The wooden dough bowl has always played a significant part in the lives of the Tarahumara Indian people. In the northern part of Mexico, high in the mountain regions, the Tarahumara people have rugged lifestyles and live in rustic dwellings. They support themselves and buy needed items by selling their handcrafts. I have always been impressed with the beautiful baskets, weavings, jewelry and other hand-crafted items produced by this Tribe. It is very interesting that although the women make most of these hand-crafted items, the Tarahumara men love working with wood and create beautiful works of art using primitive style, simple tools. Like the wooden dough bowls, they also carve wooden spoons, figurines and traditional game balls used in traditional foot races. These wooden items have a simple, unpolished beauty, heightened by the nature and quality of the wood.



You will also find it intriguing how the wooden dough bowls are created. The creation of the wooden bowl is started by hand carving a piece of native yellow pine taken from a fallen tree trunk. American Indian log bowls are made by dividing the trunk in half and then roughly chopping it with an axe. The wood is then carved into a rounded shape with a machete or large knife, giving it that one of a kind, rugged and hand-crafted aspect. This traditional style is the same way that all dough bowls have been fashioned throughout the Sierra Madre for generations.

As you study these incredible Native people, you will find that the wooden dough bowl is very important to the Tarahumara home. It is used in the process of hand-grinding corn and wheat to make hand-made tortillas, a staple in the Tarahumara diet. They then begin by smashing the kernels into a stone bowl called a metate. The dough bowl is used to catch the flour at one end of the metate as it is ground. Water is then mixed with the flour in the bowl and tortillas are made by hand from the mixture. Although still used by the Tarahumara Indians for food and other cooking purposes, today dough bowls are made available to buyers for Native style decorating accessories and as Indian art for collecting.

You will find a way to use dough bowls for various things. They work wonderfully as collectibles, fruit bowls, and when used with Native American style decorating accessories. They are also wonderful when used for art projects when a blank canvas is needed for beautiful paintings and other Native American style art. Dough bowls, painted with cowboy and western scenes, are very popular and are an exciting way to add western style in your home. A painted dough bowl works well as a wonderful focal point for any Native style room, cabin, lodge or ranch style home by using the rich warm colors characteristic of western art.

You can buy wood dough bowls online and in many stores that sell southwest and American Indian style home decor items. It is easy to give genuine Native style to your home, or to give your room a makeover by decorating with a Native Indian wooden dough bowl. If you like the timeless culture and American Indian values, you will enjoy displaying a piece of their beautiful artwork as part of your interior design. To add true Native culture to your home and produce a look that is definitely one of a kind, try adding a genuine native style wooden dough bowl to your home decor.