Potsuwii

About the Potsuwi'i Style

In the 1920s and 1930s, there were movements in nearly all the pueblos to revive their ancient arts and crafts, the things that helped to shape their history and make them who they are. At Ohkay Owingeh a group of eight women got together and first planned to go into embroidery. Then came word of an old pueblo found where someone was digging a hole for the basement of a house. They started turning up artifacts and stopped their work, waiting for the archaeologists to arrive and do their thing.

There was a significant amount of ancient pottery found in and around the old pueblo. It had very distinctive shapes and designs. It was dated to have been made around 1450-1500 CE, therefore before the Spanish arrived in the area and exerted their considerable influence on things. This group of women worked with those old pots and eventually came up with a definition of Potsuwi'i pottery, naming it for the village where it was found. Potsuwi'i pottery became the standard for traditional Ohkay Owingeh pottery.

Their definition was basically "decorative zones of geometric fine lines with selected areas of polished red slip." Some potters painted micaceous slip into the fine line grooves and some carved, etched and painted other designs on their pots.

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