Orman Collection of Native American Art, 600-1930 | Colorado State University-Pueblo Library

The collection includes approximately 200 pieces of Native American art and artifacts including Navajo rugs of the pan-reservation style of the early 20th century, pottery pieces representative of a variety of the Pueblo cultures, and a group of Jicarilla and Western Apache baskets ranging in date from approximately 600CE to the 1930s.  The scope of Orman Native American Collection represents the broad and diverse perspective of Native American material culture as it includes materials geographically ranging from the American Southwest and from present-day Colorado north to Alaska.  Much of the Collection is the textile; including approximately forty-five Navajo rugs of the pan-reservation style of the early 20th century.  It also includes five rare German town eye-dazzlers.  The Collection also contains approximately forty pottery pieces representative of a variety of the Pueblo cultures of New Mexico and Arizona which are contemporary with the textile collection, ca. 1880-1940. The pottery includes household pieces as well as several examples of wares made for the tourist trade.  Several of the major pottery-producing pueblos, including San Ildefonso, San Juan or Santa Clara and Santo Domingo are represented.  A sizable group of Jicarilla and Western Apache baskets dating to the early 20th century comprise the other large portion of the Collection.  The Collection also contains a small group of materials including musical instruments; moccasins and clothing; a headdress; 3 pieces of Northwest Coast sculpture; and complete scabbard, quiver, and bow and arrows.  Finally, the Collection also contains 64 books, pamphlets and maps.

The estimated time period represented by the bulk of the Collection is characterized by radical changes in Southwestern craft traditions.  These changes can be marked through the use of new materials in addition to the social, religious and political contexts affecting the peoples who created the objects.  Some of these primary source materials surrounding object and artifact acquisition by Orman clearly capture language and thought about Native American material culture of the time.