A Brief History of the Pueblo Revolt

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was a revolution against Spanish religious, economic, and political institutions imposed upon the Pueblos. It is the only successful Native uprising against a colonizing power in North America.

In the 1670s, the Spanish governor of New Mexico ordered several Pueblo holy men executed, and many others publicly whipped. Po’Pay, a holy man and War Captain of Ohkay Owingeh, was one of the men whipped in Santa Fe, an experience that hardened his resolve to drive the Spanish from New Mexico. In the face of turmoil, suffering from prolonged drought, and fearing the complete loss of our culture, the Pueblo people resorted to armed resistance.

Po’pay of Ohkay Owingeh (formerly referred to as San Juan Pueblo) organized and led the revolt. A date for collective rebellion was set, and runners were sent to all the Pueblos carrying knotted cords which represented the number of days until the day of uprising. Each morning, the Pueblo leadership untied one knot from the cord, and when the last knot was untied, it was the signal for them to act in unison.

The successful revolt kept the Spanish out of New Mexico for 12 years, and established a different power dynamic upon their return. The Pueblo Revolt holds great historical significance because it helped ensure the survival of Pueblo cultural traditions, lands, languages, religions, and sovereignty.

Learn more in our new Pueblo Revolt Online Exhibit!

Teach your children about the first American revolution by downloading the Pueblo Revolt high school lesson plan from our free Indigenous Wisdom curriculum.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Pueblo Book Club Suggested Reading

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was a revolution against Spanish religious, economic, and political institutions imposed upon the Pueblos. It is the only successful Native uprising against a colonizing power in North America.

In the 1670s, the Spanish governor of New Mexico ordered several Pueblo holy men executed, and many others publicly whipped. Po’Pay, a holy man and War Captain of Ohkay Owingeh, was one of the men whipped in Santa Fe, an experience that hardened his resolve to drive the Spanish from New Mexico. In the face of turmoil, suffering from prolonged drought, and fearing the complete loss of our culture, the Pueblo people resorted to armed resistance.

Po’pay of Ohkay Owingeh (formerly referred to as San Juan Pueblo) organized and led the revolt. A date for collective rebellion was set, and runners were sent to all the Pueblos carrying knotted cords which represented the number of days until the day of uprising. Each morning, the Pueblo leadership untied one knot from the cord, and when the last knot was untied, it was the signal for them to act in unison.

The successful revolt kept the Spanish out of New Mexico for 12 years, and established a different power dynamic upon their return. The Pueblo Revolt holds great historical significance because it helped ensure the survival of Pueblo cultural traditions, lands, languages, religions, and sovereignty.

Learn more in our new Pueblo Revolt Online Exhibit!

Teach your children about the first American revolution by downloading the Pueblo Revolt high school lesson plan from our free Indigenous Wisdom curriculum.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Po’pay Tribute Recipe

Po’pay Tribute Recipe

Executive Chef Ray Naranjo (Santa Clara, Odawa) has prepared a special dish in honor of the leader of the Pueblo Revolt, Po’pay, which in the Tewa language means “ripe squash.” This special dish features ripe squash to recognize Po’pay, and is garnished with seeds, leaves, and flowers to symbolize next generations—flower to seeds to new plants—as it was the Pueblo Revolt that secured the survival of Pueblo culture for generations to come.

Chef Ray at Pueblo Harvest

A Promise Fulfilled, A Promise Renewed: IPCC’s Bob Chavez Scholarship Program

Part of IPCC’s mission is to preserve and perpetuate Pueblo culture, and a key element of that is investing in the Pueblo leaders of tomorrow—our youth. In 2018, we established the Bob Chavez Scholarship for the Arts in conjunction with the opening of a rotating exhibit — A Promise Fulfilled: The Life and Legacy of Bob Chavez. This scholarship is named in honor of Manuel “Bob” Chavez of Cochiti Pueblo, who dedicated 50 years as a volunteer teaching art at St. Catherine’s Indian School.

Bob’s dedication to students arose from his time spent as a prisoner of war during the Bataan Death March. During a particularly bleak day, Bob made a promise to the Creator that he would devote his life to helping St. Catherine’s students if he survived the harrowing ordeal, a promise he certainly kept.

Many students were able to explore Native arts and feel at home in Mr. Chavez’ classroom, and IPCC is able to continue his legacy of encouragement by offering $2,500 scholarships each year to two recent Pueblo high school seniors or college undergraduates who are pursuing visual arts in higher education. The scholarship requires the students to maintain full-time enrollment and a GPA of 2.0 or above.

Recipients of this scholarship are selected based on financial need, an essay addressing their purpose in pursuing arts, grade point averages, and a portfolio featuring their works of art.

Initial scholarships are for $2,500 per student per year, but this year matching funds from the Dume Wolverine Foundation have allowed IPCC to extend the amount to $2,500 per student per semester.

From an early age, Bob Chavez enjoyed painting. In 1933, his mother submitted his artwork to the Indian Art Market. He received first place with the blue ribbon, and a $12 cash prize; he was only 17 years old. Bob’s son, Franco Chavez, recalls trying to set up the art market booth with his dad later in life: “We never had to set up the booth because we would sell the paintings as we were pulling them off the truck.”

Bob’s love for art began with his father, Cipriano Chavez, who painted with watercolors. Bob never took art classes; he learned by watching his father, and through constant practice. His paintings show traditional life, including dances from Cochiti Pueblo, the horses his family raised, and his community members. The giant mural by Bob Chavez that adorns the IPCC courtyard reverently depicts horses in an open setting.

The matching funds for this scholarship are gathered through donations. If you are interested in contributing, please visit our donation page here.

Pueblo Relief Fund Success

The Pueblo Relief Fund, a joint relief effort created by the All Pueblo Council of Governors (APCG) and the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (IPCC), has just surpassed $1 million in donations as of July 1, 2020. We launched Pueblo Relief Fund on April 16 to provide desperately needed food and supplies to tribal members during the COVID-19 emergency.

Total funds raised as of July 1 are $1.1 million, and came from 2,482 individual donors, and 44 corporate, foundation, and grant donors, representing 44 U.S. states, and three countries. In-kind donations of food, personal protective equipment, and other supplies to the Pueblo Relief Fund have reached $2 million.

“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary action,” says Mike Canfield (Laguna Pueblo), President and CEO of IPCC. “IPCC and the All Pueblo Council of Governors saw the immense impact of COVID-19 on our Pueblo communities, and were in a position to team up and quickly develop, launch, and mobilize the Pueblo Relief Fund to get food, personal protective equipment, and other critical supplies to where they were desperately needed. We have an amazing and dedicated team, and the generosity of so many donors both near and far has been truly inspiring.”

The IPCC has been closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with its temporarily reduced staff pivoting to assist Pueblo administration offices with acquiring and distributing essential food and supplies through the Pueblo Relief Fund. Due to IPCC’s central Albuquerque location, it also occasionally served as a brief staging area for the allocation and distribution of supplies that arrived by truckloads. Some shipments arrived at IPCC to be divided and distributed, while others were delivered directly to Pueblo communities by food-distribution companies, couriers, or other freight services.

With most of the logistical work carried out by IPCC staff, zero dollars of Pueblo Relief Fund money have gone towards overhead and other operating expenses often incurred by similar relief efforts, allowing 100% of donations to go directly to purchasing supplies.

Individuals, organizations, corporations, or foundations wanting to make financial or in-kind donations are encouraged to visit www.PuebloReliefFund.org to donate, and to view a thank-you video for the generous support received through the Pueblo Relief Fund.

We wholeheartedly thank everyone who has supported the Pueblo Relief Fund, whether by making monetary donations, in-kind donations, providing logistics, creating fundraisers, or simply sharing the donation link with family, friends, and colleagues. Together we are accomplishing great things!

Pueblos, Pigments, and Prominence: The Murals of IPCC

* As of 6/22/21 Courtyard mural tours are available every Wednesday & Friday at 11 am and 1 pm. Learn more and book here.

IPCC is home to more than 20 indoor and outdoor murals by great Pueblo artists, with new ones currently in progress. These vibrant works of art vividly illustrate the role of the seasons, dance, harvest, agriculture, and animals in Pueblo life.

In 1977, a group of volunteers known as the Friends of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center began an ambitious campaign to raise money to bring top Pueblo artists to IPCC for a mural project.

Thanks to the volunteers’ efforts, donations came from far and wide: the local community, visitors from across the U.S., and even from as far away as Japan. Through these donations and a matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the mural project was brought to life.

Our collection of murals includes work by Jose Rey Toledo (Jemez), Tommy Montoya (Ohkay Owingeh), Pablita Velarde (Santa Clara), Helen Hardin (Santa Clara), Phil Hughte (Zuni), Encarnacion Peña (San Ildefonso), Dennis Silva (Santa Clara), J.D. Medina (Zia), Juan Manuel “Bob” Chavez (Cochiti), Robert Montoya (Sandia, Ohkay Owingeh), Dominic Arquero (Cochiti), Art Menchego (Santa Ana), Charles Lovato (Santo Domingo), Francis Tafoya (Santa Clara), Norman Pacheco (Ohkay Owingeh), and Mallery Quetawki (Zuni).

Prior to the pandemic, we offered the insightful Mural Discovery Tour every Friday at 1 p.m., complimentary with museum admission. By taking our visitors on a journey through Pueblo art and culture, the tour offers a moving introduction to the traditions and core values of Pueblo people. We look forward to when we’re able to safely resume the Mural Discovery Tour, and take you on an enlightening journey of art, history, and culture.

In the meantime, we’ve temporarily made many of the murals and their backstories available in a digital format, which can be viewed here.

If you would like to help support our mission to preserve and perpetuate Pueblo culture, please consider making a gift to IPCC today. 

Of Hummingbirds and Hope: Radon Daughter Soothes the Yellow Dragon

The Laguna Pueblo village of Paguate, New Mexico is the place Laguna and Zuni artist De Haven Solimon Chaffins calls home. The village hugs the lava-topped mesa that forms the eastern slopes of Mt. Taylor, a dormant stratovolcano. Paguate also sits in the shadow of a large uranium mine, a fact that has shaped her life as much as the tractors and blasting have reshaped the landscape around the long-abandoned yet still-problematic mine.

Her Radon Daughter exhibit in our Art Through Struggle Gallery illustrates both her struggle and success coming to terms with the personal and lasting effects of living near the Jackpile-Paguate Uranium Mine, currently designated a Superfund Site by the Environmental Protection Agency.

De Haven hopes that sharing her artwork, and talking about her experience, her loss, her resilience, and her optimism, will bring comfort and catharsis to others.

“My grandpa James always fed children when they came to the house,” De Haven says. “He knew people were struggling to put food on the table. His intentions were good. He had empathy because he knew what it was like to go without food. Both of his parents passed away from illness in Zuni Pueblo when he was child, so he also knew the meaning of loss.

“That’s one of the reasons I really wanted to do this exhibition, because that’s where I come from, wanting to help somebody else out. The ramifications from the uranium mine, I mean right now a lot of people have health issues, such as high rate of cancer, and it’s just so sad and tragic. I just try to make sense of it all, and just try to help people at the same time.”

Caregiving is an integral part of De Haven’s character. Growing up surrounded by hardship and loss, she often sought out opportunities to comfort others. Prior to going to school for art, she wanted to study Mortuary Science.

“I really wanted to do that because I felt like I could be of service to people,” De Haven says. “I know as being Native American that it’s maybe like a taboo-type of thing, but for me, I lost a lot of people. We lost a lot of great people, amazing people, and I just felt like I could help them in some way, and be a comfort, and give back to whoever needed my help.”

The thought of aiding people respectfully with their transition to the next world and providing comfort to the families was something that appealed greatly to De Haven, which led her to inquire about internships and spend a full day at a funeral home in Grants, New Mexico.

“I stayed there for the whole day, and we helped out with an older woman,” she says. “It was so beautiful, I mean, just to help and make sure she was presentable, and take care of the family and the people who came to her service. It was just really touching. It was one of the most inspiring times of my life. I’ll never forget that.

“Mortuary Science is what I really wanted to do, but then they didn’t have any kind of program here in the state of New Mexico—you’d have to leave and go somewhere else.”

With her family wanting her to stay close to home, De Haven passed on pursuing Mortuary Science, and on being accepted to East Coast and West Coast art schools, instead earning her Associate of Fine Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 1990, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico in 1995.

Radon Daughter

The art piece, “Radon Daughter,” that is the namesake for the exhibit, is a portrait of De Haven’s own daughter. “I lost my son at two years old,” she says. “I have a daughter, Fauve, and she’s 22 now, and she’s autistic. She’s my rock. I don’t think I could’ve survived if she wasn’t there. I just gave up painting, stopped painting and everything else. I just didn’t think I could go on, but she pulled me through.

“The background is the mesa in Paguate, and you have the clouds come in—it’s kind of like a renewal painting, to make the landscape better, to heal, even though it’s going to take years to heal. It’s continuously healing, and I just saw my daughter as part of that, enjoying the land again, and being able to see things just like the way her ancestors did. And of course, rain is always about renewal, and the sense of things coming back together the way they were before.

“The turquoise above the face is an abstract version of rain. Sometimes I like to hide the information in there, surface-wise. I only let a fragment of information come in, and then people will interpret it differently. But for me, sometimes I like to hide the information, and scrape away paint and media, see what happens with it, play with it a lot.”

Facing Mortality

De Haven’s work is very striking, and one that appears rather grim at a glance, “Facing Mortality,” actually carries a message of hope. “That was after I faced my own mortality,” she explains. “I had to go into emergency surgery about two years ago, and it was an eye-opening experience, laying there just waiting to be taken up to surgery. I didn’t think I’d have to go through surgery, but they were like, ‘No, it’s really bad. You need to go in now.’

“That was in the middle of the night. I just thought to myself that if I go, well, that’s just the way it is, I can’t do anything about it, I can’t control it. Then I just decided, well, maybe, you know, just doing a self-portrait type of thing would be good, and I just kind of see myself as just walking through our own landscape, and seeing everything how it would be and so forth, and doing that transition of being here to being in spirit, merging into the landscape, because I do love nature a lot.

“You don’t really see a lot of Native artwork with skeletons in them, because that’s kind of like a taboo-like thing again, in some tribes. It’s my interpretation of how I see myself, and I’m not scared, it’s just a part of life.

“The hummingbird goes back to my son. A few days after we had buried my son in Paguate, all the family was there, and they had come from Seattle, some from other places, and my mom was cooking breakfast for everybody, and just trying to say our last goodbyes because everybody had to leave, and then she told me—I wasn’t there at the time—but she told me that a little bird had come to the screen, and she said ‘I’ve never seen a hummingbird come close to the screen like that ever,’ and it’s just rare. And she said that the little bird just sat, hung on with his little claws, and just sat there on that screen and just started chirping away and singing. It made my mom cry.

“She told the family to come in and see that little bird, and it was like he waited for everybody to come in there, and my mom talked to the little bird in our language, and she said it talked right back to her, and she told me that it was like if Skye, that was my son’s name, had come to visit and tell us he was okay, that he was happy and able to move around, because my son couldn’t move around. He told my mom he was happy, and to tell me to take care of his little sister, and all this beautiful stuff, and it was just so moving. And so that’s how a hummingbird came to be in a lot of my imagery; it’s a reference to my son, and to the feeling of everything’s going to be okay.

“If you look at a lot of my work, there’s always a hummingbird. Even through the darkest of times, the hummingbird is there, and it’s going to bring people out of whatever is hurting them, and just help them along.”

Dragon Emerging from Slumber

“This one was close to home, because it is my home, and that’s where I grew up on and off for a long time. I always thought about that when I was young. My Gram at Paguate would say ‘You’d better get inside!’ because the siren would go off for the blasting, and as a kid you’d just watch everybody rushing around without knowing the severity of the situation. They would rush to close cabinets and windows, before the dust and dirt began drifting over the village.

“When I saw it, I saw it as a dragon sleeping underground, under the earth, and I always thought of it like he would be, ‘Aw man, what are they doing? I’m trying to sleep!’ and to me I always thought of the dragon kind of as a sacred icon. I always saw the dragon as sacred, kind of similar to the Pueblo water serpent, identical in many respects. I felt like when they were blasting, he was turning over in the earth, and when they disturbed him the dust would come out, it was like he was breathing, that’s what it seemed like to me. And of course, being small, I would go outside and look at all this dust come flying over, but I just remember these big plumes of dust flying here and there.”

Emerging from the Storm

“That touches on the reference of being hopeful. Like I said, there’s been a lot of people that have passed away from cancer and a lot of other issues regarding the mine, and I always thought that somehow things would get better, and try to have a sense of faith, whatever religion people practiced, that it would get better. The Earth, too, it has to heal. That’s what I always try to portray in my work, is a sense of hope and healing. Because I think a lot of time people just give up, I know some people have just given up here on the pueblo, and it’s just sad. It makes me real sensitive, I guess, to what’s going on, and I don’t want them to give up. I. want them to keep going on, because I know people can do it.

“The woman there is a deity of my own interpretation who stands watch over everyone and everything, someone who is taking care of the people, the landscape, the animals, just something from nature. It’s hard to explain, but it’s just like something from nature that tries to come out and assure people living there—anywhere, basically—that they’ll be okay. I just don’t want people to give up.”

Escape from Planet 279

“This is a reference to B-movies. In those, radiation was always a factor, and affecting people and creatures. I would always ask my dad who worked deep in the mine, ‘Did you see anything weird under there, in the underground? Did the workers see anything?’ because some areas were covered in water down there, and he would tell me about the tree, a petrified tree that they found deep underground. I just wanted to know if they saw anything like that underneath the manmade mesas that looked like giant anthills to a kid’s imagination.”

Untitled

“With the hummingbird that’s fragmented, I saw him as kind of in the wind, and in the storm, that he was just fragmented. You see the landscape being fragmented, everything. And you see it finally pulling together as the storm is passing, and it’s again resembling a hummingbird, it’s coming back together.

It’s like you’re a person just being lost in a storm, whatever their storm may be, and it’s like pulling yourself back into some sense of a human being, or in this case, a hummingbird, and they’re healing. It takes time, but eventually they’ll heal. That’s how I see that hummingbird.

“I really thought about the people in Paguate, because that’s where my family is from, and a lot of the people I love and respect are there, buried in that graveyard. I just wanted to pay my respects in that form. The only form that I know is just by painting.”

If you would like to help support our mission to preserve and perpetuate Pueblo culture, and support programming like the Art Through Struggle Gallery, please consider making a gift to IPCC today. 

The Art Through Struggle Gallery is a unique space for creating dialogue on difficult subjects, a place to talk about the realities of what it is to be Pueblo, to be Native American, living today with the atrocities of both the past and present constantly surrounding us.

Meaningful Connections Through Art

When the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center opened in 1976, part of the vision included a Pueblo-owned store to be a trusted source for authentic works of Pueblo art, and a showcase for Native American craftsmanship. Today, the Indian Pueblo Store has spent more than four decades connecting guests in a real and meaningful way to the people and art of the Southwest.

Sharing the knowledge behind traditional works and contemporary designs enhances the cultural immersion of a visit to IPCC, and purchasing Native art is one of the ways visitors can take home the IPCC experience to share with friends and family. For those unable to visit in person, we recently launched our new online store, IndianPuebloStore.com.

To go hand in hand with our mission to preserve and perpetuate Pueblo culture, our store has made it a priority to have a buying process that is fair, positive, and beneficial to artists, and we pride ourselves in paying a fair price that allows artists to earn a living practicing their craft.

The Indian Pueblo Store has an extremely knowledgeable and welcoming staff, with more than five decades of combined experience in the Native American arts world. They are more than happy to answer questions about artists, their work, historical meaning, and symbolism. Many of our store’s employees are practicing artists themselves, making a lifelong commitment to continuing the traditional arts and crafts of our ancestors.

The name recently changed from Shumakolowa Native Arts to the Indian Pueblo Store to better reflect its location in, and affiliation with, our cultural center, and its representation of the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico. The store’s name has changed a few times since 1976, but the Indian Pueblo Store will continue to be what it has always been—your trusted, Native-owned source for authentic Native American pottery, handcrafted jewelry, traditional textiles, carefully curated books, specialty prints, Native music, and more.

A dragonfly remains on the logo for the Indian Pueblo Store, as it is an important animal in Pueblo culture. These special creatures are seen as messengers, speaking to the thunder and clouds to bring moisture and blessings to the people. Our store’s staff believe in the spiritual value of art, and its ability to share knowledge and beauty across cultures.

Every purchase through the Indian Pueblo Store benefits the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico, Native artists, and IPCC’s mission. Visit IndianPuebloStore.com to see current operating hours or to shop online 24 hours a day, or call us at 505-724-3506 with any questions. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram to learn about Native arts and view beautiful new arrivals.

Traditions You Can Taste

Food is an important part of any culture. Visitors and repeat local customers dine at Pueblo Harvest, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center’s premiere restaurant, to experience cuisine rooted in culture and presented with pride. The menu incorporates traditional and contemporary ingredients that tell a delicious story of Pueblo culture and history, and the many influences involved in more than a millennium of cultural presence.

Pueblo Harvest is led by Chef Ray Naranjo, who is of Native American roots from the Ancestral Pueblos of the Southwest and the Three Fires tribes of the Great Lakes. He believes in the preservation of the foodways and ancestral knowledge of his people, and strives to continue on this path. With the use of modern and ancestral cooking techniques, he attempts to push the limits of what is known, unknown, and forgotten about the Indigenous food culture of North America.

Chef Ray has a culinary degree and more than 25 years of service in the modern kitchen industry. He has experience in exclusive hotel and casino resorts in the Southwest, with various titles ranging from Executive Chef to Food & Beverage Director. Chef Ray has also been presented with several awards in Modern New Mexican Cuisine, with a focus on the chile of New Mexico.

“My goal for Pueblo Harvest is to give an experience that mirrors the present-day food culture, but is also inclusive of the ingredients from the Ancestral Puebloans and the ingredients that would have been available via trade routes from tribes from the south,” Chef Ray says. “I will attempt to blend the past and the present to tell a story that will lead us to the future of Native American food cultures.”

Pueblo Harvest is currently serving a streamlined menu for patio dining or curbside pickup. The menu offers plenty of individual servings, plus new family-style dining options, and meal kits for families to enjoy creating their own Native tacos at home. We’ve also listened taken our customers’ requests to heart, and added several new items, including some breakfast items that will be available all day.

With Native Super Foods Griddle Cakes and Waffles, you can choose between waffles or griddle cakes featuring indigenous ingredients of blue corn, quinoa, amaranth, currants, piñon, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds. This delicious dish also comes with triple berries, pure maple syrup, and your choice of pork sausage, turkey sausage, or Nueske’s bacon.

Another new breakfast item is the wonderfully aromatic Pueblo Oven Bread French Toast with crème brûlée-soaked Pueblo oven bread, triple berries, pure maple syrup, and your choice of turkey sausage or Nueske’s bacon.

We’ve also added the Pueblo Turkey Melt on green chile Pueblo oven bread with oven-roasted turkey, green chile, grilled tomato, pepper jack cheese, and a pile of our crispy, delicious fries. On the lighter side is the Harvest Salad with locally sourced mixed greens, heirloom tomatoes, rainbow carrots, green chile bread croutons, and your choice of dressing. You can see all of the new selections on our website.

There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and Pueblo Harvest’s spacious covered patio is a great place to unwind with a good meal and craft cocktail or draft beer. The patio is large enough to allow for ample social distancing, and we can accommodate groups of up to six guests. All Pueblo Harvest employees wear masks and observe state-established guidelines for COVID-safe practices to help protect guests and staff.

Loaves of Pueblo oven bread, Pueblo pies, and Pueblo cookies are also available for pickup during business hours. If you want to eat at home or enjoy a picnic, you can choose curbside pickup after ordering by phone or online. Patio entrance and curbside pickup are located on the north side by the big Pueblo Harvest sign.

Current hours for Pueblo Harvest are 10 a.m. until 6 p.m., Thursday through Sunday. Carryout and curbside orders can be placed until 5:45, with pickup available until 6:30. See the menu and place your order at www.PuebloHarvestNM.com, or by phone at 505-724-3510. We hope to see you soon!

Daily Artist Program

Visiting the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is an immersive occasion, and the Daily Artist Program provides our visitors with yet another avenue to experience Native American culture. Visitors can interact with artists in our mural-lined courtyard and watch as they make pottery, jewelry, paintings, and other types of traditional and contemporary arts and crafts.

This program supports the mission of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center by showcasing Native American handcrafted art, creating an outlet for visitors to buy directly from artists, and encouraging dialogue with our guests while educating about Pueblo arts and culture.

Depending on which artists are present when you visit, you may get to see various types of silver and beaded jewelry being made, pottery being painted with traditional natural pigments and handmade yucca brush, Pueblo scenes being painted on canvas, and more.

Purchasing works from artists in our Daily Artist Program is one of the ways visitors can take the IPCC experience home with them, so quality and authenticity are of utmost importance. All artwork made and sold as part of our Daily Artist Program has received approval through our extensive certification process, and complies with the Indian Arts & Crafts Act of 1990. When we reopen, you’re invited to come and experience Native American culture firsthand as artists make pottery, jewelry, paintings, and other crafts in our mural-lined courtyard.

Your Valuable Resource for Pueblo Studies

Did you know our Library & Archives is the only special collections and research library in the world specifically devoted to preserving the history and culture of Pueblo people? The library preserves and documents the culture and history of the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico, as well as Ysleta del Sur Pueblo in El Paso, Texas. The library’s work serves to build Pueblo identity while securing a place for Pueblo people in the national historical narrative.

The IPCC Library & Archives is a non-circulating, targeted collection for those who wish to know more about the lives, histories, traditions, and culture of Pueblo people. Our research library and special collections contain manuscripts, personal papers, official reports, photographs, and audio/visual materials related to the historical and contemporary life of Pueblo people and communities. The library holds more than 5,000 titles and 190,000 newspaper and vertical file clippings.

“As a Pueblo librarian and archivist, I am excited to welcome tribal and non-tribal scholars and researchers and people in the community to explore and learn about Pueblo people and our enduring history,” says Jonna Paden (Acoma), Librarian and Archivist at IPCC.

In addition to books, magazines, journals, and newspapers, the collection includes theses and dissertations, 80 of which were authored by Pueblo scholars. The photo archive contains 5,000 photographs and 1,500 slides, plus a collection of postcards depicting Pueblo history and culture, many of which are pre-World War II.

Please visit our Library & Archives page for more information and to view our online catalog.

You can support our mission, including the preservation of this vast collection of important historical records, by donating to IPCC today.