Special offers from Indian Market week

Our trip to New Mexico for Indian Market has been quite productive.

We've acquired Cochiti fetish carvings by Salvador Romero,  new Zuni fetish carvings and stunning Navajo jewelry items. When we get them home, the real work begins to put the new items on our Zuni carvings website and our Native American Jewelry website. So, we are offering some discounts for preview purchasers.

Here's a Todd Westika's Shell Corn Maiden with six directional ears of corn. When it is added to the website the price will be $350. Buy it now for $330.

This pair of horses by Salvador Romero will be $150 on the eband $140 if you buy it now.

These two pendants by Navajo Calvin Begay will be $250 on line and $295 on line respectively with preview prices of $200 and $250 respectively if purchased now.

To purchase, email us at Sanibelart@gmail.com and mention this blog message or telephone us at 800-305-0185.

When the items are posted on the websites, the prices will be higher. Give us a call or send us an email message.

Sal Romero, Cochiti fetish carver, on video

One of our favorite Native American artists is Salvador Romero of Cochiti Pueblo. Sal carves differently from most Zuni fetish carvers. Whereas Zuni fetish carvers tend to carve in special gemstone and other commercial materials, Salvador carves stones and rocks that he harvests from the grounds of his pueblo. In this video, he talks about the process of finding carving material and how it leads him to what to carve.

ZuniLink, a name we chose because the preponderance of fetish carvers are Zuni, carries several pages of Salvador's carvings. Newly acquired one will be posted to the Web site shortly In the meantime, take a look at what's available now from this talented carver.
Thank you.

New Wilson Romero Cochiti carved Nativity Set

How fitting is this for the season?

We just received a newly carved Nativity set from Cochiti Pueblo carver, Wilson Romero.

We have carried Wilson's Nativity Sets and other carvings for years.

He and his wife, Annette, are two of our favorite artists. We are regular visitors to their home on Cochiti Pueblo, where they are very gracious hosts.

This new set is some of his best work.12 pieces are included: Mary, Joseph, Jesus in the crib, three wise men, a buffalo, horse, bear, ram, camel and mountain lion.

We have just posted it to the web site at $660. If you purchase it this Christmas season and mention seeing it on the blog, you can put in your home for just $550 plus shipping (and tax, if you are a Florida resident) a $110 saving.

Thank you for your support this year. We wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy, prosperous New Year.

William and Susanne Waites, proprietors, ZuniLink.com.

New Salvador Romero Cochiti fetish carvings are online

We love Salvador Romero and his work. It's always a pleasure to see him, as we did again this year in Santa Fe. After a nice - too much nice- breakfast, Salvador opened his trunk and brought out the carvings he had created for us.

Here are a few examples, which have been added to Salvador's pages on our ZuniLink web site:

A Raven in Pueblo Stone

Here's a prairie dog, those denizens of the desert










Here's a family of bears, Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear








A horse, a horse. Salvador does a horse.







An eagle stands alertly, waiting for someone to claim it.













Here's a hawk in sandstone.









The badger is a fearsome protector among fetish animals. You can see why.






A wise owl materializes from Pueblo stone.










And there are more. Click on the images to go to the appropriate page at ZuniLink.

“Sasquatch?” at Cochiti Pueblo

While visiting with Wilson Romero on Cochiti Pueblo, he mentioned that some of his fellow puebloans were visiting some Sioux Indians in the Dakotas. They claimed to have seen a Bigfoot creature near a lake in the nearby hills. They reported that they had seen the creature stop at the lake and scoop up some water to sip. They went on to say that they do not allow anyone to enter that area. They feel the creature is not hurting anyone and there is no reason to intrude on his privacy.

Regular readers of Tribal Artery will remember that Wilson is one of the Romero brothers who carve animals in a certain natural style. They carve creatures from large stones and rocks found on the Cochiti Pueblo grounds.

That is one of the things that brings us to Cochiti each year. We were here to purchase some of his most recent carvings. We will be posting them to the blog and the website. In the meantime, you can see some of Wilson's vintage carvings at ZuniLink.com.

As we were wrapping up our purchases from among his most recent works, he added a carving that looked like a large foot print. It was carved from locally collected basalt.

Here is a photograph of it. (No. It is not a casting of an actual footprint.)He insisted that we have it, as his gift.

We had a good laugh about his attempt to reflect the lore with a Bigfoot carving. We accepted his gift with appreciation. It will have a special place in our personal collection.

Nativities and Native American culture in Native Peoples

The November/December issue of Native Peoples magazine has a special editorial feature concerning Nativities (or as they are sometimes known, "Nascimientos"). It starts on page 36 and covers not only a number of examples by Native American Indian carvers and potters but also an historic discussion of the culture that spawned them.

We at Aboriginals have maintained a vibrant collection of Native American nativity sets. For the most part they are pottery. But some are carved works. For example, Wilson Romero of Cochiti carves sets from sandstone and natural stones found around the Cochiti Pueblo. One of his sets is pictured on page 38. Another carver who is doing nativity sets is Troy Sice of Zuni. Troy works in antler with inlaid turquoise and shell, plus sterling silver crowns adorning the three kings. An example of his technique is portrayed on page 37 of the article.

If you can't find a copy to buy, you can see an abstract of the publication online here. The November/December issue has not been posted to the web site yet but should be shortly.

If you are interested in seeing other examples of nativity sets, ones that actually can be purchased and added to your collection, visit the nativities page at Native-PotteryLink.com

You will find examples of works by
Wilson Romero and
Troy Sice

also by clicking on the appropriate preceding link.

While we are on the subject of Native Peoples magazine, one of our favorites, you will find a link to them on our web sites and you will also find an advertisement from Aboriginals on page 50. With so many beautiful Calvin Begay bracelets to show, we couldn't choose one. So we showed a lot of them. You can see each up close at this web address.

There's also an ad for Aboriginals in Smithsonian Magazine, featuring the Troy Sice Nativity Set, if you happen ot pick up a copy of that fine magazine.

Lunch with Salvador Romero, Cochiti carver

Well, we are finally situated in our “adobe hacienda” in Santa Fe. We have learned that the area we are in is called Puesta del Sol, which our host interprets as “Where the sun lays down” in English. Indeed, the sunset from our little guest house is spectacular, yet very soothing, an unmistakable that the day is ending.



Other than that, it’s a lot like being at home – with one exception. Our broadband internet connection is not up and running. So, we are making internet runs to Kinko’s, where we can go online and grab our email. Unfortunately, after we make the trip, gear up at Kinko’s, get on line and read the email, it’s time to pack up and head back “home”.



It highlights how spontaneous our web activity is. As we sit in our cottage and an urge strikes us to search or post on line, we realize we are frustrated without an instantly available web connection. Arrrrgh…..



On the bright side, we had lunch today with Salvador Romero. We met him and his lady friend, Susan McDuffy, at a little café on Cerrillos Road where he likes to eat when in Santa Fe. He is in good health, which we were glad to see and hear. Sal told us he had a hard winter, what with extreme weather on the Cochiti Pueblo and the demands of pueblo business. He reported that many pieces were lost in production as a result of cold and snow. These are serious problems since Sal works outdoors, under a tarp suspend over a wood frame.



We are fortunate that he was able to ship about a dozen new carvings to us just a week before we left for New Mexico. We were especially pleased that this work is some of his best in our opinion. I mentioned that to him at lunch today. I was appreciative and talked about the difficulty in balancing his pueblo responsibilities with his ability to carve. I am tempted to say the former interfere with the latter. But, knowing Salvador, it would be more appropriate to say his carving occasionally interferes with his pueblo duties. It is hard to imagine someone who takes his pueblo life more seriously.



According to Sal, Feast Day on the pueblo calls for lots of preparation including the repair and creation of new headdresses each year. They are painted with homemade, non-commercial colors. After the day’s dances, the headdresses are put away.



With the most recent Feast Day behind him and fairly benevolent weather for the rest of August, Salvador agreed to take on some additional carvings for us. We look forward to seeing them later this month and bringing them back home with us.


Tribal Artery is brought to you by Aboriginals: Art of the First Person, and online tribal art gallery with websites at Zunilink, Native-JewelryLink, Native-PotteryLink and TribalWorks


Thank you visiting the blog, which is being posted from Kinko's. You're invited to visit the web sites.