America's Great Lost Expedition [SOLD]

"America's Great Lost Expedition: The Thomas Keam Collection of Hopi Pottery from the Second Hemenway Expedition, 1890-1894"

By Dr. Edwin L. Wade

Publisher: The Heard Museum, Phoenix. 1980

Softcover, first edition, 104 pages. Illustrated

Condition: used condition. Interior pages in good condition. Front and back covers show abrasions. One tear on the back cover corner.

This publication features the Collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Partial Excerpt from the Preface:

Until recently a large and significant collection of Hopi Indian art lay buried amidst the dusty recesses of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard. Acquired through the Second Hemenway Expedition of 1890-1894, the "Thomas V. Keam Collection of Hopi Material Culture" is currently being restored and rehoused at the Peabody under support provided by the National Science Foundation. The collection consists of approximately 4500 ethnographic objects ranging from prehistoric pots, baskets, and textile fragments to nineteenth century wooden tablitas and ceremonial art. A catalogue of some 1500 of the historic ceramics has been prepared for the National Park Service. Through the support of both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service, that catalogue is now being readied for publication.

The ceramics in this exhibition date from 1200 A.D. to 1900 A.D., and were selected because of their great artistic and historic significance. Their interpretation sheds new light on Hopi history, and expresses the enduring yet varied aesthetic traditions of this Native American people who have continuously inhabited the mesa country of northeastern Arizona for the past one thousand years.

This outstanding collection pays tribute to the sensitivity and intellectual questing of its creator, Thomas V. Keam, trader, benefactor, and protector of the Hopi people who, between 1875 and 1890, assembled his collection. Born of his intimate knowledge of and participation in Hopi life, it reflects the various stages in the evolution of Hopi culture. In this great task of recording the material record ....