maker once known

tesuque pueblo

ca. 1880-1890

This clay figurine of a rain god holding a jar was made by a member of the Tesuque Pueblo community, one of the groups comprising the Eight Northern Pueblos in the territory sometimes called New Mexico.

The marking on the chest was common in Southwestern Indigenous pottery, textiles, and jewelry before World War II, when the symbol became associated with the Nazi swastika. To people of the Diné or Navajo nation, the marking is known as a “whirling log” and represents good luck. 

The production of rain god figurines among the Tesuque Pueblo developed with the expansion of the Santa Fe Railroad in the 1880s. Looking for a new source of income through the tourist trade, Tesuque potters made thousands of rain gods which were sold along the railroad. Never considered a sacred item by the Pueblo people, the rain god was considered by many nineteenth-century settler art collectors to be inauthentic.

Imagining a journey: Arizona to Alaska

Though we cannot know for sure, it is possible that this rain god figurine was passed on to Nelson by fellow expedition member, Frederick Dellenbaugh.

A founder of the American Ethnological Society, Dellenbaugh attempted an anthropological study of the Hopi people of Arizona, whose lands intersected with the original route of the Santa Fe Railroad.

Being involved in colonial expeditionary work from a young age, Dellenbaugh might have picked up a figurine directly from a Tesuque Pueblo potter on one of his journeys. Perhaps he then brought the figurine aboard the George W. Elder to trade or gift to his companions; however, there is also the chance that Nelson acquired this rain god under circumstances unrelated to the Harriman Alaska Expedition and the donor mistakenly grouped it with Alaskan artifacts.  

References

Brown, Sháńdíín, and Zach Feuer. “Why Native Artists are Reclaiming the Whirling Log.” Hyperallergic, 17 July 2024, https://hyperallergic.com/933272/why-native-artists-are-reclaiming-the-whirling-log/.

“Moab History: The History of the ‘Whirling Log’ Motif.” Moab Museum, https://moabmuseum.org/moab-history-the-history-of-the-whirling-log-motif/.

“Nineteenth Century Tesuque Rain God.” Adobe Gallery, https://www.adobegallery.com/blog/subject-nineteenth-century-tesuque-rain-god.

“Tesuque Rain Gods.” New Mexico Historic Women Marker Project. https://www.nmhistoricwomen.org/new-mexico-historic-women/tesuque-rain-gods/.