Dorothy Herrera, lcco3b100, Bear figure with a cub and a fish

$425.00

Polychrome bear figure with one cub and a fish on its back

In stock

Dimensions 2 × 5.25 × 4.75 in
Condition of Piece

Very good

Signature

DH Cochiti N.M.

Brand

Herrera, Dorothy

Dorothy Herrera was born into Cochiti Pueblo in 1969. Her mother was Mary Frances Herrera, her grandmother Laurencita Herrera. Like her brother Edwin and sister Mary Ramona, Dorothy grew up learning how to make pottery through watching and working with their mother and grandmother.

Dorothy makes polychrome jars and bowls but is most known for her creative human, frog, cat and bear storytellers, both miniature and full-size.

A Short History of Cochiti Pueblo

The view looking west across the lands of Cochiti Pueblo to the Jemez Mountains
The view west across Cochiti Pueblo
People in the bottom of a slot canyon at Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument
In the bottom of the slot canyon

Cochiti Pueblo lies fifteen miles south of Santa Fe along the west bank of the Rio Grande. What is now Bandelier National Monument is the pueblo's most recent ancestral home. They may have relocated to the Bandelier area from the Four Corners region around 1300, and then closer to the Rio Grande in the 1400s in the heart of an even worse drought situation. They merged with people who had been living in the area for hundreds of years before, pushing south until they came up against the countryside of the Tiwa pueblos in the middle Rio Grande.

In those days, the people of Cochiti, Santo Domingo and San Felipe were one Keres-speaking culture. They split into three cultures when some decided to go further down the Rio Grande to settle (San Felipe), and some decided to cross to the eastern side (Santo Domingo). All three speak dialects of Eastern Keres and are considered very conservative.

Cochiti legend says that Clay Old Woman and Clay Old Man came to visit the Cochitis. While all the people watched, Clay Old Woman shaped a pot. Clay Old Man danced too close and kicked the pot. He rolled the clay from the broken pot into a ball, gave a piece to all the women in the village and told them never to forget to make pottery.

Most outsiders who visit Cochiti Pueblo these days do so on the way to or from either the recreation area on Cochiti Lake or Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument.

Some of the tent rock formations at Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument
Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument
Map showing the location of Cochiti Pueblo relative to Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Gallup, New Mexico

For more info:
Cochiti Pueblo at Wikipedia
Pueblo of Cochiti official website


About Figures and Figurines

Generally, "Figure" denotes a real or mythic creature, like an owl or human or katsina or Corn Maiden. Whether form or decoration, all Puebloan pottery figures are meant to invoke particular spiritual essences. That's why "effigy" is used almost as often as "figure" to denote these pieces.

Among most Puebloans, the figure of an owl, for example, signifies all the physical and spiritual aspects attributed to the owl. It's a form of prayer to the spirit of "Owl" and the appropriately decorated physical form is meant to make that spirit manifest. However, to the Zuni people an owl is a good omen and to the Tewa people, an owl is a bad omen. Some potters at Santa Clara have made owls anyway, they just shaped and decorated them to reflect that "badness."

That explanation may make more sense in the case of the Corn Maiden as she is a mythic entity whose existence revolves around the most ubiquitous food staple in the Puebloan world: corn (maize). All representations of the Corn Maiden are meant to invoke her benevolence and abundance for their people. Because of her mythical/spiritual nature, different pueblos have slightly different physical forms for her but they all incorporate the basic form of a female human face on an ear of corn.

The potters of Tesuque turned out thousands of muna figures (also known as rain gods)for several decades, until they virutally burned out their pottery tradition. These muna had very specific shapes but were decorated with everything from micaceous slips to incised lines to polychrome geometric designs to poster paints. They were also made purely for domestic American consumption, sometimes delivered by the barrel to be used as prizes and giveaways.

The Storyteller is another figure based on Puebloan tradition: a tribal elder singing the stories of the tribe's oral history to the children. The original was based on the traditional cultural story: a grandfather singing his part of the story in his native language so the children learn both the language and their identity against the backdrop of that history. Shortly, the storyteller form was duplicated in several other pueblos, each pueblo's potters adapting the form to their local situation. In some places, the grandmother became the primary sex of their storytellers. At Jemez, that responsibility was shared between grandmothers and grandfathers. Then some potters in search of new niches in the marketplace branched into making "spirit figure" storytellers, like eagles, ravens, hummingbirds, cats and dogs. Some Zuni potters have made storyteller owls.

Similar to the Storyteller is the Story Time: a set of separate children displayed around a larger central singing figure.

The Nativity set (also known as nacimiento) is a set of figures based on the intersection of Puebloan mythologies and stories they heard from Christian missionaries. Those potters who make them also tend to favor dress, shapes and designs that reflect their own heritage(s). The first few nativities made at Tesuque Pueblo were decorated with Spanish colonial costumes but that soon changed and every nativity made since has a distinct blend of Native American and Christian, with no other reference to colonialism. The "Singing Angel" (a single standing figure with outstretched wings and hands clasped together in prayer) and "Flight to Egypt" (usually depicting Mary with a baby Jesus on the back of a donkey and a standing Joseph nearby holding the rein) are similar mixes of tribal and Christian figures. The miniature nativities made by Santa Clara/Dineh artist Linda Askan clearly show Dineh religious influence in the headresses worn by Joseph, the angel and the three wise men. At the same time, the Dineh Folk Art nativities made by Jonathan Chee are based on the realities of daily Dineh life: the three wise men wear wide-brim hats and blue jeans, and bring gifts of salt and 50-pound bags of flour.

Pueblo and Dineh artists also make a full zoo of domesticated, farm and wild animal figures: horses, donkeys, cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, turkeys, giraffes, elephants, dogs, cats, mermaids, women-dressed-up-and-taking-selfies and cowboys among them.


About Bears and Bear Paws

At Santa Clara there's a story about a time when the people were suffering through a very severe drought. There was no rain for so long the rivers and ponds were drying up. They didn't know what to do. Then early one morning, a young boy stepped outside and saw a bear moving through the village. A bear meant there was enough water somewhere to support the bear and its food. So he followed the bear and the bear led him into the forested hills to a formerly unknown spring that was still flowing. Shortly after they found that spring, the weather changed and the rains came back.

The village celebrated their survival and have since elevated the bear to the standing of a special sacred animal charged with looking out for their welfare. The symbol of the bear and the bear paw carry on that tradition of doing homage to a character in their spiritual world.

That particular elevation is specific to the Pueblo of Santa Clara. Among all the pueblos, the Bear clan is the medicine clan. That makes them the most powerful clan in most villages. Some pueblos have traded members in the past in order to strengthen one or another of the primary clans at another pueblo. Often it is members of the Bear clan.


Laurencita Herrera Family Tree - Cochiti Pueblo

Disclaimer: This "family tree" is a best effort on our part to determine who the potters are in this family and arrange them in a generational order. The general information available is questionable so we have tried to show each of these diagrams to living members of each family to get their input and approval, too. This diagram is subject to change should we get better info.