Navajo Jewelry: A History of the First Smiths, Coin Silver and Turquoise
Navajo silver is younger than most people expect. The Navajo (Diné) smiths who made it famous learned to work silver in the second half of the 1800s, and the people who studied the craft most closely could not agree on the exact date. This guide follows what the historical record actually says, from the first smith the Navajo remember by name to the coin silver, turquoise and railroad trade that shaped the jewelry you see today. If you're here to buy, you can browse the Native American jewelry we carry as you read.
Before silver: shell, bone, copper and brass
Adornment in the Southwest is far older than metalwork. Larry Frank and Millard Holbrook write that the Indians of the Southwest "probably began making personal adornment out of bone and shell upon their arrival in the area over ten thousand years ago," but "did not work metal to any great extent until relatively recently."
When metal did arrive, silver wasn't the first. "Some of the very early metalwork was done using copper or brass, but silver was always preferred," Frank and Holbrook note. The Navajo men John Adair interviewed in the 1930s remembered the same thing. One told him that during the years at Fort Sumner the people "had lots of copper and brass which was pounded up into bracelets. They used to gamble for those bracelets." Jacka (1995, p. 12) also captions a brass bracelet from the late 1860s this way: "Brass bracelets, such as this one from the late 1860s (lower right), were among the first jewelry items made by Navajo smiths." [6]
The first Navajo silversmith: Atsidi Sani
The Navajo remember the first member of their nation to learn the craft by name. Adair recorded it this way: "His name was Atsidi Sani, which in English means Old Smith. To the Mexicans he was known as Herrero, the Iron Worker."
Atsidi Sani was a blacksmith first. Grey Moustache, who learned silversmithing from him, told Adair that Atsidi Sani learned ironwork "from a Mexican by the name of Nakai Tsosi [Thin Mexican] who lived down near Mt. Taylor." He wanted to make bridles, because "in those days the Navajo bought all of their bridles from the Mexicans." Silver came later.
How much later is where the sources split, and an honest history should say so rather than pick a side:
- After Fort Sumner. Grey Moustache's account: "It was not until the Navajo came back from Fort Sumner that he learned how to make silver jewelry." The Navajo were held at Fort Sumner from 1864 to 1868.
- Before Fort Sumner. Arthur Woodward, working from Richard Van Valkenburgh's field notes, concluded that Atsidi Sani (known in Spanish as Herrero Delgadito, "Little Lean Iron Worker") "acquired his knowledge of silversmithing between 1853 and 1858." Woodward also found two 1864 reports of Navajo making silver ornaments. One of them described the people held at Bosque Redondo: "They also manufacture silver ornaments of a very creditable style of workmanship."
Adair weighed both and settled on a range, not a year: "All that we can say is that the art may have been taken over from the Mexicans as early as 1850 or as late as 1870." Dr. Washington Matthews of the U.S. Army, whose 1883 report is the earliest account of Navajo smiths in our library, was just as frank: "When and how the art of working metals was introduced among them I have not been able to determine." Any page that gives you one tidy date is claiming more than the record holds.
The sources do agree on how the craft spread. Adair's informants name the four sons Atsidi Sani taught, and Paula Baxter's Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry records that he "was known to be teaching other smiths, including his four sons and his younger brother." Grey Moustache started "ten years after I returned from Fort Sumner [1878]," at fourteen, by watching Atsidi Sani at work. "We lived near his hogan," he said. The craft grew one smith at a time, from teacher to student.
How the early smiths worked
Writing in 1883, Matthews listed the whole kit: "A forge, a bellows, an anvil, crucibles, molds, tongs, scissors, pliers, files, awls, cold-chisels," plus a matrix and die for buttons and simple soldering and polishing supplies. The forge was portable in the most literal sense. He describes one built from a few sticks and mud, with a goatskin bellows, and says "the task of constructing this forge did not occupy more than an hour."
Frank and Holbrook add that the crucible was often "a fragment of a Pueblo pot or a small, thick-walled vessel made for the purpose," and the anvil "either a smooth hard rock or a heavy piece of iron." Casting was done in carved stone. Matthews watched smiths near Fort Wingate cut molds into sandstone, grease them, and melt "two Mexican dollars — one for the bowl or receptacle, and one for the handle" of a powder charger.
Early Navajo designs
The earliest Navajo silver was plain metal, decorated by hand. Grey Moustache remembered that before turquoise, "the only rings that the Navajo had were of silver with some designs filed into the metal." Frank and Holbrook give the order in which the decorating techniques appeared: "filing, rocker-engraving, chisel-marking, repoussé, stamping, and embossing." They add a caution for anyone trying to date an old piece. All of these techniques "were in use within fifteen years after the return from Bosque Redondo," so the sequence "can help in identifying or dating a piece, but it is not foolproof."
Stamping has its own history. Woodward compared Navajo silver with the stamped saddle leather of early-1800s Mexico, found the repeated patterns "identical," and concluded that "the first dies used by the Navajos were in reality Mexican leather punches." Baxter notes that early smiths made their patterns with awls until they "turned to die stamps and punches in the last two decades of the nineteenth century."
Bigger pieces came early too. Grey Moustache "first learned by making conchas," and by 1883 Matthews could write that "leather belts studded with large plates of silver are favorite articles of apparel, and often contain metal to the value of forty or fifty dollars." Tobacco cases, powder chargers, bridle ornaments and round silver beads filled out the early smith's range. Matthews saw the hollow beads made by beating out a single Mexican dollar until it was thin enough to work. If hollow silver beads are what you love, see our guide to layering Navajo pearl necklaces.
Coin silver: dollars, pesos and the 1890 order
No silver mines were being worked in the area, so the early smiths worked coins. A Navajo smith told Adair, "In the early days we made these headstalls, and all the other silver, out of American dollars and other American coins. I used to make silver for old man Hubbell at Ganado." Around 1890 that stopped: "the government sent out an order telling us that we were not to melt up any more silver money." From then on, he said, Hubbell supplied Mexican silver, which "was softer than the American money, and easier to melt up and pound out."
If you're looking at an old piece and wondering whether it's coin silver, read Frank and Holbrook's warning before you pay extra for the claim: "any differences among United States coins, Mexican pesos, and sterling silver (which was used after 1900) are impossible to discern by visual examination." We go further into this in Coin Silver vs. Sterling.
Silver meets turquoise
Turquoise set in silver is the look most people picture now, but it came a generation after the first silver. Grey Moustache credited his brother-in-law, Atsidi Chon, with the first setting he knew of: a ring that "had just one stone in it," made "at the time when I was learning how to make silver from Atsidi Sani [c. 1878]." Adair handled this with care. He wrote that the testimony "can not be taken as conclusive evidence," because an informant could only speak for his own part of a very large reservation. He gathered other early reports too, including the ethnologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson's account of a Navajo ring set with turquoise in about 1880.
His conclusion separates the first setting from the fashion: "While turquoise was first set in silver by the Navajo about 1880, it was not until after 1890 that the stones were used in the jewelry in considerable quantities." Frank and Holbrook date the change to the decade it took hold: "In the 1890s turquoise began to be set in silver — a natural and inspired marriage which, in retrospect, ensured the popularity of Indian jewelry." To learn how stones are graded, see our turquoise color guide.
Borrowed forms: the naja and the squash blossom
Two of the best-known Navajo forms came from Spanish-Mexican silver. The historians trace the route of each shape, not what it means to the people who wear it. Adair describes the crescent pendant the Navajo call the najahe hanging from "the center silver piece on the headstrap" of old silver bridles, the same form the Navajo wear on their silver necklaces. He quotes Woodward’s view that the crescent was an Old World form, known to the Romans and the Moors, and that "the bridle trappings of the conquistadores no doubt carried" it into the Americas.
The squash-blossom necklace is later. Adair thought it "probably did not come into existence until sometime after 1880." Adair cites the historian Arthur Woodward’s view that beads of this shape were "originally Spanish-Mexican trouser and jacket ornaments . . . which were fashioned to resemble the pomegranate." The Navajo name Adair recorded for the bead is plainer: "literally translated," it is "bead which spreads out." What a naja or a blossom means to a Navajo wearer is theirs to say, not ours. We cover both forms in more depth in The Naja and What Is a Squash Blossom Necklace?.
Traders, the railroad and the tourist trade
For its first decades Navajo silver was made for Navajo wearers and for Pueblo neighbors. Adair could pin down when that changed: "The commercialization of the craft began in 1899 when the Fred Harvey Company first started to order silver made up expressly for white consumption." The pawned silver Harvey had bought before then "had proved to be too heavy for sale to the tourists, who wanted lighter jewelry." So Herman Schweizer of Harvey's curio department had a Nevada turquoise-mine owner cut stones into flat, square and oblong shapes, took stones and silver to a trading post at Thoreau, New Mexico, and asked for lighter pieces. The "farming out" worked, and Harvey sent the same raw materials to other posts.
It took time to spread. Frank and Holbrook call the Harvey promotion of Indian jewelry to tourists "a development that took twenty years to be widespread." For the full story, see The Fred Harvey Era and Shops, Trading Posts & Guilds of Southwest Jewelry, and our earlier posts on the Navajo and the traders and Fred Harvey era jewelry.
Navajo silversmiths today
The craft still passes from smith to smith, the way it passed from Atsidi Sani to Grey Moustache. Two Navajo (Diné) smiths whose hallmarked work we carry show how it happens now. Devin Edison was born and raised in Albuquerque, with family from Many Farms, Arizona, and learned through a community college jewelry program. Philbert Secatero, from Cuba, New Mexico, spent years making work for established Southwest jewelry houses, and his son Gilbert is learning the same trade. Their listings carry their names, and only their pieces are called Navajo-made. Many other pieces in our shop are T.Skies house designs by Mateo James, and we don't call those Native-made.
A maker's mark is the modern link between a piece and the person who made it. Our Native American hallmarks library and silversmith directory document the marks we've been able to verify. T.Skies itself began in 2010 as a blog teaching buyers about turquoise (our own history). When you're ready to buy, our guide to buying authentic Native American jewelry covers what to ask a seller.
The short version
- Adornment in the Southwest is ancient, but Navajo silversmithing began sometime between about 1850 and 1870. The sources disagree on the exact date.
- Atsidi Sani (Old Smith) is the first Navajo smith the Navajo remember by name. He was an ironworker first and taught his sons and others.
- Early smiths melted American and then Mexican coins. A government order around 1890 stopped the melting of U.S. money.
- The first recorded turquoise settings date to about 1878–1880, and turquoise became common after 1890.
- The Fred Harvey Company began ordering lighter jewelry for tourists in 1899.
Browse our Native American jewelry collection, or read how to tell Navajo, Zuni and Hopi styles apart and the evolution of Native American jewelry.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was the first Navajo silversmith?
The Navajo remember Atsidi Sani, "Old Smith," as the first. Mexicans called him Herrero, and he learned ironwork from a Mexican smith, Nakai Tsosi, near Mount Taylor (Adair, 1944, pp. 3–4). When he learned silver is disputed. His pupil Grey Moustache said after Fort Sumner (1864–68), while Woodward dated it to 1853–58 (Woodward, 1938, p. 16).
When did the Navajo start making silver jewelry?
After weighing the conflicting accounts, Adair wrote that "the art may have been taken over from the Mexicans as early as 1850 or as late as 1870" (Adair, 1944, p. 6). Frank and Holbrook write that silver jewelry became important to the peoples of the Southwest "only during the last quarter of the nineteenth century" (1990, p. 11).
When did Navajo smiths start setting turquoise in silver?
The earliest recorded settings date to about 1878–1880, but "it was not until after 1890 that the stones were used in the jewelry in considerable quantities" (Adair, 1944, pp. 9, 14). Frank and Holbrook also date the change to the 1890s (1990, p. 7).
What silver did early Navajo smiths use?
Coins. A smith told Adair they made silver "out of American dollars and other American coins" until a government order around 1890, after which the trader Hubbell supplied Mexican silver (Adair, 1944, p. 8). Frank and Holbrook add that sterling came into use after 1900 (1990, p. 13).
When did Navajo jewelry become a tourist product?
In 1899, when the Fred Harvey Company "first started to order silver made up expressly for white consumption" and asked for lighter pieces than the Navajo made for themselves (Adair, 1944, p. 25).
From the Library: Pogue, The Turquois (1915)
1915 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1915, not today.
Pogue (1915, p. 103), citing Matilda Coxe Stevenson, also dated the first Navajo setting of turquoise in silver to 1880, after which the Navajo took a strong interest in the work.
On the silver itself, Pogue wrote in 1915:
“Bracelets, buttons, buckles, belts, rings (see Pl. 22, Fig. 5), plaques, and other ornaments are fashioned from Mexican pesos and American silver coins, and many are inlaid with roughly polished pieces of turquois.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 103
On color, Pogue (1915) observed:
“Much of the turquois in use is of various shades of green, but occasionally a fine blue stone is seen, and this is particularly valued by the Indian.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 103
From the Library: Branson, Turquoise: The Gem of the Centuries (1975)
1975 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1975, not today.
As of 1975, Branson described the Navajo approach this way:
“The Navajo silversmith usually starts with the turquoise stone and designs the article of jewelry around it.”
— Branson (1975), p. 7
He contrasted it with the Zuni order of work (Branson, 1975):
“The Zuni craftsman most always constructs the silverwork first and then cuts the stones to fit the spaces or "Bezels."”
— Branson (1975), p. 7
From the Library: Turnbaugh, Indian Jewelry of the American Southwest (2007)
2007 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2007, not today.
According to Turnbaugh (2007, p. 77, caption), Navajo craftsmen traditionally emphasized the silver and used turquoise only to set off the designs of their silver pieces, designs that were usually balanced, symmetrical or repetitive. [3]
From the Library: Stacey, Turquoise Blue Book and Indian Jewelry Digest (1975)
1975 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1975, not today.
Sharon and Robert Ashton, writing in 1975, on how the first concha belts were made:
“For an anvil he would use a section of railroad track fastened to a cottonwood stump.”
— Stacey (1975), p. 8 [4]
The Ashtons (1975) on the open centers of the earliest belts:
“Since the early smiths had no solder with which to fasten the back on a concha, the first belts were open in the center so the leather could be laced through.”
— Stacey (1975), p. 8 [4]
And on what one belt took and brought, before 1885, per the Ashtons in 1975:
“Generally ten to fourteen days would be required to complete a belt. The belt could then be worn by the maker or sold to a fellow Navajo for two or three sheep, a horse, or possibly five to fifteen dollars.”
— Stacey (1975), p. 8 [4]
On the first stones in Navajo silver, the Ashtons wrote in 1975:
“By the 1880's the craftsmen were using other items to ornament their work. Trade beads, marbles, glass, and various stones were set into the silver.”
— Stacey (1975), p. 8 [4]
The 1975 Turquoise Blue Book on how a piece was commissioned:
“When a Navajo man or woman wanted a piece of jewelry he went to a silversmith, usually a relative. The piece was made to order and scaled to the wearer's size and build.”
— Stacey (1975), p. 10 [4]
A 1975 caption on the first beads:
“Beads were among the first things pioneer smiths made, beating them from old Mexican coins.”
— Stacey (1975), p. 19 [4]
David L. Neumann, a Santa Fe dealer whose El Palacio article the 1975 Turquoise Blue Book reprinted, dated stones in silver later than most sources:
“The use of silver as a mounting for stones, including turquoise, dates no earlier than circa 1890.”
— Stacey (1975), p. 67 [4]
From the Library: Manley, Collecting Southwestern Indian Arts & Crafts (1979)
1979 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1979, not today.
According to Manley (1979, p. 48), bracelets of turquoise mounted on cast triangular silver pieces were an old Navajo style. [5]
The same 1979 old-pawn caption in Ray Manley's Collecting Southwestern Indian Arts & Crafts described an old ring form:
“And tucked in the lower left corner is an old style Navajo ring, a large square turquoise with four simple silver drops on each side.”
— Manley (1979), p. 48 [5]
From the Library: Jacka, Navajo Jewelry: A Legacy of Silver and Stone (1995)
1995 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1995, not today.
Lois Essary Jacka, writing in 1995, on the silver Navajos wore before they made their own:
“Navajos had worn silver ornaments and sported silver bridle decoration for at least fifty years, but those articles were of Spanish origin, either traded or stolen from Mexicans, or taken as spoils of war from Utes or Comanches.”
— Jacka (1995), p. 15 [6]
Weighing the newspaper reports from Bosque Redondo, Jacka concluded in 1995:
“It seems much more probable that the Navajos learned to work silver soon after they resettled in their homeland.”
— Jacka (1995), p. 16 [6]
Jacka (1995) on the trader who sped the learning:
“In 1884 John Lorenzo Hubbell (the much-admired Don Lorenzo of Hubbell Trading Post at Ganado) and his partner, C. N. Cotton, hired Mexican smiths to teach silversmithing to the Navajos, and began furnishing some of the coins used to fashion the silver ornaments.”
— Jacka (1995), p. 17 [6]
Jacka (1995) on the era collectors call classic:
“The years from 1880 to 1900 have been called the Classic Period in Navajo jewelry. The time of learning was over, but the tourists had not yet entered the scene.”
— Jacka (1995), p. 22 [6]
According to Jacka (1995, p. 24), adding turquoise to Navajo silverwork was not a common practice until around 1900, and even then a single large stone was usually set into each classically simple piece. [6]
According to Jacka (1995, p. 30), after World War II the pawn system began to falter as Navajos travelled more and spent cash off the reservation, and smiths who had worked sheet silver rather than slugs since the 1920s could now obtain new equipment such as saws, vises and gasoline torches. [6]
Jacka (1995) on the 1970s:
“The Indian jewelry craze of the seventies swept the country like a firestorm, and a century-old craft became an overnight sensation.”
— Jacka (1995), p. 35 [6]
And on what followed, in 1995:
“The eighties saw a renaissance in Navajo jewelry.”
— Jacka (1995), p. 43 [6]
As of 1995, Jacka wrote of Navajo families:
“This legacy is handed down from generation to generation; it is rare to find a family that does not include a silversmith, and many families include more than one.”
— Jacka (1995), p. 88 [6]
From the Library: Adair, The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths (1944)
1944 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1944, not today.
According to Adair (1944, p. 15), once the Navajo had learned to set turquoise they also set native garnets, jet and malachite, and occasionally abalone shell and colored glass; as turquoise became plentiful, many of these were pried out and replaced with turquoise. [7]
Of the silver powder measures that Matthews described, Adair (1944) wrote:
“In all probability nearly all of these powder measures, which at one time seem to have been fairly common, were melted down and made into other objects when there was no longer a use for them.”
— Adair (1944), p. 13 [7]
According to Adair (1944, p. 27), a Denver firm began making imitation Navajo-style silver with white labor in 1910, and curio dealers in Santa Fe and Albuquerque then opened shops that employed Indian smiths, most of them Pueblo people from the Rio Grande villages rather than Navajo. [7]
Writing in 1944, Adair singled out one form the tourist trade had not reached:
“The ketoh is one of the few pieces of Navajo silver which has not been commercialized by white men. It alone, of all Navajo silver, remains the exclusive property of the Indian.”
— Adair (1944), p. 35 [7]
From the Library: Baxter, Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry (2000)
2000 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2000, not today.
Baxter (2000) recorded an episode from the Fort Sumner years:
“There are accounts that while at Fort Sumner, some Navajo men cleverly counterfeited copper food-ration tickets, providing early confirmation of the people’s facility with working metal.”
— Baxter (2000), p. 115 [8]
Baxter (2000) described a division of labor between neighbors:
“Navajo smiths often made silver settings, known as “blanks,” that were then set with stones by Zuni (or Pueblo) lapidarists.”
— Baxter (2000), p. 116 [8]
According to Baxter (2000, p. 116), in the early 1940s the Indian Arts and Crafts Board persuaded the federal War Production Board to let Navajo smiths have silver at a time when metals were dedicated to the war effort. [8]
From the Library: Matthews, Navajo Silversmiths (1883)
1883 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1883, not today.
Of the silver tobacco cases made in the shape of an army canteen (one is shown in his Plate XVI), Matthews recorded in 1883 that they
“are made by only three or four men in the tribe, and the design is of very recent origin.”
— Matthews (1883), p. 172 [9]
Matthews (1883) described the bellows most smiths then used:
“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.”
— Matthews (1883), p. 172 [9]
And the anvil, in 1883:
“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.”
— Matthews (1883), p. 173 [9]
Stone anvils, Matthews (1883) noted, had not yet disappeared:
“Hard stones are still sometimes used for anvils and perhaps they were, at one time, the only anvils they possessed.”
— Matthews (1883), p. 173 [9]
Polishing, as Matthews recorded it in 1883:
“For polishing, they have sand-paper and emery-paper purchased from the whites; but as these are expensive, they are usually required only for the finishing touches, the first part of the work being done with powdered sandstone, sand, or ashes, all of which are used with or without water.”
— Matthews (1883), p. 175 [9]
On design, Matthews wrote in 1883:
“I have seen many of these powder-chargers, all very graceful, but no two alike except in cases where duplicates had been specially ordered. Their designs upon bracelets and rings are of great variety.”
— Matthews (1883), p. 177 [9]
And the work was laid out by eye. Matthews (1883):
“The smiths whom I have seen working had no dividers, square, measure, or any instrument of precision.”
— Matthews (1883), p. 178 [9]
Patterns, he added in 1883, were often cut first in paper:
“Often they cut out their designs in paper first and from them mark off patterns on the metal.”
— Matthews (1883), p. 178 [9]
Field Notes by Mateo James
I notice the 1975 Turquoise Blue Book disagrees with itself on this date. Sharon and Robert Ashton wrote in it that stones were being set in silver by the 1880s, while David L. Neumann, a few pages later, dated silver mountings for stones to no earlier than about 1890. The sources above, Adair and Pogue (1915) among them, put the first recorded Navajo turquoise setting at about 1880. I have left each author's date as written.
I notice another date for when turquoise became usual in Navajo silver. Lois Essary Jacka, writing in 1995, put it at around 1900, with one large stone to a piece. Adair and Frank and Holbrook, above, place the change in the 1890s. I have left each date as written.
Sources
- Adair, John. The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944. pp. 3–6, 8–9, 13–14, 25, 43–45.
- Baxter, Paula A., with Allison Bird-Romero. Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry. 2000. p. 6 (entries "Atsidi Sani" and "awl").
- Frank, Larry, with Millard J. Holbrook II. Indian Silver Jewelry of the Southwest, 1868–1930. Schiffer Publishing, 1990 (first published 1978). pp. 7, 11, 13.
- Matthews, Washington. "Navajo Silversmiths." Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1883. pp. 171–172, 176–178.
- Woodward, Arthur. Navajo Silver: A Brief History of Navajo Silversmithing. Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 14, 1938 (2nd ed., 1946). pp. 13, 16, 19, 35.
- Branson, Oscar T. Turquoise: The Gem of the Centuries. Santa Fe: Treasure Chest Publications, 1975. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1975.
- Pogue, Joseph E. The Turquois: A Study of Its History, Mineralogy, Geology, Ethnology, Archaeology, Mythology, Folklore, and Technology. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. XII, Part II, Third Memoir. Washington, 1915. Public domain. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1915.
- Turnbaugh, William A., and Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh. Indian Jewelry of the American Southwest. Foreword by Barry M. Goldwater. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2007 (copyright 1996 and 2007; first published 1988). ISBN 0-7643-2577-9. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2007.
- Stacey, Joseph, ed. Turquoise Blue Book and Indian Jewelry Digest. Arizona Highways Collectors Series. Phoenix: Arizona Highways (Arizona Department of Transportation), 1975. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1975.
- Manley, Ray. Ray Manley's Collecting Southwestern Indian Arts & Crafts. Text by Clara Lee Tanner and others; photography by Naurice Koonce, Ray Manley and Alan Manley. Tucson: Ray Manley Photography, 1979. Includes Clara Lee Tanner, "Southwest Indian Silverwork," pp. 39–41. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1979.
- Jacka, Lois Essary. Navajo Jewelry: A Legacy of Silver and Stone. Photographs by Jerry Jacka. Flagstaff: Northland Publishing, 1995. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1995.
- Adair, John. The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths. The Civilization of the American Indian Series. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1944.
- Baxter, Paula A., with Allison Bird-Romero. Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry: A Guide to History, People, and Terms. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 2000. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2000.
- Matthews, Washington. “Navajo Silversmiths.” In Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880–81, pp. 167–178, plates XVI–XX. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1883. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1883.
