A special blog from our Curator of Exhibitions, Rachel Moore (Hopi).
We are a people who were formed from the clay and emerged from the bosom of Mother Earth. Honoring that creation story, we recognize our origins through our mothers. We each are born into our mother’s clan. Clans are passed from grandmother to mother, to daughter, to granddaughter. They provide us a way to trace our family connections, inheritance rights, and identity gifted to us by our ancestors.
In our way of life, women hold the characteristics of the Earth from which we rely. Women nurture life, and are creators of bodies and homes. Calling the Earth our mother, we show great respect not only for the Earth but also for the women who represent her.
When approaching the subject of Pueblo women, I like to think about their leading Pueblo values—I think of Humility, Love, and Wisdom. Pueblo women are so humble (“She won’t say anything; it is up to us to brag about her,” Stanley Lucero told me when speaking about his wife, Cecelia, for our HERitage exhibit.), yet it is time to acknowledge that our people have had a way of being and acknowledging the power of women long before the current movements.
I say pueblos celebrate matriarchs daily. Our way of introducing ourselves includes being named as a part of our maternal clans, and a lot can be said to dissect and discuss matrilineal and matriarchal societies, which all pueblos are one or both. However, I also consider the woman’s role in mud-plastering the homes, and dividing and processing food for the community, and of course, in carrying forward traditional ways.