Navajo Silversmiths

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Navajo Silversmiths

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Title: Navajo Silversmiths Second Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-1881,
Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 167-178
Author: Washington Matthews
Release Date: December 10, 2005 [EBook #17275]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
NAVAJO SILVERSMITHS.
BY
Dr. WASHINGTON MATTHEWS, U.S.A.

ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATE XVI. Objects in silver 172 XVII. Navajo workshop 175 XVIII.
Crucible, and Sandstone molds for shaping silver objects 175 XIX.
Objects in silver 177 XX. Navajo Indian with silver ornaments 178

NAVAJO SILVERSMITHS.
BY WASHINGTON MATTHEWS.
Among the Navajo Indians there are many smiths, who sometimes
forge iron and brass, but who work chiefly in silver. When and how the
art of working metals was introduced among them I have not been able
to determine; but there are many reasons for supposing that they have
long possessed it; many believe that they are not indebted to the
Europeans for it. Doubtless the tools obtained from American and
Mexican traders have influenced their art. Old white residents of the
Navajo country tell me that the art has improved greatly within their
recollection; that the ornaments made fifteen years ago do not compare
favorably with those made at the present time; and they attribute this
change largely to the recent introduction of fine files and emery-paper.
At the time of the Conquest the so-called civilized tribes of Mexico had
attained considerable skill in the working of metal, and it has been
inferred that in the same period the sedentary tribes of New Mexico
also wrought at the forge. From either of these sources the first smiths
among the Navajos may have learned their trade; but those who have

seen the beautiful gold ornaments made by the rude Indians of British
Columbia and Alaska, many of whom are allied in language to the
Navajos, may doubt that the latter derived their art from a people higher
in culture than themselves.
The appliances and processes of the smith are much the same among
the Navajos as among the Pueblo Indians. But the Pueblo artisan, living
in a spacious house, builds a permanent forge on a frame at such a
height that he can work standing, while his less fortunate Navajo
_confrère_, dwelling in a low hut or shelter, which he may abandon any
day, constructs a temporary forge on the ground in the manner hereafter
described. Notwithstanding the greater disadvantages under which the
latter labors, the ornaments made by his hand are generally conceded to
be equal or even superior to those made by the Pueblo Indian.
A large majority of these savage smiths make only such simple articles
as buttons, rosettes, and bracelets; those who make the more elaborate
articles, such as powder-chargers, round beads (Pl. XVI), tobacco cases,
belts, and bridle ornaments are few. Tobacco cases, made in the shape
of an army canteen, such as that represented in Fig. 6, are made by only
three or four men in the tribe, and the design is of very recent origin.
Their tools and materials are few and simple; and rude as the results of
their labor may appear, it is surprising that they do so well with such
imperfect appliances, which usually consist of the following articles: A
forge, a bellows, an anvil, crucibles, molds, tongs, scissors, pliers, files,
awls, cold-chisels, matrix and die for molding buttons, wooden
implement used in grinding buttons, wooden stake, basin, charcoal,
tools and materials for soldering (blow-pipe, braid of cotton rags
soaked in grease, wire, and borax), materials for polishing (sand-paper,
emery-paper, powdered sandstone, sand, ashes, and solid stone), and
materials for whitening (a native mineral substance--almogen--salt and
water). Fig. 1, taken from a photograph, represents the complete shop
of a silversmith, which was set up temporarily in a summer lodge or
hogan, near Fort Wingate. Fragments of boards, picked up around the
fort, were used, in part, in the construction of the hogan, an old
raisin-box was made to serve as the curb or frame of the forge, and

these things detracted somewhat from the aboriginal aspect of the
place.
A forge built in