North American Indian art includes many distinct traditions developed by native American peoples throughout the continent. In spite of great diversity among the traditional cultures of native American populations, several key concepts underlie the artistic expression of most groups. Primary among these is the assumption that art was to serve social purposes. It was to be used in religious and other rituals; it proclaimed class, rank, and political status; it was wealth; and it signified group solidarity. All native American societies had well-defined aesthetic systems, and for art to function properly, it had to conform to that society's particular set of visual principles. Some Indian groups supported professional artists. Distinctions between fine and applied art did not exist, however. Artistic innovations and individual expression were limited by the need to communicate, for above all, art was a mode of communication. Art objects were traditionally made from a rich variety of natural products found in the environment, ranging from shell, bone, feather, and animal skin to wood, stone, clay, colored minerals, and vegetable fibers. These materials were variously carved, abraded, engraved, modeled, baked, painted, woven, tied, twined, and braided. Later, materials of European manufacture such as glass beads and machine-made cloth were also used. Raw materials and finished art objects were sometimes traded over long distances. Traditional styles of North American Indian art can be broadly classified according to the following culture areas, although wide variations have occurred over time and among the various local groups of each region. Arctic Art The Arctic culture area corresponds to the geographic zone inhabited by the \TEskimo\t. A sequence of prehistoric Eskimo art that began about 2,000 years ago can be traced in the Bering Sea region (see \TOkvik\t); another tradition, possibly older, has been identified with the Dorset culture of central and eastern Canada. Some ancient carved wooden objects have survived, but most remaining examples of prehistoric Eskimo art are fashioned of walrus ivory, bone, antler, or stone. Carving and engraving were the principal techniques used in prehistoric times. The finely worked carvings often exhibit markedly sculptural qualities of execution, despite their tiny scale (many are small enough to be hidden in a closed hand). Utilitarian objects such as ivory harpoon heads and other tools were often engraved or enhanced by other forms of decorative carving, but many Eskimo sculptures have no obvious use. Game animals were favorite subjects; small animal carvings with bored holes may have been used as hunting charms tied to weapons or clothing. Other carvings of skeletonized animals, groups of human heads, or monster forms may have been the paraphernalia of shamans. The 19th-century painted wooden ritual masks of the southern Alaskan Eskimo, prized by collectors of ethnographic art, are exceptionally imaginative in their lively anthropomorphic shapes and incorporation of diverse materials. Northwest Coast The Northwest Coast art tradition is shared by a number of different peoples living along a narrow strip of land facing the Pacific Ocean between southern Alaska and the Columbia River valley. The distinctive and elaborate tradition associated with this region is hundreds of years old and can be subdivided into two major styles. The northern style--associated primarily with \THaida\t, \TTsimshian\t, and \TTlingit\t peoples--is characterized by precise, intellectualized art forms, often displaying great refinement and intricacy of execution. The southern style--identified with the \TBella Coola\t of British Columbia and the \TKwakiutl\t and \TNootka\t of Vancouver Island--is by contrast robust and dramatic in its use of strong colors and powerful designs. In both of these areas art objects traditionally were used to identify rank and were displayed as symbols of wealth and status. Monumental \Ttotem\t poles, painted house posts and other architectural forms, canoe ornaments, feasting dishes, ceremonial dance hats and dance masks, helmets, and textiles are among the display objects that were made by professional artists throughout the region. Ritual paraphernalia, tools, and household articles were also made as works of art. The subject matter of most Northwest Coast art was traditionally heraldic and chosen according to the wishes of the patron. Images were generally portrayed in curvilinear, highly conventionalized and bilaterally symmetrical modes, with great emphasis on the textural qualities of the material. In addition to wood and cedar bark from the immense forests of the Northwest, native art materials included shell, horn, and stone, the wool of mountain goats, and dog hair, of which the Tlingit Chilkat blankets (actually capes denoting tribal rank) are woven. Copper sheets, glass beads, and machine-made cloth later obtained from Europeans were also worked by native artists. California and Basin-Plateau Art Farther south, among the Indian tribes of California, several artistic traditions flourished, in particular basketry-related arts. Twined baskets and featherwork are characteristic of northern groups such as the \THupa\t and \TYurok\t, who are noted for their watertight basketry decorated with geometric patterns woven in a variety of twining techniques. In central California, the Chumash made small steatite animal carvings, fine coiled baskets, and magnificent, multicolored pictographic designs on the walls of caves. Other central and southern California people, notably the \TPomo\t and Diegueno, produced coiled and twined baskets of great complexity and beauty. The Plateau and Great Basin culture areas are situated inland between the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Cascades and Northern Sierras on the west. Parts of this region were influenced by traditions of the Plains culture area during the 19th century. Tribes of the sparsely settled Basin area produced lightweight basketry containers to hold the wild foods and seeds that were their sustenance. Handsomely styled baskets made in modern times by \TPaiute\t, \TWasho\t, and other Basin people continue the age-old traditions developed by particular tribes of the region. Greater variety existed in the arts of the Plateau area, where village dwellers such as the \TKlamath\t and Washo traditionally made hieratic, strictly frontal wooden statues. Baskets and costume arts using varied decorative techniques were made by many plateau groups; some, such as the \TNez Perce\t, wove soft carrying bags. The beadwork of the \TShoshoni\t was strongly derivative of Plains designs. Rock art of great antiquity is found throughout the intermontane zone, and immense stone alignments forming patterns that often can be read from the air are located in the Basin. Art of the Southwest The Southwest culture area extends over present-day Arizona, New Mexico, southern Colorado, and southern Utah. Coiled baskets made at least 2,000 years ago mark the beginning of decorative traditions that continue to flourish among native American artists today. Pottery decorated with painted motifs was made by \THohokam\t villagers of southern Arizona after about AD 200. Within a short time painted pottery became the dominant art form throughout the region. Many varieties were made by other farming groups, among them the \TAnasazi\t and Mogollon, ancestors of today's \TPueblo\t peoples. Mimbres artists of southwestern New Mexico made remarkable figurative paintings on pottery in the period from about 1000 to 1150, but much painted pottery of the Southwest was nonfigurative and depended on complex linear patterns for its striking appearance. Other domestic Pueblo arts include basketry, textile weaving, and shell and turquoise jewelry. Stone and wood sculpture, masks, including those used by \Tkachina\t dancers, and impressive dry-fresco mural paintings in the underground chambers known as \Lkiva\ls are among the many traditional ritual arts. From dry materials such as sand, ocher, and finely ground leaves and flower petals, the Pueblos also created sand paintings for their kivas. The non-Pueblo \TNavajo\t people further elaborated the sand painting techniques learned from their Pueblo neighbors. They developed the symbolic configurations of their sand paintings in conjunction with the many chants used in traditional Navajo curative rites. The Navajo also developed rich styles of textile weaving and from about 1850 on have produced beautiful silver and turquoise jewelry. Other non-Pueblo southwesterners, including the \TPapago\t and \TPima\t of southern Arizona and several bands of Apache, are famous for their coiled basketry. Northeast, Southeast, and Subarctic Art Small stone carvings of great subtlety were made 4,500 years ago in the Eastern Woodlands culture area, which covers much of what is now the northeastern United States. Beginning about 1000 BC people of the Adena culture built great mounds in the Ohio Valley and produced carved-stone pipes and engraved tablets associated with complicated burial rites. From about 300 BC to AD 500, artists of the Hopewell tradition built earthwork and effigy mounds, sculpted naturalistic figures in clay and on stone pipes, and cut out ornaments of sheet copper and of mica. After about 700, a vigorous tradition of stone, wood, and pottery sculpture is associated with the Mississippian mound-building cultures in the South (see \TMound Builders\t). Carved-stone effigy pipes and masks of shell and wood are among the ritual objects that have survived. Suggestions of these early traditions are still discernible in historic-period Indian arts that incorporate glass beads, trade cloth, and new ideas introduced through European contact. The \TSeminole\t and some other native Americans of the Southeast today produce distinctive basketry articles and cotton-cloth garments ornamented with colorful applique. Articles of traditional Iroquoian culture include \Twampum\t belts, composed of shell beadwork, and powerfully expressive carved masks used in religious ceremonies of the False Face Society. Silk applique, quillwork colored with vegetable dyes, floral beaded designs, and small containers of birchbark were traditionally made by Algonquian tribes from around the Great Lakes, such as the \TCree\t, \THuron\t, \TOjibwa\t, \TPotawatomi\t, and \TWinnebago\t. Farther north a hostile environment kept populations small and scattered, and art was simpler. Subarctic art forms often appear to have been derived from traditions of their Plains, Woodlands, or Eskimo neighbors and later translated into a vigorous local idiom. Plains The region between the Mississippi and the Rockies was sparsely settled, and the village-dwelling agriculturalists who lived along river valleys there made Woodland-style art objects. A Plains art tradition developed only after the European presence in the New World introduced the horse, the fur trade, and the forced westward movement of many native American groups. By about 1800 the Plains was a melting pot of displaced tribes, who invented a vigorous art style there within a remarkably short time. Prominent Plains art producers included the \TBlackfoot\t, CHEYENNE, CROW, \TKiowa\t, \TPawnee\t, and \TSioux\t. Art produced by women traditionally was geometric, angular, and nonfigurative. Most of it was painted or embroidered with porcupine quills, and later with glass trade beads, onto garments, moccasins, horsetrappings, parfleches (envelope-shaped satchels), and other utilitarian articles. Art produced by men was figurative, with much of it painted on robes, shields, and tepee covers. Some subjects were of mystic visions; others represented actual events experienced by the artist or significant to the history of the group. After about 1830 pictorial art became increasingly realistic. By mid-century many historical pictures were made on paper or muslin with European media such as ink, and after 1875 some imprisoned Plains warriors painted nostalgic pictures of traditional life in earlier times. These depictions represent the climax of the first Pan-Indian art tradition. North American Indian Art Today The manufacture of art for domestic use ended in most native American communities when machine-made products replaced many indigenously made utilitarian ones. Art production for native religious and social institutions also ended wherever these were replaced by alien ones. Traditional art for religious and social ritual has been continuously produced, however, in the Southwest, where such traditional household arts as basketry, textile weaving, and pottery also became cash-producing craft industries in the 19th and 20th centuries. Ritual art production was revived during the mid-20th century among peoples of the Northwest Coast, where a high-level craft industry has long flourished. Some tribal ceremonials have also been revived among Plains peoples in recent years, and an impressive array of Pan-Indian religious and social rituals has encouraged the creation of new art traditions. Craft production has similarly become important to the economy of the Canadian and Alaskan Eskimo, who have developed distinctive styles of printmaking and soapstone sculpture. J.J. Brody Bibliography: Berlant, Anthony, and Kahlenberg, Mary Hunt, Walk in Beauty (1977); Brody, J. J., Indian Painters and White Patrons (1971) and Mimbres Painted Pottery (1977; repr. 1987); de Laguna, Frederica, Carpenter, Edmund, and Stone, Peter, The Far North: 2,000 Years of American Eskimo and Indian Art (1973); Dockstader, Frederick, Indian Art in America (1961); Douglas, F. H., and d'Harnoncourt, Rene, Indian Art of the United States (1941; repr. 1970); Duncan, Kate C., Northern Athapaskan Art: A Beadwork Tradition (1988); Ewers, J. C., Plains Indian Painting: A Description of Aboriginal American Art (1939; repr. 1977); Feder, Norman, American Indian Art (1971); Furst, J. and P., North American Indian Art (1984); Highwater, Jamake, Song from the Earth: American Indian Painting (1976); Holm, Bill, Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form (1965); Mason, Otis T., Aboriginal American Indian Basketry (1904; repr. 1984); Walker Art Center, American Indian Art: Form and Tradition (1972).