Architecture

• Native Americans of the Southwest constructed many architectural complexes that reflect masterful building skills and spatial organization. Two remarkable examples of such mostly communal complexes with circular underground structures, called kivas, are Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde, Colorado, and Pueblo Bonito at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
  
  

Northwest Coast Indian Masks

• Northwest Coast masks were carved for use by shamans in their healing rites and by others in public re-enactments of "spirit guests." The masks are dramatic in character to the exaggeration of facial parts and have deeply undercut curvilinear depressions, which result in strong shadows.
  
  

Chilkat Blankets

• Another characteristic Native American art form is the blanket. The elegant Chilkat blanket with stylized animal motifs is the most famous among the collectors. Male artists provided the symmetrical abstract designs for these blankets in the form of pattern boards from which female weavers worked.
  
  

Artists of the Great Plains

• Artists of the Great Plains decorate leather garments, first with compactly sewn quill designs and later with beadwork patterns. Tepees, tepee linings and buffalo-skin robes are painted with geometric and stiff figural designs as well as the naturalistic scenes, often of war exploits.
  
  

Iroquois Art

• The Iroquois, famous for their quilled and beaded objects and items of clothing, also carved expressionistic masks for use in the False Face Society ceremonies, which healed physical and psychological sickness and cleansed whole communities of destructive influences.
  
  

Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection

• Eugene and Clare Thaw assembled rare and important examples of American Indian art that give an overview of American Indian culture throughout North America. The new wing of the Fenimore House Museum of the New York State Historical Association in Cooperstown, New York, includes Eugene and Clare Thaw's collection, a permanent display of 200 objects arranged geographically.