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Rachel Nampeyo

1903 - 1985

BiographyRachel Namingha Nampeyo was born in 1903. She was the granddaughter of Nampeyo of Hano, known for revitalizing Hopi pottery by creating a style inspired by designs found on pottery sherds from prehistoric pueblo ruins near First Mesa, and the daughter of Annie Healing. She was the mother of noted potters Priscilla Nampeyo, Dextra Quotskuyva, Eleanor Lucas, Emerson Namingha and Ruth Namingha.

Rachel Nampeyo was educated at off-reservation government boarding schools, as decreed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the time. She spent her time not in school working on her parents’ farm or in her grandmother’s house. It was from her grandmother that she learned to make pottery. Nampeyo, in turn, trained her own children in the family tradition of pottery.

When her mother, Annie, began losing her sight, Rachel Nampeyo would paint the pots she made and when Rachel’s sight began to fail, her daughter, Dextra, would paint the pots she made. Rachel Nampeyo used the designs she learned from her grandmother, the revived Sikyatki pottery designs, on her pottery. She died in 1985.

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