Native American culture honored with commemorative postage art by Cochiti Pueblo's Mateo Romero

Stamps have enshrined the faces of presidents, celebrated the end of world wars and raised money for the treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer’s — now the U.S. Postal Service is honoring Native American culture with new postage.

As thousands flock to Albuquerque for the annual Gathering of Nations, billed as the largest powwow in North America, the Postal Service chose Cochiti Pueblo artist Mateo Romero’s paintings of Native American dancers as the latest USA Forever Commemorative Stamp, according to a USPS news release.

Friday marked the stamp’s first day of issue and was celebrated at the Gathering of Nations. USPS Art Director Antonio Alcalá designed the stamps, which can be purchased online, through mail or in person at post offices across the nation.

The first ever commemorative stamp, released in 1893, depicted Christopher Columbus’ journey to and conquest of the Americas, according to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. More than 130 years after the Columbus stamp series, Romero’s paintings depict the free expression of traditional dancing and adornment of ceremonial regalia.

Though constitutionally guaranteed by the First Amendment, this expression of religious belief was not extended to Native Americans for centuries. Beginning with Columbus and continuing until as recently as 1978, many sacred Native American religious practices were curtailed if not outright banned.

The 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act legalized the practice of certain traditions and was amended in 1996 to allow for the religious use of the psychedelic drug peyote.

“I feel very humble. It’s bigger than me,” Romero said after the ceremony. “I’m telling a story using other people’s art of dance to tell the story of place and the preservation of powwow communities.”

Romero has long captured these traditions and ceremonies, combining photography and painting. Currently working out of Santa Fe, Romero is a locally acclaimed and internationally renowned artist. In 2019, his signature mixed-media paintings won him the Native Treasures Living Treasures award, an honor reserved for those who contribute “outstanding artistic contributions to the field of indigenous arts and culture,” according to the New Mexico Cultural Affairs Department.

“As artists, we crave immortality, right?” Romero said. “What artist would shy away from such a monumental project?”