At the turn of the 20th century, Elbridge Ayer Burbank spent two decades traveling the western United States to document Native peoples and cultures for the Field Museum in Chicago. In an inscription on the back of this painting, the artist notes the location of the image as “Polacca, Arizona 80 miles from Holbrook, Arizona where the Santa Fe Railroad is.” The settlement of Polacca was established in the late 19th century with a day school and trading post to accommodate population growth, yet Burbank’s close-up architectural view presents it as a historic, timeless Hopi village.
