NM old & new

More great cards from New Mexico arrived today!

This card features two elder Navajo (Dine) women wearing velveteen blouses and broom skirts, styles adapted from soldier's wives when the Navajo were forced to walk to the Bosque Redondo Reservation in the 1860s. The Long Walk and time spent at this reservation resulted in the deaths of many native people; after four years the reservation was abandoned and the Navajo were allowed to return home to the Four Corners region.

This card features native rock art found at the Three Rivers Petroglyph site in southern New Mexico. The site has more than 21,000 carvings of birds, animals, fish, plants and humans made by the Mogollon people, ancestors to the Pueblos, between 900 and 1400AD.

This is a well known image of women from the Pueblo village of Zuni. A series of cards using images from the same photo shoot were produced in the 1960s and 1970s but this card offers a nice colorful close portrait of the women. They wear very fine jewelry including large silver & turquoise squash blossom necklaces, coral necklaces, and silver & turquoise pins. Zuni pottery is made from local clay with a white slip and redish designs. The deer with a heart line began appearing in the mid 1800s; other designs include frogs, lizards, birds and geometric patterns. In the 1920s Zuni women began performing a dance while balancing a pot on their heads, honoring women's activities such as carrying water home and tending gardens.