WORKING WHITE METAL
WARNING: MAY CAUSE BLINDNESS
THIS PHOTOGRAPH OF CHIEF MANUELITO’S FAMILY CLEARLY SHOWS HANDMADE BEADS AND CAST NAJAS IN 1864.
SIMEON SCHWEMBERGER TOOK THIS PICTURE NEAR ST. MICHAELS EARLY IN THE LAST CENTURY. IT ILLUSTRATES THE MOST PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS. HE IS PULLING A SILVER SLUG FROM A CRUDE SANDSTONE MOLD. THE COALS ARE ON THE ROCKS TO THE RIGHT.
W
hen Dutch scholar Dr. H. F. C. Ten Kate, Jr. visited Zuni in 1885, he stayed with Cushing, who had recently acquired a house, a wife, a sister-inlaw and a black servant, and he penned this observation: “The art of the silversmith has long been known to the Zunis, and the Navahos have undoubtedly learned much from them.” (2004:5) He didn’t know he was supposed to put it the other way around. He further writes of Governor Pino’s silverwork: “Palawahtiwa is one of the busiest silversmiths in the pueblo, and the rings, armbands, buttons and belts which he makes are examples of fine and tasteful work.” It is very difficult to understand why writers on the subject of Native jewelry work so very hard to take the art away from them. Mexicans taught Navajos, Navajos taught Zunis, or maybe that was also Mexicans, and white men taught Hopis just before WWII. Honestly, it’s in the book—books. Most authorities still maintain that Navajos did not have silversmithing until after the Long Walk when they came home in 1868. But what about the photograph of Manuelito’s family taken when they arrived at Fort Sumner four years earlier. The women are wearing necklaces of silver beads with classic Navajo najas as pendants.
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April 2018
John Adair reports a story about the most famous early Zuni silversmith Juan Deleosa [De Dios] that goes, “Juan learned the technique of casting from a Navajo,” but goes on to say, that he didn’t see the part about applying mold release (greasing the stone) so his pieces stuck to the rock. He probably got the story from Juan himself, but there are two elements that make no sense. Why was he learning from a Navajo when casting was already being done in the village, and how could he have missed an important step if he was watching his tutor make a casting? Perhaps only tufa casting was being noted, since the earliest molds at Zuni were made of clay and bound with metal. A military man staying with Cushing in 1882 noted clay molds laying about. One of these was collected from a man named Lanyade. John Adair collected an odd story told by Lanyade who claimed that around 1872 a Navajo named Atsidi Chon [Ugly Smith] came to Zuni, picked him out because he spoke Navajo [at least a third of the tribe probably did at that time], and lived with him for a year, teaching him the art. Atsidi Chon left the village driving a large herd of horses and sheep. So at that time, Lanyade claimed he was the
only man in Zuni who made jewelry. Regardless of where the knowledge of crafting silver into jewelry came from, those early days are easily documented when it comes to the working of the metal. It was difficult, demanding, didn’t pay all that well, and it had some really bad consequences: back problems, lung disease, and blindness. These were effects of working in poorly ventilated spaces, sitting on the ground. The Zunis were a little better off because they lived in larger houses and could, and did, work standing up. The drawing in Cushing’s memoir does show his
WILLIAM PENNINGTON WAS AN EARLY PHOTOGRAPHER IN THE FOUR CORNERS AREA AND THIS STAGED PHOTO SHOWS A SILVER ARTIST WITH A MORE ATTRACTIVE SET UP. NOTE THE LARGE NUMBER OF STAMPS TO THE RIGHT OF THE ANVIL.
