Issues Background
Vol. 16 No. 2
Summer 2015
Summer 2015 Cover

On the Cover

The rich cultural, engineering and political achievements of the Andes come into focus this summer at the National Museum of the American Indian – Smithsonian in the major exhibition The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire. This figurine is one of more than 140 items to go on display June 26, 2015 through June 2018. Inka figurine of a woman, AD 1470–1532. Coast of Peru. Gold-silver alloy. 9.6" x 2.5" x 2.8". National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution 5/4120. 

Inka figurine of a woman, AD 1470–1532. Coast of Peru. Gold-silver alloy. 9.6" x 2.5" x 2.8". National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution 5/4120.

Articles

Qhapaq Nan, the Inka road, was an awe-inspiring feat of engineering and construction, and also of political integration. It held together a vast empire of majestic terrain and widely different eco-systems, until the arrival of the Spanish.
Indian artists and craftsman travel a year-long circuit of prestigious craft fairs and competitions to bring their work to the attention of a broader public.
One of the most celebrated Indian scouts of the Civil War, he successfully evacuated Union troops from the seceding South in 1861. But it was just one episode in a long, eventful career.
Joshua Madalena, potter and former governor of Jemez Pueblo, experimented for a decade before recovering the secret of making his people’s ancient black-and-white ceramics, lost for 300 years after Spanish repression of the Pueblo Revolt.