Probably no Native American handicrafts are more widely admired
than Navajo weaving and Navajo and Pueblo silver work. This book,
which is now in its third large printing, contains the most
important and complete account of Indian jewelry fashioned by the
Navajo, the Zuni, the Hopi, and other Pueblo peoples. ""With the
care of a meticulous and thorough scholar, the author has told the
story of his several years' investigation of jewelry making among
the Southwestern Indians,"" says The Dallas Times Herald. ""So
richly decorative are the plates he uses ... that the conscientious
narrative is surrounded by an atmosphere of genuinely exciting
visual experience."" John Adair is a trained ethnologist who has
lived and worked among these Indians.To prepare his book, Mr. Adair
made an exhaustive examination of the principal museum collections
of Navajo and Pueblo silver work, both early and modem, in Santa
Fe, Colorado Springs, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. He
visited trading posts in the Indian country and examined and
photographed silver on the pawn racks and in important private
collections. He lived for a time among the Navajo, watched them
make their jewelry, and actually learned to work silver himself in
the hogan of one of the leading artisans, Tom Burnsides. Many of
the photographs he made at the time are used as illustrations in
this book. He spent months among the Indians in New Mexico and
Arizona and became personally acquainted with many of their
silversmiths. Later, as field worker for the Indian Arts and Crafts
Board, he studied the economics of Navajo and Pueblo
silversmithing; and still later he became manager of the Navajo
Arts and Crafts Guild, a tribal enterprise. The Navajo and Pueblo
Silversmiths provides a full history of the craft and the actual
names and localities of the pioneer craftsmen who introduced the
art of the silversmith to their people. Despite its present high
stage of development, with its many subtle and often exquisite
designs, the art of working silver is not an ancient one among the
Navajo and Pueblo Indians. There are men still living today who
remember the very first silversmiths. Mr. Adair gives full details,
as he observed them, of the methods and techniques of manufacture
over a primitive forge with homemade tools. He tells both of the
fine pieces made for trade among the Indians themselves and of the
newer, cheaper types of jewelry produced for sale to tourists. He
discusses standards and qualities of Indian silver and describes
the work of the Indian schools in helping preserve traditional
design in the fine silver of today. His excellent photographs of
some of the most notable pieces, old and new, provide examples for
evaluation. This volume, therefore, will serve the layman, the
ethnologist, and the dealer alike as a guide to proper values in
Indian silver jewelry, and will provide the basis for authoritative
knowledge and appreciation of a highly skilled creative art.
General
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