Arizona's Crown Jewels

By WITTER BYNNER (Courtesy New Mexico Magazine)

Designs for Beauty Are Fascinating Ornaments

FOR many years Indian blankets and basketry from this or that tribe have been not only familiar to collectors but useful and ornamentai in houses throughout the United States. Lately has come a knowledge and use of Navajo silver jewelry with its setting of turquoise.

Beadwork and chains made of wampum, bone or porcupine quills have always been associated in the mind of the American new-comer with his idea of the original American; but this jewelry made of silver and turquoise, designs which might as well be thought to have come from China or Rumania as from among our own American plains and mountains, is a comparatively recent discovery on Main Street. So also was its making a later activity among Indians than the crafts of weaving and braiding.

It is an odd fact that most Indian blankets and most Indian jewelry are made now by the nomadic Navajo and are called by his name, whereas he learned the craft of blanket-weaving from the Pueblo and Hopi Indians, and according to good authority, the craft of metal-work from the itinerant Spanish silversmiths who plied their trade throughout New Mexico.

Fifteen years ago I was shown a collection of Zuni bracelets and earrings which the painter Andrew Dasburg had brought back from his trips in New Mexico and Arizona, a collection which I have not since seen matched anywhere. Dasburg unfortunately sold his collection piece by piece, so that certain examples of earlier Zuni work, which ought to have been held together for their rarity and as examples of artistic invention antedating the influence of Indian traders and American buyers, have been dispersed. Following Dasbury's lead and enthusiasm, I soon found myself collecting Indian jewelry; delving indefatigably into every far corner of the Pueblo, Navajo and Hopi regions and, like a pearl-diver, coming out of them sometimes with treasure.

All I had to do was to see an Indian woman hiding her wrists with a shawl or blanket, to be sure that the finest brace(Continued on Page 22)