Native American Storytellers
Grade 2
I love creating cross curricular projects that correspond with what's going in the general classroom. Second grade is currently studying Native Americans. I collaborated with the second grade team to create a lesson that focused on the Southwest. Students learned about the history of Cochiti Pueblo storytellers and then sculpted their own figures.
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| Class artwork in progress |
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| Student Storyteller - completed |
How adorable are these figures? This by far, is one of my favorite lessons this year! I'm so proud of my students. They did a fantastic job and collaborated with one another to make the colors. The material we used to make this project was model magic, an air-dry clay substitute. Model magic comes in lots of colors, but we used skin color markers and concentrated liquid watercolors to color each white packet with a designated color the teacher assigned to each table. The coloring process looks like you are pulling taffy. After coloring we swapped colors with one another until everyone had enough color pieces for the students to individually create their sculptures. The only exception to this process was the black, which I had in pre-colored packs and would be impossible to make using the coloring technique I described. Once the model magic dried, we touched up the facial details with fine tip markers.
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| Helen Cordero |
Background.
The Cochiti Pueblo live in New Mexico near
the city of Albuquerque. They did not
record their stories as we do but passed them orally to their children and
grandchildren. Many of the storyteller
figures are created with their mouth open and eyes closed as the Native American will sing or chant their stories aloud. Native
Americans tell stories about creation, how certain plants and animals came to be,
legends, history, ceremonies or rituals.
Many stories, dances, or rituals are ways to honor the earth or nature’s
way. Other stories tell about family,
love, friendship, hunting, and so on.
One of the most famous Cochiti artists is
Helen Cordero. She started of as a
potter but was never satisfied with the way her bowls or pitchers turned out. So her cousin told her to try
figures instead.
Traditionally these figures were all female
figures holding a child, known as singing mothers. Helen Cordero though kept thinking of her
grandfather. He was a really good
storyteller. She used the traditional
design but made the figure male and placed lots of children on him. She called him Storyteller. Between 5 – 30
figures cling to her sculptures.
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| Helen Cordero - Storyteller |
Following the tradition begun by Helen
Cordero, many other artists in Cochiti Pueblo began to create storyteller
figures in their own styles. Seferina
Ortiz created drummers and animals.
Other artists created cowboy or acrobatic figures.
