there is a tradition, this is it. Realistically, their tradition has mostly come from observing work by other neighbors.

Through trial and error, and through help from friends, and neighbors, the Jemez finally established a higher level of output, but this did not occur until the middle to late 1980s. Since pottery making has been reestablished at Jemez, they have produced some fine potters, who are using traditional methods of coiling and firing.