Willard Metcalf: Zuni from Mal-Pais Mesa

"The Dance of the Great Knife"
by Willard Metcalf

"After dinner on Sunday evening, 29 May 1881, a group of men and women gathered together in the home of General Luther Bradley, commandant of Fort Wingate in New Mexico, to hear Frank Cushing read and explain the poetic qualities of a Zuni song, after which Palowahtiwa, governor of the pueblo, sang the same song - a song to the antelope - in Zuni. The circle of listeners included Willard Metcalf and Sylvester Baxter, who had arrived and had met Cushing the previous day and now took down notes of all that occurred.

Meeting Cushing profoundly affected the young Boston men, and they wrestled to turn the  new experiences into images for personal understanding and public consumption. In the coming months, Metcalf twice drew Cushing in full-length portrait, while Baxter wrote of him to Boston readers."* Later that year Metcalf accepted an offer to go to New Mexico with Baxter to illustrate his upcoming article on the Zuni Indians for 'Harper's Magazine.' Thus Metcalf became one of the first artists to document thoroughly the Indians of the Southwest - particularly the Zuni - for a popular audience.

He also, along with Henry Farny, illustrated a three-part series, 'My Adventures in Zuni' by Frank Cushing for 'The Century.' For a number of his gouache-on-paper drawings, he stood on a rooftop at Zuni Pueblo. At that time, most of the pueblos of New Mexico had adopted a square or rectangular ground plan, which resulted in a central plaza, used for ceremonials. This was surrounded by multistory dwellings terraced back from its perimeter. Ground-level rooms normally had no openings, and entry was gained by means of exterior ladders to the roof of the first story, then repeated for the second, and so on. This can be seen in Metcalf's illustrations. The work he did there helped record the traditional lifeways before they disappeared forever.

Longing to move on to Paris, Metcalf accompanied Cushing and another delegation of six Indians to the East. He teamed up with Baxter again who described this visit in 'The Century.' Metcalf hoped that an auction of his work would raise enough money for his desired move abroad, but although his illustrations were successful, the auction was not. The seventy-six paintings and drawings only brought him eight hundred thirty-three dollars. So he went back to the Southwest joining Cushing on another exploration trip and illustrating other articles. With the additional income he had earned, he set off for Paris.**

To be continued

* (Excerpt from "The Southwest in the American Imagination" by Sylvester Baxter.)

**(Excerpt from "Sunlight and Shadow: The Life and Art of Willard L. Metcalf" by  Elizabeth de Veer and Richard J. Boyle.)