Sowi-ingwa (Deer Dancer) Vessel
by Carla Claw Nampeyo, Hopi Pueblo
hand carved clay, pigment
7.5” high x 5.25” diameter
The Deer Dancer Kachina, known as Sowi-ingwa, is a traditional social dancer and spirit who prays for plentiful game, winter snow for a good harvest, and rain for crops.
Carla Claw Nampeyo is a Hopi-Tewa of the Snow Clan, from the First Mesa village of Shungopavi. Carla is the daughter of Thomas Polacca Nampeyo, sister to Gary Polacca Nampeyo, Fannie Myron, Delmar Polacca and Elvira Naha. She is the granddaughter of Fannie Polacca Nampeyo, and great-granddaughter of Nampeyo. She has been an active potter since the mid-1970s, and specializes in dark brown slipped pottery and highly detailed sgraffito carving.
"Mainly my work is kind of different from everybody's. I use a dark brown polished slip on plain seed pots done with sqraffito carving like my dad does. It's kind of unique in a way, to me it's modern. That's the outlook now. Things that are different are more accepted, but they're done in traditional form that links us back to who we are." -Carla Claw (Dillingham 1994)
