INDIAN JEWELRY

AN AUTHORITY ON INDIAN CRAFTS TELLS US HOW INDIAN JEWELRY IS MADE—AND WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN WE BUY.

TURQUOISE blue are the skies bending above Arizona's valleys and plains and silver are the clouds that mass and pyramid against the mountains looming thousands of feet above the desert at their feet. It was in this land of turquoise and silver that the beautiful Indian jewelry so loved and coveted by all races was born. From the clays lying beneath the desert comes the tender blue stone and out in the Navajo reservation, covered with silver sage that waves and ripples in the breeze, silver is hammered and pounded into the bracelets, rings, necklaces and belts with which every selfrespecting Navajo adorns himself and his family.

Visitors, who linger a day or a year, in the southwest, invariably succumb to the lure of the native adornment and pretty soon many of them outdo the Indians themselves in the amount of jewelry piled on their persons. Arms are stiff with ill-assorted bracelets and fingers serve only as pegs on which to hang another ring or two. Too often the hasty buyer of this native product secures poor silver work and inferior turquoise because there is really no guide by which to choose. Playing on the popularity of Navajo jewelry, several firms turn out immense amounts of machine-made inferior stuff and flood the poorer class curio stores with it. So clever are these imitations it is hard to know what is genuine Indian hand hammered and what has been rolled out by machinery, stamped by machinery and falsely labeled “Indian made!” Experts have little trouble in detecting this spurious product because it is thin and tinny looking and sprinkled too liberally with arrows and swastikas and other symbols fondly believed to represent the Indian gamut of emotions. And the turquoise are subject to suspicion. Any time a tray of rings or bracelets is placed before a would-be purchaser and a number of them are alike in shape and design, it can be safely surmised that they are machine handled. Navajo jewelry, like Navajo rugs, are individual tasks and seldom are two of them exactly alike.

The beginning of Navajo silverwork is so shrouded in conflicting stories one hesitates to make a definite statement as to when and where the art originated. We know that now and then a Navajo knocked off a Ute warrior and helped himself to the ornaments worn by the slain enemy and among those adornments so acquired were some heavy concho belts. Such belts are round or oval discs varying in size from one inch across to four or five, strung on a rawhide or leather belt. Very few Navajos, no matter how Poorly dressed, appear in public without such a belt. They range in value from a few dollars up to a couple of hundred, depending on the weight of the silver conchos and the amount of turquoise set in them. Nothing makes a nicer finish for a knitted dress or sports outfit than such a silver belt, chosen with due regard to size of concho. Huge six-inch conchos rather submerge a five-foot roly-poly pseudo westerner. But, back to the beginning of Navajo silver work! When the Navajos were taken to Fort Sumner in 1863, they were not jewelry makers. There, coils of copper wire were issued to the various Apaches and Navajos assembled there and they cut the wire into short lengths which they hung over their arms and used as chips in their gambling games. Soon they were twisting and decorating this copper wire. When they were returned to their reservation in 1868, Fort Defiance was established and blacksmiths were brought in there. It is a sure thing that the Navajos watched these smiths heat and hammer iron and shape it as they desired, and when silver coins, besh-lah-k'ai, “white iron,” fell into their hands they found it very easy to hammer and shape it into most anything they wanted to make. Turquoise was not used to decorate it for some time after that, but they made themselves dies and stamped simple designs on the soft silver. Among the first decorated bracelets were the narrow ones trimmed with little V-shaped deer tracks. Henry Dodge, first agent to the Navajos, saw and sympathized with their efforts to make silver jewelry and he imported a Mexican silver worker to help them. What became of that effort is unknown as Colonel Dodge was killed shortly after by a bunch of Apaches. For years the silver ornaments were made without any attempt to add turquoise to them and. among the most beautiful of all Navajo work is the plain silver, its own sheen and luster needing no garnishment.

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