Navajo Silver — The Diné Silversmithing Tradition of the American Southwest
Navajo Silver — The Diné Silversmithing Tradition of the American Southwest
From the 1850s mid-century origins to the squash-blossom and contemporary Navajo silverwork
Navajo silver is the silversmithing and stone-setting tradition of the Diné (Navajo) people of the American Southwest, beginning around 1850 to 1870 and continuing as a living craft tradition through the present. The Navajo silver vocabulary — heavy ingot silver, bold stamp work, large bezel-set turquoise, and the distinctive squash-blossom necklace — represents one of the most recognisable American craft traditions and is the largest and historically the most influential of the Southwestern Native American jewellery traditions. Navajo silverwork is now recognised as an art form, with named master smiths whose work is collected at major institutions including the Heard Museum, the Wheelwright Museum, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
Origins
The conventional account of Navajo silversmithing's origin places its beginning around 1850 to 1870, with the earliest documented Navajo smith Atsidi Sani ("Old Smith"), who learned ironworking from a Mexican blacksmith named Nakai Tsosi in the 1850s and silversmithing from various Mexican plateros (silversmiths) during the period of confinement at Bosque Redondo (1864-1868) and in its aftermath. The Navajo Long Walk and subsequent confinement at Fort Sumner brought Diné people into sustained contact with Mexican smiths from the Rio Grande valley, and the silversmithing techniques transferred during this difficult period.
Atsidi Sani trained the first generation of Navajo silversmiths, and the craft expanded through the trading-post network on the reservation in the 1880s and 1890s. The trading posts — established under the Bureau of Indian Affairs and operated by traders including Lorenzo Hubbell, Don Lorenzo Romero, and J.B. Moore — provided the silver, the cash market for finished pieces, and the design feedback that shaped the early commercial Navajo style. By the early twentieth century, Navajo silver was a recognised regional product with a distinctive vocabulary and growing tourist and collector market.
The vocabulary of forms
The classic Navajo silver vocabulary includes several forms that became signatures of the tradition.
The squash-blossom necklace is the most recognisable Navajo form. It consists of a string of round silver beads alternating with stylised "squash blossom" beads (actually based on the Spanish-derived pomegranate-blossom motif rather than on squash), terminating in a crescent-shaped naja pendant of Spanish-Mexican origin. The squash-blossom became standardised in the late nineteenth century and represents one of the iconic forms of American jewellery. Major collections include numerous fine examples from the 1900s to 1940s.
The concha (concho) belt is a leather belt set with shaped silver discs, often decorated with stamp work or set with turquoise. Concha belts derive from Plains Indian trade-silver belts and were adapted by Navajo smiths into the heavier, more elaborate forms now associated with the tradition. The earliest Navajo concha belts appear in the 1880s, with the form maturing through the early twentieth century.
The ketoh (bow-guard) is a leather wrist-strap with a silver plate, originally functional protection for the bow arm during archery and now a ceremonial and decorative form. Ketoh plates show some of the most accomplished Navajo silver work, with elaborate stamp-work patterns and substantial turquoise settings.
Cuff bracelets in heavy ingot silver, often set with one large central turquoise or a row of smaller stones, are the everyday wear category and represent the largest production volume of Navajo silver. The manta pin (a circular brooch used to fasten a manta or shawl) is a related smaller form.
Techniques
The classic Navajo silver techniques are stamping, repoussé, and chasing. Stamping uses small steel stamps with engraved patterns to impress designs into the silver surface; the repertoire of stamps developed by Navajo smiths over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries includes hundreds of distinct patterns, often passed down within families. Repoussé and chasing produce relief work by displacing metal from the front (chasing) or the back (repoussé) while the work sits on a yielding surface. Casting in tufa (volcanic ash) and sandstone moulds was used for some pieces, particularly the heavier squash-blossom beads and naja pendants. Wire work — twisted, braided, and applied wire — provides additional decorative elements.
The metal of choice in early Navajo silver was Mexican silver pesos (until US laws restricted their use), then American silver dollars (until the 1930s, when use of US currency for jewellery was prohibited), then sterling silver from commercial sources. The transition to commercial sterling silver in the 1930s and 1940s changed the working properties of the material slightly but did not fundamentally alter the vocabulary or the techniques.
Stones and setting
Turquoise is the dominant stone in Navajo silverwork, with coral and shell as secondary materials. Turquoise from southwestern US mines — Sleeping Beauty, Number 8, Lone Mountain, Royston, Lander Blue, Bisbee, Cerrillos, and many others — is the standard. The mine of origin matters: each mine produces turquoise with characteristic colour, matrix pattern, and quality range, and named-mine turquoise commands substantial premiums over generic or stabilised material. Coral, particularly Mediterranean red coral, is used for accent stones and for entire compositions in coral-and-silver work. Spiny oyster shell, mother-of-pearl, and jet appear in specific design contexts.
Bezels — fine strips of silver bent around the stone and soldered to the base — are the dominant setting type. The fine traditional Navajo bezel work is hand-cut and hand-formed, with subtle variations in profile and finish that distinguish hand work from later commercial production.
Named smiths and the contemporary tradition
The Navajo silver tradition is now one of named individual artists, with substantial collector and museum interest in attributed work. Historical smiths whose work is collected at the institutional level include Atsidi Sani (the founding smith), Slender Maker of Silver, Jacob Morgan, Fred Peshlakai, and a generation of mid-twentieth-century masters. Contemporary smiths working in the tradition include Tommy Singer, Ben Yazzie, Kenneth Begay (whose work in the mid-twentieth century also helped establish the contemporary fine-jewellery position of Native American silver), Norbert Peshlakai, and many others. The Heard Museum's Indian Fair and Market and the Santa Fe Indian Market are the principal contemporary venues for collector access to current work by named artists.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Act and authentication
The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 makes it a federal offence to misrepresent goods as Indian-made when they are not. The Act has been the legal foundation for substantial enforcement actions against the importation of Philippine-, Chinese-, and Mexican-made silver-and-turquoise jewellery falsely marketed as Native American. Authentic Navajo silver from named smiths typically carries the smith's hallmark or signature, and dealer documentation accompanying the piece. Buyers should verify hallmarks, check stylistic consistency with documented work, and rely on specialist dealers and auction houses for substantial purchases.
Care
Sterling silver tarnishes and benefits from periodic light polishing, but the oxidised dark grounds of stamp work should be preserved as part of the design. Turquoise is porous and reacts to acidic perfumes, oils, and household cleaners; storage with silver anti-tarnish strips and away from temperature extremes is preferred. Coral and shell require similar protection. Heavily worked pieces should be cleaned by hand, not by ultrasonic methods, to preserve the textural contrast that defines the work.