Lanyade — Zuni Silversmith
Lanyade was the first silversmith at Zuni. Margery Bedinger's Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers calls him "the first Zuni silversmith" (Bedinger 1973, p. 169), and the sources agree that the Navajo smith Atsidi Chon taught him around 1872 (Turnbaugh and Turnbaugh 2007, p. 53; Hougart 2022, p. 31).
Bedinger, drawing on what Lanyade told the anthropologist John Adair, records that he made open-centered conchas, silver beads, bowguard mountings and buttons (Bedinger 1973, p. 134), and that his first pupil was Balawade (Bedinger 1973, p. 141). Wright notes that his teacher lived with him a year and taught him to make his own dies (Wright 2003, p. 28).
He carried the craft beyond Zuni. He taught the Hopi smith Sikyatala: in 1898, by the account Lanyade gave Adair (Bedinger 1973, pp. 156–157), or "in about 1890," in the Turnbaughs' telling (Turnbaugh and Turnbaugh 2007, p. 61). Margaret Nickelson Wright's Hopi Silver, a register of Hopi smiths and their hallmarks, notes that the accounts vary (Wright 2003, p. 9). Close to 1900 he was working at Isleta (Bedinger 1973, p. 169). He was still making an occasional piece in the 1920s, and was 95 when Adair talked with him in 1938 (Bedinger 1973, p. 138).
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References
- Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973.
- Turnbaugh, William A., and Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh. Indian Jewelry of the American Southwest. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2007 (first published 1988).
- Wright, Margaret Nickelson. Hopi Silver: The History and Hallmarks of Hopi Silversmithing. Revised edition. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003.
- Hougart, Bille. Native American and Southwestern Silver Hallmarks: Silversmiths, Designers, Guilds and Traders. 5th edition. Washington, DC: BilleHougartBooks, 2022.
- 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.
- June, Dennis. Fred Harvey Jewelry 1900–1955. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2013. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2013.
- Schaaf, Gregory, with Angie Yan Schaaf. American Indian Jewelry I: 1,200 Artist Biographies, ca. 1800-present. American Indian Art Series, Vol. 5. Santa Fe: CIAC Press, 2003. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2003.
From the Library: Adair, The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths (1944)
1944 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1944, not today.
Lanyade told John Adair, who talked with him for many hours in the late 1930s, how he learned (Adair 1944):
“When I was a young man about thirty years old [1872], a Navajo came to Zuñi who knew how to make silver. This man's Navajo name was Atsidi Chon”
— Adair (1944), p. 122 [5]
According to Adair (1944, p. 122), he checked Lanyade's claim to be the first Zuni silversmith, and the main facts of his account, with three other Zuni informants: Keneshde, Lonkwine and Juan Deleosa. [5]
According to Adair (1944, p. 124), after his teacher left, Lanyade made his own bellows of buffalo hide, which his father's youngest brother had traded from a Santo Domingo man, who had bought it from a Comanche. [5]
According to Adair (1944, p. 124), Lanyade recalled that all the smiths first worked American dollars, and that about fifty years before his telling (c. 1890) they began to use Mexican pesos. [5]
Lanyade told Adair (1944) that his early silver carried no stones:
“All of the silver I made was without turquoise; I had never seen it set in silver.”
— Adair (1944), p. 124 [5]
According to Adair (1944, p. 125), Pablo Abeita showed him at Isleta the silver Lanyade had made for him: a necklace of heavy plain beads and three bracelets, two with simple die-work and the third set with crudely cut turquoise. [5]
Lanyade told Adair (1944) how his working years ended:
“About thirty-five years ago, Mrs. Stevenson, that white woman who used to live here, bought my tools and my bellows and took them to Washington with her”
— Adair (1944), p. 126 [5]
These are an outside observer's records from about 1940 of what Zuni people told him; the Zuni people are the authority on their own beliefs.
According to Adair (1944, p. 149), Lanyade described a casting method he had used more than fifty years earlier for cast crosses and najas: soft rock, evidently sandstone, was heated and pounded into sand, packed in a shallow box, wetted with sugar water, and a wooden form or piece of silver was pressed into it to make the mold. [5]
Adair (1944) recorded Lanyade's view of the double-barred cross:
“A seventh person, Lanyade, said that he thought that these crosses represented Dragon-Fly, but he also said that as a boy he used to wear a necklace with one of these crosses on it to the mission church.”
— Adair (1944), p. 157 [5]
According to Adair (1944, p. 173), Lanyade told him that forty years earlier, after Cushing had left Zuni and before Mrs. Stevenson bought his tools, he went to the Hopi country to make silver, living four months at First Mesa with Sikyatala and selling his jewelry for money or trading it for mantas and sashes; Adair printed the year as 1898. [5]
Lanyade told Adair (1944) why he worked alone at First Mesa:
“None of the Hopi men knew how to make silver at that time, and I didn't let them watch me at my work, because, if they learned how, they would no longer buy silver from me.”
— Adair (1944), p. 173 [5]
Adair's 1944 table of important dates records Lanyade's training under the year 1872:
“Zuñi learned to work silver: Lanyade learned from the Navajo smith, Atsidi Chon.”
— Adair (1944), p. 193 [5]
From the Library: Baxter, Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry (2000)
2000 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2000, not today.
According to Baxter (2000, p. 71), Lanyade was active from the 1870s to about 1910; Sikyatala of Walpi, on First Mesa, learned silversmithing from him after visiting him at Zuni around 1898, and Lanyade went back to Hopi with him. [6]
Baxter (2000) followed his tools to Washington:
“Anthropologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson bought Lanyade’s tools around 1902; she shipped them to the Smithsonian Institution, where they were accessioned into the national collection in 1905.”
— Baxter (2000), p. 97 [6]
Baxter (2000) also recorded how far his work reached:
“Lanyade acted as the area smith for not only his people, but also for those Navajo living south of Gallup, New Mexico.”
— Baxter (2000), p. 97 [6]
And, per Baxter (2000):
“He traveled to the pueblos of Acoma and Laguna in 1900 to make silver items for people there.”
— Baxter (2000), p. 97 [6]
From the Library: June, Fred Harvey Jewelry 1900–1955 (2013)
2013 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2013, not today.
June (2013, p. 24) wrote that Lanyade of Zuni learned to silversmith in 1872, yet held the craft as a monopoly in his village for three years before teaching another Zuni silversmith. [7]
From the Library: Schaaf, American Indian Jewelry I (2003)
2003 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2003, not today.
Schaaf (2003) entered him as
“Lanyade (La:niyadhi, Laniyati, Ladyane)”
— Schaaf (2003), p. 210 [8]
Schaaf (2003, p. 210) named the Zuni Balawade (learned in the 1880s) and the Hopi Sikyatala (learned about 1890) as his students, and called Lanyade perhaps the first Zuni silversmith. [8]
Schaaf (2003) wrote of his tools, bought by Matilda Coxe Stevenson in 1902:
“They are preserved in the National Museum of Natural History in Washington”
— Schaaf (2003), p. 211 [8]
Schaaf (2003, p. 288) named Lanyade of Zuni as the teacher of Sikyatala, whom it called the first Hopi silversmith, and dated the lessons to around 1890. [8]
Schaaf (2003) wrote:
“Sikyatala let interested Hopis watch him make jewelry, and soon others learned.”
— Schaaf (2003), p. 288 [8]
Field Notes by Mateo James
Our page gives Lanyade's Hopi visit two dates, 1898 from his account to Adair and about 1890 from the Turnbaughs. In Adair's own book (1944, p. 173) Lanyade dates the trip "forty years ago," which Adair printed as 1898, and places it at First Mesa, where he lived four months with Sikyatala. Wright (2003, p. 9), working from Mary-Russell Colton's 1939 account, puts the meeting after 1890 and leaves open whether the lessons were at Hopi or at Zuni. I show the accounts side by side rather than choose.
This profile is maintained in support of Native American silversmiths and compiled from published references. See something inaccurate, or want to add to it? Contact us.