Nineteenth-century Navajo and Pueblo silver jewelry

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 1998 by Paula A. Baxter

Anthropologists feared for the survival of the arts of the American Indians, but in the case of silver jewelry production such fears were unfounded. Silversmithing developed as a cross-cultural craft that evolved and adapted to new circumstances. While anthropologists saw the first phase as a more truthful approximation of the Indians' design intentions, there are identifiable differences between the design and execution of jewelry in the early 1870s and in the 1890s. It was in fact an anthropologist who observed in 1893 that the Navajo silversmiths "are in a very interesting stage of transition, and clearly one of very material progress."(15)

By the 1920s and 1930s the pre-1900 jewelry was considered purer than subsequent production, and in the 1940s it was held up as the model of classic form and design for young Indian silversmiths by such Santa Fe institutions as the Laboratory of Anthropology, the Santa Fe Indian School, and the Indian Arts Fund.(16)

Collecting nineteenth-century Navajo and Pueblo jewelry can be difficult, partly because only a limited amount is available. Some of the finest examples are now in museums [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE X OMITTED]. Scarcity makes antique jewelry expensive, so it is important to rely on reputable dealers. Counterfeit pieces have appeared from time to time, and Indian jewelers have also revived earlier styles, which reputable makers and dealers identify as reproductions. The alder jewelry is usually of heavy silver, bears telltale signs of wear, and the evidence of relatively crude tools. Despite repetitive rhythms in the patterned and smooth surfaces, nineteenth-century designs are quiet and inert.

Today the silverwork of the nineteenth century has transcended its ethnographic context and can be seen as material evidence of the transition of a craft into a modern art form. Throughout the twentieth century Indian silversmiths have acknowledged the debt they owe to early silver designs by returning to them again and again for inspiration. The result has been an enrichment of modern Indian jewelry through reference to the past.

I would like to give special thanks to Joan Caballero for her advice and review of this article.

1 "Navajo Silversmiths," 2nd Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-1881 (Washington, D.C., 1883), p. 171.

2 Ibid., p. 177.

3 Some Strange Corners of Our Country: The Wonderland of the Southwest (New York, 1892), p. 207.

4 The two most authoritative publications about the origins and early history of Indian silversmithing are John Adair, The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1944), pp. 5-6; and Margery Bedinger, Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers (University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1975), p. 5.

5 Arthur Woodward, Navajo Silver: A Brief History of Navajo Silversmithing, (Northland Press, Flagstaff, Arizona, 1971), pp. 8-11.

6 Ibid. For a more detailed chronology of the spread of silversmithing through the pueblos, see Adair, The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths, pp. 193-194.