Silver and Turquoise: A Story of Navajo Jewelry

Navajo bowguard.

       A Navajo native silversmith sat in the shade of a gnarled juniper tree, fashioning a bowguard for his son. He had bought silver and a fine piece of sky blue turquoise from the white man at the trader's store. For many days he had thought about the shape and design of the ''gato."

       With his chisel and awl the smith carved the design in a flat piece of sandstone. He took another flat piece and made a hole in the middle of it, and, after greasing the stones with some mutton fat, tied them firmly together.

       He melted the silver in an old tomato can over a hot fire of juniper charcoal and, grasping the edge of the can with a pair of tongs, slowly poured the liquid into the hole at the top of the mold. After several hours, when the metal had hardened, he carefully separated the two stones and lifted out the bowguard. The work was well done. Now he had only to file the rough edges and polish the silver to satiny smoothness with sand and ashes. With a tiny strip of silver he fastened the turquoise in the center of the bowguard. The father smiled. His son would be proud to wear such a fine gato when he went rabbit hunting on the desert. The boy would wear it on his left wrist, strapped on with a piece of leather, so that when he shot an arrow from his bow the bowstring would twang against the hard metal and not cut his arm.

       The man's own bowguard was worn thin from many years of use but it still gleamed against his brown skin. He had watched his father make it long ago, and he had learned how to use the tools and work the silver.

       He had made beautiful bracelets and rings and earrings for his wife and children and for himself, and little flat buttons to decorate the bright-colored velveteen shirts that they wore. He had also made belts with round flat pieces of silver, called ''conchas," fastened to them, and fine necklaces of hollow round beads with a crescent-shaped pendant, the ''naja," hanging from the bottom. Between the beads hung silver ornaments shaped like tiny flowers.

       He did not often cast the silver in molds as he had done in making the bowguard. Usually he hammered the soft metal into the shapes he wanted and carved or stamped designs on them. In some of the jewelry he set pieces of turquoise. Turquoise was a sacred stone and every Navajo wore a piece for protection from evil. Their ancestors had made necklaces and earrings and other ornaments from turquoise hundreds of years ago.

       The man's grandfather used to tell him stories of the time when the Navajos did not wear silver jewelry. That was before the year 1850 when Atsidi sani, ''The Old Smith,'' had learned how to forge iron and silver from a Mexican metalworker. After he had mastered the craft he had taught others.

       Many Mexican people lived in the southwestern United States at that time and the Navajos copied the silver ornaments that the Mexicans wore, the buttons and tiny ornaments shaped like pomegranate fruits worn on the outsides of the trouser legs, and the flashing bridles on the horses. The Navajos did not wear trousers, so they strung the buttons and pomegranate fruits on strings and wore them as necklaces.

       From their neighbors the Plains peoples, who lived on the grasslands farther east, the Navajos got bracelets and rings and belts made of silver, copper, or brass. The Plains Indians did not know how to make these things themselves, but got them from the American traders in exchange for furs. The white men knew that the natives liked these shiny ornaments, and in the big cities of the eastern United States there were metalworkers who made them especially for trade with them. At first the Navajo silversmiths copied the white man's jewelry, but soon they began to create their own shapes and designs.

       Besides being lovely ornaments the jewelry was useful as money. In fact, most of the early pieces were made from Mexican and American silver dollars, melted or hammered into the desired shapes. The traders would accept a ring or a bracelet in exchange for food. And if sometime later a Navajo wanted his ring back, he would bring a sheep or a fine blanket woven by his wife and exchange it for his piece of jewelry. Even nowadays the Navajos pawn their jewelry this way when they are poor and buy it back when they can afford to.  Hambleton 

• Who are the Navajo?
• See another the bow guard at the Nelson Atkins Museum and even another at Utah State University here