Blog

Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate brings orchestra, language, dance and storytelling together in Lowak Shoppala’, a major work centered on Chickasaw history and living culture.

Taté Walker is a Two Spirit Mniconjou Lakota writer whose poetry confronts colonial expectations while exploring identity, kinship and responsibility. Their collection The Trickster Riots was featured in the Museum of Indigenous People’s 2023 Native Voice exhibition.

Discover Gordon Lewis’s Apache Gaan figures at a Prescott museum, the Mountain Spirit Dance, federal suppression of Native ceremony, and the tradition’s survival.

Hopi artist Kurt Ovah returns to the Museum of Indigenous People. Meet the artist, explore his detailed kachina dolls, and purchase work directly from him.

Hopi artist Abel Nash uses watercolor, family pottery designs, and cultural symbolism to carry generations of knowledge into the present.

Diné artist Landis Bahe works across tattooing, painting, music, and contemporary Native art. His practice opens a larger story about Indigenous tattoo traditions, cultural renewal, personal expression, and the responsibilities carried by designs placed permanently on the body.

Diné painter and botanist Tracy Tohannie brings horses, family life, and northern Arizona landscapes to life through vivid color, expressive lines, and the teaching of Beauty Way.

Hopi artist Filmer Kewanyama transformed his painting Spiritual Life into a large mural inside the Museum of Indigenous People’s HOOP Room. Through water, corn, pueblo architecture, color, and visual storytelling, Hopi Spiritual Life presents a contemporary Hopi artist’s perspective on culture, community, spirituality, and the natural world.

Some of the largest works inside the Museum of Indigenous People are easy to miss unless visitors look up. Diné Storm Pattern weavings hang above the exhibits, bringing generations of artistry and cultural knowledge into the museum’s historic stone galleries.

Learn how to handle, clean, display, and store Native pottery, jewelry, figurines, baskets, beadwork, textiles, and other cultural works without damaging their materials or meaning.

Donicio Sánchez’s life offers a deeper look into the artistic and cultural legacy of San Ildefonso Pueblo. More than a collaborator in pottery, he was a vital link between generations, contributing to a tradition that shaped Indigenous art in the Southwest. His story reveals the people behind the craft—honoring family, identity, and the enduring strength of Pueblo culture.

Once the largest Indigenous nation in northwest Mexico, the Opata people endured colonization, devastating disease, and forced assimilation — yet their story never ended. Through figures like Francisca Acuña and living traditions such as the fariseo ceremony, Opata identity persists across Sonora and southern Arizona, hidden in plain sight. The Museum of Indigenous People is proud to share it.

Hopi/Tewa potters Dot and Emerson Ami demonstrating traditional pottery techniques at the Museum of Indigenous People. Live pottery firing demonstration by Native artists using traditional methods.

Dr. Lois Ellen Frank (Kiowa), an award-winning chef, scholar, and educator, has helped bring Native American cuisine into the national conversation. Through research, cookbooks, and teaching, she highlights traditional Indigenous ingredients such as corn, beans, squash, and wild rice while exploring the cultural knowledge behind Native food traditions and the growing movement to reclaim Indigenous food sovereignty.

Eudora Montoya of Santa Ana Pueblo played a vital role in reviving one of the rarest traditions in Pueblo pottery. At a time when Santa Ana pottery had nearly disappeared, she preserved its methods, taught others, and helped ensure the art form would survive. Her work stands as a powerful reminder that cultural knowledge depends on those willing to protect it and pass it on.

Prescott, Arizona, is a place where Indigenous history is not just preserved but lived and celebrated. As you explore this vibrant city, you will find a rich tapestry of Native American culture woven into its art, history, and community events. This guide will help you discover the top things to do in Prescott, Arizona, with a focus on authentic Indigenous experiences that honor the traditions and voices of the Southwest.

Severa Gutierrez-Tafoya of Santa Clara Pueblo was a master ceramic artist and matriarch of a renowned family of potters. Active for nearly 60 years, her work and firing techniques helped inspire the revival of polished blackware pottery. Though often overlooked during her lifetime, her artistry and influence continue through generations of Pueblo potters.

Angel Starr is an Omaha and Odawa artist and an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes. Through Fox Way Designs, she creates ribbon clothing and jewelry from beads, bone, porcupine quills, and birch bark, bringing family history, community, and Native creativity into everyday life.

Diné speaker Sarah Hendricks visited the Museum of Indigenous People to share the tradition of Navajo sheep raising and its place in Diné culture and family life. Part of the museum’s Education Series, her presentation showed how sheep raising connects generations through land, knowledge, and tradition. With family members there to support her, the event honored living Indigenous knowledge and the strength of Navajo women, families, and cultural continuity today for museum vi

Hopi artist and Army veteran Filmer “Fil” Kewanyama blends ancestral tradition with contemporary expression to promote healing and peace. Drawing from Hopi ceremony and symbolism, his art reflects identity, resilience, and spiritual balance. After overcoming PTSD, he now shares creative healing with fellow veterans, using storytelling and visual expression to build connection and understanding.