Navajo Silversmiths | Page 2

an outhouse on my own premises by an Indian
silversmith, whom I employed to work where I could constantly
observe him, was twenty-three inches long, sixteen inches broad, five
inches in height to the edge of the fire-place, and the latter, which was
bowl-shaped, was eight inches in diameter and three inches deep. No
other Navajo forge that I have seen differed materially in size or shape
from this. The Indian thus constructed it: In the first place, he obtained
a few straight sticks--four would have sufficed--and laid them on the
ground to form a frame or curb; then he prepared some mud, with
which he filled the frame, and which he piled up two inches above the
latter, leaving the depression for the fire-place. Before the structure of
mud was completed he laid in it the wooden nozzle of the bellows,
where it was to remain, with one end about six inches from the
fire-place, and the other end projecting about the same distance beyond
the frame; then he stuck into the nozzle a round piece of wood, which
reached from the nozzle to the fire-place, and when the mud work was
finished the stick was withdrawn, leaving an uninflammable tweer.
When the structure of mud was completed a flat rock about four inches
thick was laid on at the head of the forge--the end next to the
bellows--to form a back to the fire, and lastly the bellows was tied on to
the nozzle, which, as mentioned above, was built into the forge, with a
portion projecting to receive the bellows. The task of constructing this
forge did not occupy more than an hour.
[Illustration: PL. XVI. OBJECTS IN SILVER.]
A bellows, of the kind most commonly used, consists of a tube or bag
of goatskin, about twelve inches in length and about ten inches in
diameter, tied at one end to its nozzle and nailed at the other to a
circular disk of wood, in which is the valve. This disk has two arms:
one above for a handle and the other below for a support. Two or more
rings or hoops of wood are placed in the skin-tube to keep it distended,
while the tube is constricted between the hoops with buckskin thongs,
and thus divided into a number of compartments, as shown in Pl. XVII.

The nozzle is made of four pieces of wood tied together and rounded on
the outside so as to form a cylinder about ten inches long and three
inches in diameter, with a quadrangular hole in the center about one
inch square. The bellows is worked by horizontal movements of the
arm. I have seen among the Navajos one double-chambered bellows
with a sheet-iron tweer. This bellows was about the same size as the
single chambered one described above. It was also moved horizontally,
and by means of an iron rod passing from one end to the other and
attached to the disks, one chamber was opened at the same time that the
other was closed, and vice versa. This gave a more constant current of
air than the single-chambered implement, but not as steady a blast as
the bellows of our blacksmiths. Such a bellows, too, I have seen in the
Pueblo of Zuñi.
For an anvil they usually use any suitable piece of iron they may
happen to pick up, as for instance an old wedge or a large bolt, such as
the king-bolt of a wagon. A wedge or other large fragment of iron may
be stuck in the ground to steady it. A bolt is maintained in position by
being driven into a log. Hard stones are still sometimes used for anvils
and perhaps they were, at one time, the only anvils they possessed.
Crucibles are made by the more careful smiths of clay, baked hard, and
they are nearly the same shape as those used by our metallurgists,
having three-cornered edges and rounded bottoms. They are usually
about two inches in every dimension.
Fig. 1, Pl. XVIII represents one of ordinary shape and size, which I
have in my collection. The Navajos are not good potters; their
earthenware being limited to these crucibles and a few unornamented
water-jars; and it is probably in consequence of their inexperience in
the ceramic art that their crucibles are not durable. After being put in
the fire two or three times they swell and become very porous, and
when used for a longer time they often crack and fall to pieces. Some
smiths, instead of making crucibles, melt their metal in suitable
fragments of Pueblo pottery, which may be picked up around ruins in
many localities throughout the Navajo country or purchased from the
Pueblo Indians.

The moulds in which they cast their ingots, cut in soft sandstone with a
home-made