Across this vast Turtle Island, different Peoples developed and expressed their own complex technology. By asking who used what technology, who produced art, what was being made, and who was it being made for, you can start to appreciate the unique complex technologies of the different Native American Peoples across North America. To interpret Native American art, one must identify who this art it is produced for and what messages it conveys. . . . Art conveys meaning with symbols and icons which are culture specific. There is usually no direct connection between the symbol and the object it represents.
Symbols can have very different meanings to different cultures.
As a result, to understand the symbolic aspects of art, one must know what the symbol means to the society which uses it. Artists must abide by the rules or conventions of their culture when they use symbols to communicate ideas. Often it is not possible to separate the everyday use of an object from the embellishment of that object.