Tom Burnsides — The Smith Who Taught the Man Who Wrote the Book

Biography by Mateo James

Diné (Navajo) · b. c. 1911 (Adair) or 1917 (Hougart) · Active 1920s–1940s · Pine Springs, Arizona

The marks

Here is an honest problem: the best-documented Navajo silversmith of the classic era barely has a hallmark story. Hougart's reference lists a mark of T. B. for Tom Burnsides. Treat "T. B." as reported, not confirmed.

What's better documented is institutional: Hougart records that Tom's work was marked with the Navajo Guild stamp, and that around 1940 John Adair interceded with the Indian Arts and Crafts Board on behalf of Ambrose Roanhorse, seeking funds to hire Tom among a small group of smiths — the standards-program world Tom worked inside. Roanhorse had already visited Pine Springs in the summer of 1937 under IACB auspices, encouraging Tom and several neighbors to make silver in the old style.

Collector's caution. Most of Tom's working life predates personal hallmarks entirely — Adair, who watched him at the bench for weeks in 1938, documents no mark at all. That leaves three buckets: unmarked pieces (attribution is style-and-provenance guesswork), Guild-stamped pieces (the stamp certifies the program, not the individual hand), and anything bearing "T. B." (verify the mark reading first). If a piece matters, buy the provenance, not the initials.

The smith who taught the man who wrote the book

In June 1938, the anthropologist John Adair did something no scholar of Southwest silver has matched since: he apprenticed himself to a working Navajo smith, in the smith's own hogan — a single-room log structure a mile north of the Pine Springs trading post, forty miles west of Gallup. The smith was Tom Burnsides, then twenty-seven, a sheepherder and cattleman who spoke no English (his uncle Isadore interpreted) and worked silver between shearing and corn planting. The publisher put it on the book's flap: Adair "actually learned to work silver himself in the hogan of one of the leading artisans, Tom Burnsides." Every later account of traditional Navajo technique stands on those sessions.

What Adair recorded is the fullest bench sequence in print. For one old-style filed bracelet — twelve and a half hours of work — Tom melted 3.5 one-ounce slugs in a charcoal forge, poured the ingot into a stone mold greased with mutton tallow, and hammered on an anvil made from eight inches of railroad track he'd hacksawed off at Houck station. An hour of alternating pounding and annealing stretched the bar to eight inches; then came chisel-grooved lines worked center-out so the silver spread evenly, and die stamps placed entirely by eye, each mark equidistant from the last — with no pre-marking, and no possible correction, since a misplaced stamp means melting the piece. Hours of fine filing, a nitric-acid blanch, a scrub, even a handful of hogan-floor dirt as abrasive, then the buffing wheel. One telling step: Tom oxidized the finish only because his buyer was Anglo. For a Navajo customer the bracelet would have stayed bright — Navajo taste ran to shine, not artificial age.

The second documented piece answers for itself. Tom carved a two-piece volcanic tuff mold with a knife made from an old file, cast a ketoh — a bow-guard — in one clean pour ("the silver had flowed evenly to every corner of the mold. Tom was pleased and smiled"), and finished it over two days. That ketoh took first prize at the Navajo Tribal Fair at Window Rock, September 1938, and entered the Taylor Museum for Southwestern Studies in Colorado Springs. He also built his first-ever tobacco canteen under Adair's eye — the hardest form in Navajo silver — and, asked to copy a model exactly, quietly declined to: like all Navajo smiths Adair knew, Tom made each piece slightly different, on principle.

He finished one piece before starting the next, and the local trader paid him to fix the sloppy work of other smiths. Adair's verdict: a perfectionist whose work "never has the slightest blemish."

The record's rough edges

The sources disagree on basics. Adair, on site in 1938, makes Tom twenty-seven — born about 1911; Hougart says 1917. We weight the contemporaneous field observation. Adair never names Tom's wife, herself part of the silver-wearing household; Hougart names Mary Daye, an accomplished smith in her own right — accurate, or possibly a later marriage. Uncorroborated either way.

The Burnsides of Pine Springs

Tom learned wrought work at twenty from his half-brother John Burnsides, and casting from Left-Handed Red at Houck — tuition: one bracelet for one day of watching. Adair names the family plainly: "at Pine Springs, the Burnsides," one of the great community outfits of Navajo silver. The line ran long — John worked until 1988, and Tom's nephew Chester Kahn (1936–2019) became an Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial Living Treasure (Hougart 2022, p. 166). ^[5] Hougart's pages carry Burnside marks into later generations.

References

Adair, John. The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths (1944), Chapter IV and pp. 55–101 — the primary first-hand account.
Hougart, Bille. Native American and Southwestern Silver Hallmarks, 5th ed. (2022), Burnside family, Mary Daye, Chester Kahn, and IACB entries.
Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers (1973) — cites Tom's turquoise-setting as exemplary.
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.
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.
Tanner, Clara Lee. “Navajo Silver Craft.” Arizona Highways 30, no. 8 (August 1954): 16–33. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1954.
Hougart, Bille. Native American and Southwestern Silver Hallmarks: Silversmiths, Designers, Guilds and Traders. 5th edition. Washington, DC: BilleHougartBooks, 2022. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2022.

From the Library: Adair, The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths (1944)

1944 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1944, not today.

Adair (1944) on why he asked Tom, in 1938, for an old-style filed bracelet:

“Tom is well known as an expert in making silver of this type.”
— Adair (1944), p. 57 ^[1]

Adair (1944) contrasted Tom's workplace with that of most smiths in the late 1930s:

“He sits on the floor of his hogan to work, just as the silversmiths did fifty years ago, although most of the smiths today work at benches set up in their hogans.”
— Adair (1944), p. 62 ^[1]

According to Adair (1944, p. 62), Tom made many of his own tools from odds and ends, among them the forge from a tin pail and cold chisels from old files. His kit was typical of a smith then earning two or three hundred dollars a year from part-time silver work, done mostly in winter, and even a kit that size cost several hundred dollars at the trading-post prices of the late 1930s. ^[1]

Teaching Adair at the anvil in 1938, Tom would not let him start over after mistakes; Adair (1944) recorded:

“He repeated that the only way smiths learned was by finishing each piece.”
— Adair (1944), p. 75 ^[1]

Comparing Tom's work with Charlie Bitsui's, Adair (1944) wrote:

“Tom used design sparingly. He liked to do file work, in which the patterns are straight, formal, and reserved.”
— Adair (1944), p. 81 ^[1]

Adair (1944) on how Tom built a ring in the late 1930s:

“When Tom makes a ring, he uses one piece of silver which he divides at each end to form the prongs.”
— Adair (1944), p. 85 ^[1]

Adair (1944) on what Tom's precision required:

“To make silver as good as that he turned out, unlimited time is essential.”
— Adair (1944), p. 83 ^[1]

Tom Burnsides told Adair in the late 1930s, as Adair (1944) recorded:

“You can't do good silver work for very long. It all depends on how long your eyes last.”
— Adair (1944), p. 104 ^[1]

According to Adair (1944, p. 92), Tom said smiths kept only one restriction: no one should watch while the silver was poured into the casting or ingot molds or during delicate soldering, or the metal would not pour and the solder would not hold. Adair judged it not a taboo but a matter of concentration, since apprentices were allowed to watch. ^[1]

According to Adair (1944, p. 100), when he showed Tom's filed bracelet, which had no turquoise, to Tom's aunt Mary Burnsides, she called it old-fashioned and said it ought to have some turquoise; and a Navajo buyer offered Tom's prize ketoh by the trader turned it down because he wanted one with more stones. ^[1]

Of the late 1930s, Adair (1944) placed Tom among the majority of Navajo smiths, who then earned $300 to $500 a year from silver:

“Tom Burnsides belongs to this group. His income from the craft, counting sales to the traders and to the Navajo, is around $350 a year.”
— Adair (1944), p. 113 ^[1]

According to Adair (1944, p. 113), John Burnsides earned about $1,000 a year from silver in that period; he worked silver all year but did most of it from November to April. ^[1]

Adair (1944, p. 113) also recorded that in 1938 John had two sons, about twelve and fourteen, who helped him at the bench, and that his wife ground turquoise and did some of the silver work as well. ^[1]

Adair (1944, p. 195) listed Tom Burnsides, with John Burnsides, John Six and Atsidi Nez, among the smiths who made silver for the trading post at Pine Springs during 1938. ^[1]

From the Library: Baxter, Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry (2000)

2000 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2000, not today.

Baxter (2000, p. 23) listed the Heard Museum in Phoenix as holding his work. ^[2]

From the Library: Schaaf, American Indian Jewelry I (2003)

2003 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2003, not today.

Schaaf's 2003 hallmark index lists Tom Burnsides under TB, with two other makers:

“TB (Tim Bedall, Tim Beedah, Tom Burnsides)”
— Schaaf (2003), p. 65 ^[3]

Schaaf (2003, p. 98) also gave his stamp as T.B. in Tom Burnsides's own entry, and recorded him at Pine Springs, Arizona. ^[3]

According to Schaaf (2003, p. 99), his work was shown in 1941 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in the 2002 Jewels of the Southwest exhibition in Santa Fe, and was held in the Elkus Collection at the California Academy of Sciences and the Taylor Museum in Colorado Springs. ^[3]

Schaaf (2003, p. 182) listed Tom Burnsides as the student of the Navajo smith Charlie Houck, active from about the 1890s to the 1930s, and named Red Mexican as Houck's own teacher. ^[3]

From the Library: Tanner, Navajo Silver Craft (1954)

1954 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1954, not today.

A photograph caption in the August 1954 Arizona Highways article by Tanner identified its subject as

“Tom Burnside, a Navajo sandcaster”
— Tanner (1954), p. 28 ^[4]

Field Notes by Mateo James

I notice the books describe the same lesson differently. This page has Tom learning casting from Left-Handed Red at Houck, a place, while Schaaf's 2003 register lists him as the student of a smith named Charlie Houck, whose own teacher it gives as Red Mexican. Both may describe the same circle of smiths; I show each as printed.

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.

I notice the spelling. The August 1954 Arizona Highways caption prints “Tom Burnside,” and Hougart files the family under Burnside, while Adair prints Burnsides. The caption calls him a Navajo sandcaster, and casting is the craft this page records for Tom, so I read it as the same man. I show both spellings as printed.

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