The Naja: The Crescent of Southwest Jewelry

Bedinger (1973) weighed where the form was worn first:

“The naja may have been first used more extensively by the Navajos to decorate their bridles than as a pendant on necklaces.”
— Bedinger (1973), p. 73 ^[5]

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 73), Harry P. Mera found that all the older examples had clearly been used on headstalls; once fashion hung najas on necklaces too, the same pendant could move between bridle and necklace at the owner's choice. ^[5] Jacka (1995, p. 20) also writes: "Najas, adapted from those used by the Spaniards, were worn on bead necklaces as well, and were often interchangeable with those on bridles." ^[9]

On dating the form, Bedinger (1973) observed:

“Most najas on early horse trappings are single, which would indicate that this was the first form the Navajo made.”
— Bedinger (1973), p. 74 ^[5]

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 74), later najas usually had double arms set one within the other, and a triple-armed form followed as skill grew. Tips ranged from simple points to button-like domes, stamped disks or tiny hands; many were set with turquoise, sometimes with a stone or small cast silver shapes hanging inside the curve. ^[5]

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 75), a second route to the Plains ran from the east: the half-moon was a familiar feature of English horse brasses, and crescents mass-produced by non-Indians were traded widely on the Plains, so Plains peoples may have received the form from the east as well as from the south. She herself thought the Navajos most likely took it directly from Spanish and Mexican bridles. ^[5]

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 75), the crescent's roots reach back before Spain or England: two animal tusks set together form a flattened crescent, boar tusks were worn on warriors' helmets in ancient Europe, and crescent amulets against evil were hung on horses across the Mediterranean world. ^[5]

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 77), some early najas end in tiny hands, and others in flattened tips scratched with four lines that she read as the fingers of a hand. She traced that hand motif through the Moors to Spain and on to Spain's North American colonies, a derivation Mera did not wholly accept. ^[5]

Bedinger (1973) passes on a warning from the scholar Harry P. Mera about the hand-shaped tips:

“A number of unfounded and fanciful tales have been perpetuated in the past by unscrupulous traders regarding the significance of this feature.”
— Bedinger (1973), p. 77 ^[5]

Bedinger (1973) extended Mera's caution to the crescent itself:

“This caution might be extended to the meaning of the naja also. Actually there is little authentic information.”
— Bedinger (1973), p. 77 ^[5]

Writing in 1973, Bedinger noted how the form was changing:

“Najas, for instance, now assume new forms of elegance and may have a pin attached so that they double as brooches.”
— Bedinger (1973), p. 190 ^[5]

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 190), as of 1973 some derived najas were full circles of even width, with no horseshoe shape or taper, decorated with silver and stones; and by p. 194 she noted Zuni najas made of rows of tiny turquoise. ^[5]

In a record made by an outside observer (the nations themselves are the authority on their own beliefs), Bedinger (1973) reported what an army officer saw in 1891:

“He observed that almost all these Chiricahua Apaches wore "medicine" of one kind or another, mentioning specifically "silver crescents."”
— Bedinger (1973), p. 217 ^[5]

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 217), the officer's illustration showed the old form of naja, with arms of equal width throughout and blunt ends almost touching, and a cross with equal arms hanging inside it. ^[5]

Frank (1990, Fig. 4, p. 7), describing a Hopi man from Mishongovi photographed between 1903 and 1911 wearing an old-style flat naja with knoblike terminals, observed:

“The early necklaces had no squash blossoms strung between silver beads, only a naja.”
— Frank (1990), p. 7 ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 8, Fig. 5), an early photograph of a Zuni man showed a double-crescent and a single-crescent naja, both of the old style, hung together on one strand of silver squash blossoms and beads. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 9, Fig. 6), a Navajo (Diné) woman from Arizona photographed wearing jewelry of the 1920s had two squash blossom necklaces with the blossoms set close together next to the najas; he judged the front naja most probably sandcast, with a silver star as its drop. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 20), both the open and the closed crescent occurred frequently in Plains Indian metalwork, at the ends of ear pendants, as the center pendant on headstalls and at the bottom of pectorals, and Holbrook counted the naja among the Plains ideas the Navajo (Diné) took up while changing the material, the working techniques and the decoration. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 15), najas were among the pieces cast directly in stone molds during the first phase, and where smiths could not rely on soldering, some najas were hung from a hole drilled in part of the casting rather than from an attached loop. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 26, Fig. 17), a Hopi man from Mishongovi photographed between 1903 and 1911 wore a naja of the flat, old style on a necklace strung with silver crosses instead of squash blossoms. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 28, Fig. 21), a Navajo (Diné) man photographed between 1903 and 1911 wore a double-crescent naja with two sets of domed disks soldered to the tips and a loop bar joining the crescents into a single squash blossom at the top; its stone drop had been a pierced earring, with serrated bezels. ^[6]

Frank (1990, p. 28, Fig. 22) also recorded, in a photograph of the same years, a Navajo (Diné) woman wearing a three-crescent naja with simple hands and a loop with two curving appendages, on a necklace of very large squash blossoms. ^[6]

Frank (1990) read the naja, like the rest of early Navajo silver, through its Plains counterparts:

“Even the Navajo silver najas echo the Plains Indian styles.”
— Frank (1990), p. 28 ^[6]

Frank (1990, Fig. 26, p. 34) dated two Smithsonian najas early:

“These two graceful najas show early characteristics and were most probably made before 1880.”
— Frank (1990), p. 34 ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 34, Fig. 26), those two najas, collected by Thomas V. Keam before 1893 for the World's Columbian Exposition, had crude hands, a gracefully tapered crescent, raised middle sections and soldered-on loops, and both were tufa cast. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 35, Fig. 27), early najas included completely flat pieces with primitive hands (one collected circa 1880), a two-crescent form with rudimentary hands collected by James Mooney in Arizona in 1893, and a handless type current in the 1870s and 1880s; a crescent wider than it is tall was generally an early trait. ^[6]

Frank (1990, Fig. 25, p. 33) traced how naja terminals changed:

“Instead of hands for terminals, later najas such as these had button-shaped knobs or turquoise stones.”
— Frank (1990), p. 33 ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 33, Fig. 25), the najas behind that observation, all collected by Victor Justice Evans in the early 1920s, ran from a circa 1900 piece with a half-formed outer crescent and crudely set stones to sandcast najas of circa 1910 (flower-petal center) and circa 1920 (a diamond-shaped turquoise in a thick bezel). ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 33, Fig. 24), a naja bought for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition had two crescents soldered at the terminals to stamped and embossed buttons, with the loop bar also soldered on. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 56, Fig. 54), najas often fell off the browband because they swung on the horse's forehead, and they were also taken off and used in squash blossom necklaces, one reason early headstalls survive without their naja. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 72, Fig. 78), a German silver crescent-like naja often hung from the center piece of Plains Indian bridles, and a Hunkpapa Sioux headstall shared its component parts with early Navajo silver bridles. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 76, Fig. 84), a necklace collected at Ganado, Arizona, in 1910 hung from a four-handed naja that was first cast and then worked with a cold chisel, with file work on the loop, the inner crescent and the squash-blossom stems. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 85, Fig. 95), a thin naja of about 1890 with unusual, nearly heart-shaped terminals with holes was made of poor-grade silver and strongly recalled Plains Indian jewelry material. ^[6]

Frank (1990, Fig. 96, p. 85) shows why the parts of one necklace can carry different dates:

“It was accessioned in 1932, the naja belonging to the turn of the century while the beads are contemporary with it.”
— Frank (1990), p. 85 ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 85, Fig. 96), a naja of about 1910 carried a stamped silver cross soldered onto two crescents that ended in two round turquoise stones, almost joined; he noted that the cross may have been added at a later date. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 100, Fig. 117), a well-stamped bridle with file work, circa 1915, still carried a simple naja of two soldered silver crescents with buttonlike terminals, which stood out against the busier stamping around it. ^[6]

Frank (1990, Fig. 121, p. 103), dating a double crescent naja to the 1890s, pointed to its shape:

“The lower double crescent naja has the early tapered form with a square turquoise stone joining the crescents together.”
— Frank (1990), p. 103 ^[6]

Frank (1990, Fig. 128, p. 109), describing a small flat naja of the 1880s with turquoise terminals, a turquoise center piece and one crescent enfolding another, wrote:

“The latter naja is one of the earliest examples known with turquoise stones.”
— Frank (1990), p. 109 ^[6]

Frank (1990, Fig. 159, p. 131) showed how stamp details can give a later date to a naja that looks old in form:

“Although the naja has a primitive pair of hands, the stamped arrows on the crescents and petals of the squash blossoms indicate a later date, somewhere in the 1920s.”
— Frank (1990), p. 131 ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 132, Fig. 160), a necklace of circa 1920 mixed sandcast "squash blossoms" shaped like small najas with regular wrought-silver blossoms, while its sandcast naja, decorated with fine rocker-engraving and file work on the ends, was probably an older piece of the 1880s, so one necklace can carry parts of different dates. ^[6]

Frank (1990, p. 134) described a squash blossom necklace of circa 1920 (Fig. 162) whose naja was closed by a square green turquoise bridging the two terminals, with a matching green stone forming the drop above it. ^[6]

Frank (1990, p. 141, Fig. 172) illustrated a naja of about 1915 in which the terminals of the inside crescent curved into those of the outside crescent and became one, with a stamped outer crescent, a plain inner one and a squash blossom pendant hanging inside. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 142, Fig. 173), a heavy sandcast naja of about 1920 enclosed a smaller crescent, carried diamond, square and round turquoise at the top and terminals, and was strung on rawhide. ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 146, Fig. 179), a German silver breast ornament made by Southern Plains Indians about 1865-1875 carried a naja with hands like those on Navajo najas; he thought the crescent had probably been copied long before from European trade items coming from the eastern United States, and that the hands motif could have come from the Spanish. ^[6]

Frank (1990, Fig. 179, p. 146) weighed the Plains contribution:

“Since the Plains Indians traded with the Southwest Indians from the 1870s up to the turn of the century, the influence the Plains Indian silversmiths had on the development of the Navajo naja is quite significant.”
— Frank (1990), p. 146 ^[6]

Frank (1990, p. 152, Fig. 186) dated to about 1890 a naja whose outer crescent had a twisted wire effect, joined to the inner crescent by a triangular silver cross bar, with file-worked buttons as terminals. ^[6]

Frank (1990, Fig. 192, p. 157) described the plainest early form of the cast crescent:

“This old style, graceful sandcast naja has no hands, knobs, or stones at the terminals.”
— Frank (1990), p. 157 ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 176, Fig. 219), an old Zuni Pueblo naja carved from white shell, circa 1880s, followed the pattern of the silver najas Navajo (Diné) smiths made in the 1870s and 1880s: primitive hands with fingers marked, a "cuff" above each hand, a definite loop piece, and an inset green turquoise just below the loop. ^[6]

On the hand-shaped terminals, Frank (1990, Fig. 222, p. 179) was plain:

“The origin of the hands is unknown.”
— Frank (1990), p. 179 ^[6]

According to Frank (1990, p. 179, Fig. 222), one idea traced the hands to the "hands of Fatima" carried by the Moors to the Spanish colonists, but he left open whether the motif reached the Navajo directly from the Spanish or by way of the Plains peoples: crescent gorgets made in the English colonies, England and France were traded to Eastern tribes and reached the Plains in the early nineteenth century, and Plains crescents of real and German silver carried the hands motif by the 1860s. ^[6]

According to Turnbaugh (2007, p. 25, caption), an early Navajo-style naja they picture, entirely handmade with cold-chisel stamping along the inner crescent, probably dates to about 1870-1880; its loop is so heavily worn that it may first have hung on a horse's headstall, and it was later restrung on silver beads of the 1930s or 1940s. ^[7]

Turnbaugh (2007, p. 22, caption) dates the naja on a mid-20th-century coin necklace to ca. 1870-1880, considerably earlier than the necklace itself. ^[7]

Turnbaugh (2007, p. 40, caption) described a ca. 1960s Navajo (Diné) squash blossom necklace whose crescent pendant, the naja, resembles the crescent-shaped pendants that hung from the headstalls of Spanish silver bridles. They noted that the Spanish had borrowed the design centuries earlier from the Moors of North Africa, and that both the naja and the squash blossom bead reached the Navajo through the Spanish. ^[7]

Turnbaugh (2007, p. 79, caption) traced the crescent back past the Spanish bridle:

“During Roman times, it served as a charm to ward off the Evil Eye. The crescent eventually was adopted by the Moors of northern Africa and then by the Spanish.”
— Turnbaugh (2007), p. 79 ^[7]

On the hands at the tips, Turnbaugh (2007, p. 79, caption) gave a date:

“Hands forming the ends of the naja were being made by the close of the 19th century”
— Turnbaugh (2007), p. 79 ^[7]

Turnbaugh (2007, p. 80, caption) illustrates a Navajo cast silver naja, ca. 1975, with fleur-de-lis terminals and a red Mediterranean coral accent, and wrote that the fleur-de-lis had been popular among Southwestern Native peoples because of its resemblance to the corn plant. ^[7]

According to Bassman (1997, p. 6), the naja was a crescent-shaped pendant the Navajos saw on the bridles of Spanish horses, a form first used by the Moors of North Africa; as of 1997 she noted it was still used as a pendant on squash blossom necklaces and other jewelry. ^[8] Schiffer (1996, p. 25) also wrote: “The central pendant with a crescent shape is called a naja. Often, najas are set with turquoise stones.” ^[10]

Writing in 1973, Welch gave the crescent a route through Mexico and a Navajo name:

“The Aztecs apparently copied a crescent that later came to the Navajos. The Navajos called the crescent najahe and attached it alike to horse bridles and necklaces.”
— Welch (1973), p. 28 ^[11]

Adair (1944) rejected Arthur Woodward's argument for a Plains route:

“This reasoning does not seem valid. If the conquistadores had ornaments of this type, there is no reason why the Navajo could not have obtained them directly from the Mexicans and the Spaniards who settled in the region now called New Mexico.”
— Adair (1944), p. 42 ^[12]

According to Adair (1944, p. 42), a plain headstall made by Atsidi Chon, in the Laboratory of Anthropology and possibly dating as far back as 1875, had an unusual round center piece with a loop from which a najahe probably once hung. ^[12]

According to Baxter (2000, p. 113), the term naja, also spelled najahe or nazhahi, came from the Navajo word for “crescent,” and naja ornaments were mostly Navajo-made, although some Pueblo smiths, usually Hopi or Zuni, made them as well. ^[13]

Baxter (2000) dated the arrival of stones on the naja:

“The setting of stones began after 1880, for the most part.”
— Baxter (2000), p. 113 ^[13]

On the meaning of the crescent, Baxter (2000) was cautious:

“One European concept of the crescent was as a device against the “evil eye,” but this idea was probably not known to the naja’s Native American makers.”
— Baxter (2000), p. 113 ^[13]

Baxter (2000) noted where the form did and did not travel:

“Individual naja pieces could be detached from a necklace and made into pins. Interestingly, the naja crescent form is not often used for earrings or for other types of jewelry forms.”
— Baxter (2000), p. 114 ^[13]

Writing in 1938, Woodward (1946) gave the crescent an Old World origin:

“In short, it was an Old World amulet fastened to horse trappings, preferably the bridle, to ward off the evil eye from the animal.”
— Woodward (1946), p. 39 ^[14]

According to Woodward (1946, p. 39), two early najas collected among the Delaware and Shawnee of Oklahoma, then in the Museum of the American Indian, were of thin stamped or hammered silver; the Shawnee one was joined at the tips and the Delaware one ended in small hands with a bangle at the center. ^[14]

His conclusion, which Adair later rejected, was Woodward (1946):

“Hence we may conclude that the naja came to the Navajo in its various forms from the bridles used by the Ute and the Kiowa, and those same najas were identical in form with those first used centuries ago in Europe to ward off the evil eye from horses.”
— Woodward (1946), p. 40 ^[14]

Bridle silver was already a major product in 1883. Matthews described the bridle ornaments of his day as

“consisting of broad bands of silver, sufficient in size and number to almost entirely conceal the leather”
— Matthews (1883), p. 177 ^[15]

Plain as he found them, Matthews (1883) added, they

“are greatly in demand among the Navajos and are extensively manufactured by them.”
— Matthews (1883), p. 178 ^[15]

Writing in 1993, Tryk summarized the crescent's route:

“The naja, the crescent pendant, came via Mexico and Spain from the Moors in Africa, although the broken circle motif is common in many civilizations.”
— Tryk (1993), p. 71 ^[16]

Tryk (1993, p. 63) pictured carved sandstone molds used to cast a silver naja. ^[16]