The Portal Case: Authenticity, Tourism, Traditions, and the Law

Abstract

Factors outside a tradition often intervene in the process of that tradition. The assumptions, attitudes, and concerns of the public, the law, and the conservationists influence the manufacture, production, and sale of Southwest Indian jewelry. SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO, attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists each year because of its picturesque plaza, its historic role as a Spanish imperial capital, its nearby Indian pueblos, its wealth of museums, and its cultural events-and its ski slopes. It has an image as an Old World haven where one can meet the American Other, the unassimilated Native American culture. Perhaps the closest most visitors will get to real Indians is by strolling along the Portal of the Palace of the Governors, the oldest public building in the United States and now part of the Museum of New Mexico. Here, under this covered walkway spanning one side of the central plaza, the Indians display and sell their wares: jewelry, pottery, sand paintings, food, and occasionally other handicrafts. Sitting with their backs to the stuccoed adobe palace wall, they arrange their wares neatly on blankets in front of them. On a busy day 50 or so Indians and myriad tourists are crammed into this long corridor. The Indians, mostly from the nearby pueblos but also from the Navaho, Zuni, and Hopi reservations and further afield, are there every day in the summer. Many even brave the cold winter days and sit huddled in rugs. For the Indian, selling under the Portal is a financial necessity; for the visitors, the Portal provides comfortable surroundings to see and buy genuine Indian crafts from genuine Indian craftsmen, apparently without the distancing factor of middlemen.