Nampeyo (1859 – 1942) was a Hopi-Tewa potter who lived on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. Her Tewa name was also spelled Num-pa-yu, meaning "snake that does not bite". Her name is also cited as "Nung-beh-yong," Tewa for Sand Snake.
Early life
thumb|left|Nampeyo and her brother Tom Polacca on the rooftop of the Corn clan dwelling at the Hano village, photograph taken in 1875 by [[William Henry Jackson (Colorado Historical Society)]]
Nampeyo was born on First Mesa in the village of Hano, also known as Tewa Village which is primarily made up of descendants of the Tewa people from Northern New Mexico who fled west to Hopi lands about 1702 for protection from the Spanish after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Her mother, White Corn was Tewa; her father Quootsva, from nearby Walpi, was a member of the Snake clan of the Hopi Nation. According to tradition, Nampeyo was born into her mother's Tewa Corn clan. Tradition also gave her paternal grandmother the role of naming her. Her grandmother, a member of the Snake clan, named the baby Tcu-mana, or snake-girl in the Hopi language. Her mother's family, who she lived with, spoke Tewa, and so called her Nampeyo, which has the same meaning. She had three older brothers, Tom Polacca, Kano, and Patuntupi, also known as Squash; Her brothers were born from about 1849 to 1858.
William Henry Jackson first photographed her in 1875; she was reputedly one of the most photographed ceramic artists in the Southwest during the 1870s. About 1878 Nampeyo married her second husband, Lesou (or Lesso), a member of the Cedarwood clan at Walpi. Their first daughter, Annie, was born in 1884; William Lesso, was born about 1893; Nellie was born in 1896; Wesley in 1899; and Fannie was born in 1900.
Artwork
alt=black-and-white photograph of a woman leaning over a fire|thumb|Nampeyo firing pottery, 1901
Hopi people make ceramics painted with beautiful designs, and Nampeyo was eventually considered one of the finest Hopi potters. Nampeyo may have learned Hopi pottery making through the efforts of her father's mother, though her biographer Barbara Kramer believes this theory implausible. By 1881 she was already known for her works of "old Hopi" pottery of Walpi. from old Hopi designs and Sikyátki pottery.thumb|Nampeyo with one of her Sikyátki Revival vessels, 1908–1910. Hopi, Arizona. Photo by Charles M. Wood. P07128Keam hired First Mesa potters to make reproductions of the works. Nampeyo was particularly skilled. Her pottery became a success and was collected throughout the United States and in Europe.
Kate Cory, an artist and photographer who lived among the Hopi from 1905 to 1912 at Oraibi and Walpi, wrote that Nampeyo used sheep bones in the fire, which are believed to have made the fire hot or made the pottery whiter, and smoothed the fired pots with a plant with a red blossom. Both techniques are ancient Tewa pottery practices. Nampeyo used up to five different clays in one creation when the usual was two.
Nampeyo and her husband traveled to Chicago in 1898 to exhibit her pottery. Between 1905 and 1907, she produced and sold pottery out of a pueblo-like structure called Hopi House, a tourist attraction (combination of museum, curio shop, theatre, and living space for Native American dancers and artists) at the Grand Canyon lodge, operated by the Fred Harvey Company. From 1925 until her death she made pottery by touch and they were then painted by her husband, daughters or other family members. Because the painters were different, the style changed to be busier and more geometric.
- Denver Art Museum, Colorado
- Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University, Providence, RI
- Kansas City Museum, Kansas City, MO
- Koshare Indian Museum, La Junta, CA
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Nampeyo, Polacca polychrome water jar," in Smarthistory, March 8, 2021, accessed August 13, 2025, https://smarthistory.org/nampeyo-polacca-water-jar/.
- Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM
- Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, NM
- Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, AZ
- National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC