Speakers Bureau Topics Gallery
This gallery offers a look at the topics presented by the Las Guias Speakers Bureau. Each slide is sort of a film “trailer” with an illustration and a brief description of what the topic covers. Think of it as a sort of shopping list you can use to help you choose the presentation you would like to schedule.
Other Slides in the Gallery of Topics
Architecture of the Ancestral Pueblo People
Explores the architecture of the Ancestral Pueblo people from 1 A.D. to the 13th century in the Four Corners area of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. The presentation traces the pueblos in the regions of the Northern San Juan River (Mesa Verde), Kayenta, Chaco Canyon, the Little Colorado River, and the northern Rio Grande. It also talks about the migrations to the pueblos that exist today.
Baskets in Home
This presentation focuses on the Southwest baskets currently on display in the exhibit HOME: Native Peoples of the Southwest. It includes baskets from the Apache, Pai, O’odam, Navajo, and Hopi reservations with descriptions of the materials, construction, and uses of the baskets.
Beautiful Resistence II
The “style” of American Indian painting shown in this presentation became popularly known as “flatsyle”, studio style”, or “traditional”. An outgrowth of their Boarding School experience, the subjects and themes center on the tribal customs they left behind. This art is not so much a reflection of a painted past, but a poignant visual diary of human resistance and cultural persistence.
Contemporary American Indian Women
During the 20th and into the 21st century, the American Indian woman has claimed her place in society; in the arts, in the community, in medicine, in law, and in government. This presentation highlights some of these American Indian women who have become leaders in their fields.
Dine’ - The Navajo
The Navajo Nation constitutes the second largest tribe in the U.S., numbering some 350,000 people in Arizona. Their reservation is about the size of West Virginia. The Navajo are Athapascan speaking people who arrived in the Southwest sometime between 1000 and 1500 A.D. We show their history, location, and some of their traditions, housing, clothing, food, and art, as well as their present day occupations.
Every Picture Tells A Story
This presentation introduces audiences to American Indians of the Northwest, Canada, the Colorado Plateau, the Rio Grande Valley, the Sonoran Desert, and the Great Lakes. It demonstrates how elements of these environments are depicted on the objects they created. Whatever is seen on their pottery, baskets, tapestries, etc., tells a story about the makers and their surroundings.
Home: Native Peoples of the Southwest
Home: Native Peoples of the Southwest is the signature exhibit of the Heard Museum. Through it, the Heard tells the individual and collective stories of Indian families and their homelands from their prehistoric and historic pasts, their present, and a look forward into their future.
The Hohokam and the O’odham
The Sonoran Desert was the home of the prehistoric Hohokam people. They inhabited the Salt River Valley from about 1 A.D. to 1450 A.D. We talk about their traditions, housing, canals, clothing, food, and arts. The desert tribes who today inhabit the Sonoran Desert are the O’odham, farmers who practiced “run off” farming in desert locations. We show their history, location, and some of their traditions.
HopiAncestors of the Hopi people have been living on the high mesas of the Colorado Plateau for hundreds of years. Many Hopi still reside atop three of these mesas. The presentation includes the Hopi history and the Pueblo Revolt. It also talks about their traditions, housing, clothing, food, arts, and present day occupations.
Inde’ - The Apache
The Apache are Athapascan speaking people who migrated from western Canada into the Southwest sometime between 1000 A.D. and 1500 A.D. Retaining their core values and their traditions, the Apaches continued to be Hunters and Gatherers living a nomadic lifestyle. We show their history, locations, and some of their traditions, housing, clothing, food, arts, and present day occupations.
Life In A Cold Place - Arctic Art From The Albrecht Collection
Though a selection of prints, drawings and sculpture from the Albrecht Collection, this exhibit examines how Inuit artists depict the way their people lived and survived in a cold environment. The themes of the art are land, family, housing, and the traditional hunting and fishing methods.
Native American Jewelry
Starting with the jewelry produced by the Hohokam and continuing with the jewelry of the Navajo, Zuni, Hopi and various pueblos, this presentation includes many photos of traditional and contemporary jewelry created by American Indian jewelers.
Native Foods
As in many cultures, food plays a central role in the lives of Native Americans in the Southwest. This presentation on Southwestern Native American food looks at a few of the various foods that Native Americans eat and shows the integral position of food in native life.
Of Grasses, Ferns, and Trees: California And Great Basin Baskets
The baskets made by the native peoples of California and the Great Basin reflect cultural traditions and geographical diversities. The utilitarian and decorative baskets in this exhibition display the variety of techniques and materials used.
Phoenix Indian SchoolThe history of the Phoenix Indian School from 1892 to 1990. The founder of the Boarding Schools was Richard Henry Pratt, whose philosophy was, “Kill the Indian and save the man.” He believed that only off-reservation boarding schools, which removed children from the influence of their family and tribe, could accomplish the purpose of assimilation.
Pre-History Of The Southwest
This is an overview of the pre-historic peoples: the Ancestral Pueblo, the Mogollon, and the Hohokam, who lived in the environmental zones of the Sonoran Desert, the Uplands, and the Colorado Plateau. It shows their housing, canals, crops, pottery, textiles, and projectile points.
Rain: The Importance Of Water To Native Americans
The connection between rain and life is strongly shown by clouds, rainbows, plants and birds. We discuss the various songs, dances, paintings, ceremonies, and katsinam that depict the importance of rain to the native peoples of the Southwest.
Southwest Arts
Southwest Arts begins with an overview of environmental zones of the Hopi, Navajo, Apache, and O’odham reservations. The presentation includes examples of textiles, basketry, pottery, jewelry, painting, and sculpture from these diverse tribes.
Window On The Heard
This presentation begins with the Heards and the museum opening in 1929. It gives an update of the Heard Museum as it exists today. Included are the Museum’s education efforts, American Indian artists who demonstrate on the grounds, the artists in residence, the Museum Shop, tha Arcadia Farms Restaurant, the annual Indian Fair & Market, Hoop Dance Championship, the satellites of the Heard Museum, and Home - the signature gallery which opened in 2005.
Zuni Jewelry: A Metaphor For Zuni Society
This presents a short history of jewelry making in the prehistoric Southwest and the history of Zuni jewelry making for the last 1,000 years. It illustrates that jewelry making is a direct and an indirect representation of the cultures that create it. Nowhere is this more powerfully represented than with the Zuni people.
Plants To Politics
Agriculture, pharmacology, world economy, architecture, urban planning, and politics today have been impacted by the cultural practices of native peoples. We talk of the New World’s contributions to foods (including production and preservation), medicines, plants for other uses, anatomy, economy and trade, lumber, architecture, urban planning, and the U.S. Constitution.
Story Telling And Games
This presentation is designed for children in preschool, kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades. The stories presented come from the books: The Goat and the Rug, Lizard on the Wall, When Clay Sings, The Coyote and the Butterflies, and others chosen by the guide. Each guide usually augments each presentation with his or her own objects.