Back to: Pueblo

Pueblo Indian Watercolors: Symbols

Symbols are visual clues that indicate or represent something. For symbols to be useful to a group of people, each person must know what each symbol represents. For instance, the shape of a heart can be used to represent love; the peace sign represents the complex idea of peace. Perhaps little about the shapes of these symbols makes their meaning obvious; people have simply developed an informal agreement about their meaning. Symbols can also be based on a simplified representation of an object, such as the silhouette of a wheelchair used to indicate access for persons who can't use stairs.

For the Pueblo Indians, colors have come to represent directions symbolically. For instance, for the Hopi, yellow represents north, white represents east, red represents south, blue represents west, and black represents "above." For centuries, the Hopi have grown maize in each of these colors.

Other Pueblo symbols include the following:

1. cloud with rain and lightning
2. cloud with leaves and lightning
3. cloud with rain and lightning
4. cloud with rain and lightning
5. sun (Zia)

6. forehead of the sun (setting sun)
7. forehead of the sun (rising sun)
8. dragonflies
9. plumed or horned serpent Avanyu

10. mountains
11. tadpoles
12. mountain
13. mountain under rainbow

14. bear
15. corn
16. heartline on a fox
17. corn plant