The Squash Blossom Necklace & the Naja

By Mateo James

A squash blossom necklace is a strand of hand-made silver beads with a crescent pendant, the naja, at its lowest point and flared “blossom” beads in pairs up both sides. The Turnbaughs rank it beside the concha belt as the most typical Navajo silverwork, and note that other peoples make both. ^[11] The English name is an outsider’s guess, and the books date the necklace anywhere from the 1870s to about 1900. ^[17]^[16]^[14]

KEY POINTS

No one knows who first said “squash blossom.” Adair (1944) thought a white man probably coined it; Jacka (1995) suggested a trader; Baxter (2000) credits traders with spreading it. ^[16]^[14]^[17]
Our reporting renders the Diné word for the bead as “bead that spreads out.” The Turnbaughs print the Navajo word for the necklace as Yoo nimazi. ^[11]
The books that take up the question mostly trace the blossom to Spanish and Mexican silver pomegranates, worn as buttons and ornaments on trousers and jackets. ^[18]^[11]^[20]
The first-appearance dates disagree: from 1870 onward (Baxter 2000), after 1880 (Adair 1944), probably around the turn of the century (Jacka 1995). ^[17]^[16]^[14]
Stones in the blossoms came later. Adair (1944) calls stone-set beads a Zuni influence; Frank (1990) shows turquoise in every blossom of one necklace from about 1920. ^[16]^[10]

Classic turquoise squash blossom necklace with hollow silver beads, blossom side beads, and stone-set naja pendant — **The full form:** beads, blossoms, and the naja at center. From the T.Skies gallery.

What is a squash blossom necklace?

A squash blossom necklace is a graduated silver bead necklace built around three parts: a crescent pendant called the naja hanging at the lowest point, flared silver beads — the “blossoms” — flanking it in symmetrical pairs, usually five or six per side, and a chain of round hand-made silver beads connecting them. Turquoise is common but not required; on modern work a cabochon is often bezel-set at the base of each blossom.

Each blossom is a spherical bench bead with three silver petals flaring outward like a trumpet. That shape is where the English name comes from — and the name is an outsider’s guess.

The Diné word for the bead is yo ne maze disya gi: bead that spreads out. There is no squash in it. The plant reading came from people looking at the necklace, not from the smiths making it, and it stuck hard enough that it is now the only name most buyers know. Our own reporting traces the petal form to something else entirely — the pomegranates of Andalusia, a motif found in the decorative work of Granada, carried to the Southwest along the same route as the crescent.

One correction worth making early, because it is the most common error in the category: the naja is the crescent centerpiece. The blossoms are the beads on the sides. The whole necklace is not “a naja,” and a naja on its own — worn as a pendant, which it often is — is not a squash blossom necklace.

What is the naja, and does it have a meaning?

A naja is the inverted crescent that hangs at the center of a squash blossom necklace. Naja is the Diné (Navajo) word for crescent.

The full account, with photographs and the elders in their own words, is Ungelbah Dávila-Shivers’s The Naja. What follows is the short version.

It has meanings — plural, and belonging to different people at different points on a long road. The usual one-line answer, that the naja is a Navajo protection symbol, compresses four distinct layers into one and gets the most important of them backwards. Taken in order:

The Mediterranean crescent. Our reporting traces the form’s roots to the goddess-based religions of Phoenicia, Greece, Crete and Rome, where — the sourcing here is genuinely uncertain and we will not firm it up — it could have represented a pomegranate, used as a fertility symbol.

The Moorish bridle ornament. This is where protection enters, and it is specific: the Moors, who held Spain for eight centuries, mounted the crescent on their horses’ bridles to guard the animal and its rider against the evil eye. Protection is a real, documented meaning of this shape. It is a North African one.

The Spanish crossing. In the sixteenth century the Spanish arrived in the New World on ornamented Andalusian horses, and the Moorish bridle design arrived with them — introduced, in the words of our own account, “to the Diné and other first inhabitants.”

The Diné adoption. Here is the layer that the common answer gets wrong, and our source states it plainly:

“While Diné don’t consider the Naja to have any spiritual or symbolic significance in their culture and religion, they have always been held in high esteem as a form of wealth and bravery, proudly worn by men and women.”

— Ungelbah Dávila-Shivers (Diné), The Naja, T.Skies

So: not a sacred object, and not, within Diné religion, a symbol. Held in high esteem — as standing, as wealth, as bravery — and worn by men and women alike. That last detail is worth keeping. This has never been a woman’s form.

That is not the same as saying the shape carries nothing. The same Diné writer opens her account by placing the naja in the history it came through:

“The Naja design is a reminder of the Diné (Navajo) people’s resilience in the face of unimaginable adversity. It is a symbol of creating something beautiful out of despair, of rising from the ashes…”

— Ungelbah Dávila-Shivers (Diné), The Naja, T.Skies

The two statements sit together without contradiction, and holding them side by side is the whole point: not a religious or ceremonial object within Diné belief, and at the same time an emblem of survival — of a people who rebuilt an economy, and an art form, in the years after the Long Walk.

What individual Diné people find in the shape is a separate question from what the culture holds, and the elders quoted in our reporting answer it for themselves rather than for anyone else. Carmalie Denetclaw, a Diné elder and matriarch, offers a reading grounded in harmony:

“The original idea of the Naja could have come from our beliefs in harmony that we live by as Diné people. Our people always believed that the most sacred center of our existence centers around the hogan… The opening in the Naja could represent this belief to the original Diné Naja artist. The Naja on the squash blossom should be symbolic to the path of goodness.”

— Carmalie Denetclaw, in The Naja

Ceria Hogue reads the necklace as design drawn from a working life:

“The Diné people are very articulate people especially in art… Since the Diné planted vegetables and one of them was squash, squash has blossoms. Also, as mentioned, there were the silversmiths and the horses. The Diné people adopted the horses, horses have horseshoes. So all in all, maybe they designed their jewelry after something of significance to the Diné people.”

— Ceria Hogue, in The Naja

And Paulo Dineclah places the turquoise in it:

“Diné learned silversmithing from people to the south. They picked up silver coinage from them and melted it down to make Concho belts. It is said we wear turquoise jewelry, diyiin dineh, to acknowledge and honor land, people, and show respectfulness to a good life.”

— Paulo Dineclah, in The Naja

Note the register in all three: could have, maybe, it is said. These are people offering a reading, not issuing a doctrine. We quote them that way on purpose.

One more reading reached us the way most teachings do: spoken, not printed. It comes from a Navajo medicine man who asked to be known here simply as Bear. He reads the crescent as the moon, and the moon’s cycle as a woman’s; for him the shape carries the divine feminine, and the open center is the womb. A naja left open speaks on his reading to womanhood, and one with a stone set at its center to motherhood. He offers it as his own, in the same register as the elders above — a way of seeing the form, not a doctrine of the culture. And it is a reading of the form, not of the wearer: men wear najas as readily as women do.

A note on this teaching. We share it with respect, and with limits. Much of what the Diné carry is passed by voice rather than print, and some of it is sacred and not ours to repeat — so what you read here is a part, never the whole. The Diné are many clans, and a teaching held in one family may be told differently in another. Native American is a blanket term — many nations, each with its own beliefs and its own ways — and one Diné man’s teaching does not speak for any of the others. If you are Navajo and this differs from what you have heard, follow your own family and your local elder.

How we handle teachings shared with us →

The verdict, stated plainly: the naja carries a protective meaning inherited from Moorish horse tack, a possible and much older fertility association from the Mediterranean, and — in Diné hands — esteem, wealth and bravery rather than religious significance — and, in the words of the Diné writer who reported it for us, a reminder of resilience. Anyone selling it to you as an ancient Navajo sacred symbol is telling you a story that our own sources, including Diné elders, decline to tell.

How the necklace came together

The squash blossom necklace was assembled in stages, not designed at once.

The naja came first, and at first there was no silver in it. It is presumed the earliest were strung on a leather strip. Silver beads came later — plain ones, before anyone thought of petals. Then the petals, and with them the form we now recognize.

Silverwork itself arrived in Diné hands in the nineteenth century, learned, as Paulo Dineclah says above, “from people to the south,” and practiced first on melted silver coinage. What turned it from a craft into an economy was catastrophe. In 1864 the United States forced the Diné on the Long Walk — a 300-mile relocation and four-year detainment at the Bosque Redondo internment camp. Our reporting is direct about what returning meant:

“Where prestige and wealth used to come from raiding, it now came from herding and trading. Silverworking became a very important part of this transition. At this time the squash blossom necklace, most famous for its inclusion of the Naja pendant, became popular.”

That is the hinge. The necklace becomes widespread at the exact moment silverwork becomes a livelihood — a people rebuilding an economy out of the thing they had just been nearly destroyed for surviving.

Stones came into the blossoms later. Adair (1944) calls stone-set beads a Zuni influence that had recently caught on with the Navajo, and Frank (1990) shows a necklace of about 1920 with turquoise in every blossom. ^[16]^[10] The form kept moving between nations rather than settling in one. The 1970s brought a boom in demand that put a squash blossom in a great many non-Native jewelry boxes and drove an enormous volume of new production — which is why so much of what turns up in resale today dates from that decade.

The necklace is most often associated with Diné (Navajo) silversmiths, and that association is earned. But Pueblo artists make them too, and have for well over a century. Attributing every squash blossom to one nation is the same flattening error as attributing the naja to one culture.

What the reference books add

Our reporting is one account. The reference books are another, and on five questions they say more than the sections above.

Who named it

No book knows. Bedinger (1973) says so outright. ^[9] Adair (1944) thought the likeliest source was a white man who asked a Navajo what the bead stood for and took the answer literally, when the Navajo meant only that it looked like the flower. ^[16] Jacka (1995) guessed at a trader. Baxter (2000) gives traders the credit for spreading the name, until the bead’s other origin was mostly forgotten. ^[14]^[17] Woodward (1946) was blunter: he said the plant names had been applied with no adequate basis beyond rationalism. ^[18]

Where the blossom came from

The books that take up the question mostly land on the pomegranate, by a different road from ours. Woodward (1946) argued that these beads began as silver ornaments on Spanish-Mexican trousers and jackets; take the buttons off a museum costume and string them, he wrote, and you would have a fine “old” Navajo necklace. ^[18] The Turnbaughs and Tryk (1993) follow the same line. ^[11]^[20] Frank (1990) found two flowering pomegranates on a Spanish Colonial chest from northern New Mexico, dated to the early 1800s, decades before the Navajo silver version. ^[10] Bedinger (1973) explains how a fruit became a flower: the Navajos did not know the pomegranate, she notes, and the sepals soon stretched into a trumpet, as if the smiths were shaping it toward what they saw every day. ^[9] Not everyone agreed. Mrs. John Wetherill of Kayenta told Bedinger it was the sunflower. ^[9]

Our own account goes to the pomegranates of Andalusia and Granada. The two are compatible. They are not the same claim, and we keep them apart.

When it appeared

Baxter (2000) has the earliest necklaces made from 1870 onward, big and long, and worn by men and women of both the Navajo and the Pueblos. ^[17] Adair (1944) put the blossom bead after 1880, since Washington Matthews never mentioned it. ^[16] Jacka (1995) narrows it to probably around the turn of the century: absent from Matthews in the 1880s, present in the Franciscan Fathers’ dictionary of 1910. ^[14] By 1904, as Bedinger quotes G. W. James, scarcely a Navajo of any standing went without a silver bead necklace. ^[9] Frank (1990) unsettles the later dates with a photograph William H. Jackson took at Hopi around 1878. ^[10] Our field notes below set the disagreement out. We don’t pick.

How the beads were made

The bead is the slow part. Matthews (1883) watched two smiths at work: one cut the planchets, the other domed them into hemispheres in a matrix and die, and the halves went onto a wire in pairs to be soldered together in one firing. ^[19] Some sixty years on, Adair (1944) watched Charlie Bitsui cut a silver tube into three petals for the blossom. One bead took him almost an hour. A necklace carries dozens. ^[16] Lanyade told Adair the Zuni learned the bead from a Navajo smith, Atsidi Chon. ^[16]

The Pueblo necklace

The Pueblo version swaps parts: crosses in for the blossoms, a double-barred pendant in for the naja. ^[10]^[17] Adair (1944) found the cross necklace a Pueblo favorite, made in great numbers at Isleta and Laguna. ^[16] And Bedinger (1973) saw evidence that, as a pendant, the cross came first. ^[9]

What to ask before you buy one

The single most useful question is who made it, and what nation are they from — asked plainly, and answered specifically. A seller who cannot name the maker on a piece presented as Native-made is telling you something.

Beyond that:

Ask what the naja is made of and how. Cast najas carry weight and a rounded softness; fabricated ones are lighter, often with stamped or filed detail. Both are legitimate. They are not the same object and should not be the same price.
Look at the beads. Hand-made bench beads carry a visible seam and small irregularities between them. Machine-made beads match each other exactly.
Ask about the turquoise. Named-mine provenance, whether the stone is natural or stabilized, and whether that has been disclosed in writing.
Be careful with the word “vintage.” The 1970s boom means a piece can be genuinely old, genuinely handmade, and still very common.
Expect honesty about the history. A knowledgeable seller will tell you the naja’s road ran through Moorish Spain. A seller who tells you it is an ancient Navajo sacred symbol has either not read the sources or is counting on you not having.
Don’t date it by its parts. Bedinger (1973) found no evidence that crosses, pomegranates or coins make one necklace older than another, or that a plain one is older than an ornamented one. Many old necklaces broke in wear and were restrung with different beads, Frank (1990) notes, so a mixed strand is common. ^[9]^[10]
Coins aren’t a date either. Byron Hunter of the Heard Museum Shop told Jacka (1995) that most squash blossoms made from old coins date from the 1970s, when smiths bought up every old coin they could find, though some are earlier. ^[14]

Our silversmith directory documents makers and their hallmarks, and is the place to start if you have a mark you are trying to put a name to. To see the form in hand, browse the T.Skies necklace collection.

Close-up of squash blossom side beads — the flowering silver form with turquoise settings — **The blossoms:** the flowering side-beads that give the necklace its name — detail from the necklace at left.

Squash blossom necklace with an open naja crescent pendant — **The naja:** the open crescent — horns, shoulders, and center drop. From the T.Skies gallery.

Field Notes by Mateo James

Our page links the ancient Mediterranean crescent to the pomegranate. Bedinger (1973) puts the pomegranate on a different part of the necklace: it is her source for the blossom beads, while she traces the crescent itself to boar-tusk amulets, the half-moon of Astarte, Artemis and Diana, and the Moorish hand. I notice the two accounts share the same ingredients but assign them to different pieces, and neither claims certainty.

Our page carries Adair's judgment, through Bedinger, that the blossom bead appeared after 1880 because the early writers never mention it. Frank points instead to a William H. Jackson photograph taken at Hopi around 1878 that, he says, shows a squash blossom necklace with very similar sandcast blossoms. One argument rests on what the early writers left out, the other on a photograph, and neither book reconciles them, so I show both.

Our page cites Bedinger that bead shape could not date a necklace, beyond round beads coming first. Frank's captions read the blossom stems and the blossom's shape as signs of age. The two may be looking at different parts of the necklace, beads versus blossoms, and I show both.

I notice the dates disagree. Lois Essary Jacka, writing in 1995, placed the necklace around the turn of the century, while Bedinger (1973), following Adair, has the blossom bead after 1880 and Frank (1990) describes a necklace collected in the 1880s. A photo caption in Jacka's own book (p. 12) dates one squash blossom necklace to the late 1880s. I have left each date as written.

I notice a difference in the dates here. Our article The Evolution of a Squash Blossom Necklace says Zuni smiths added turquoise to the necklace in the nineteenth century, while Adair (1944, p. 45) described stone-set blossoms as a Zuni influence of recent years, writing from his fieldwork of the late 1930s. I show both.

Our reporting gives the Diné word for the bead as yo ne maze disya gi, “bead that spreads out.” The Turnbaughs (2007) print the Navajo word for the necklace as “Yoo nimazi.” I notice the two spellings differ, and one names the bead while the other names the necklace, so I show both as printed.

From the Library

What 12 reference books say about the squash blossom necklace, grouped by topic. Every passage names its book and page; full references are under Sources.

These are outside observers’ records of the necklace; the Navajo (Diné), Zuni, Hopi and other Pueblo nations are the authority on their own work.

What the necklace is, and what it is called in Navajo5 passages · 4 books

What the necklace is, and the Navajo name the Turnbaughs record.

Turnbaugh (2007) ranked the necklace with one other form:

“The squash blossom necklace and the concha belt are considered the most typical forms of Navajo silversmithing, although both are made by other peoples as well.”

Turnbaugh (2007), p. 49 AS OF 2007 ^[11]

Turnbaugh (2007, p. 79, caption) gives the Navajo name:

“The Navajo word for "squash blossom necklace" is "Yoo nimazi."”

Turnbaugh (2007), p. 79 AS OF 2007 ^[11]

Jacka (1995) quoted the Franciscan Fathers' 1910 description:

“Usually they have a large crescent-shaped pendant in the front center, and in the lower half of the strand small silver crosses, and other flowerlike ornaments are strung after every second or third bead.”

Jacka (1995), p. 21 AS OF 1995 ^[14]

Baxter (2000) on the first necklaces:

“The earliest squash blossom necklaces, created from 1870 onward, were usually large in size and length, and worn by Navajo and Pueblo men and women.”

Baxter (2000), p. 166 AS OF 2000 ^[17]

Holbrook's glossary in Frank (1990) defines the squash blossom as the shape on necklace side pendants, said to resemble a squash or pumpkin flower, and adds:

“The design probably is derived from Spanish or Mexican prototypes and if anything represents a pomegranate flower.”

Frank (1990), p. 204 AS OF 1990 ^[10]

Schiffer (1996, p. 25) also wrote that “Navajo silversmiths have developed squash blossom necklaces over the last century and a quarter from ideas introduced to them by the early Spanish explorers,” and added: “The central pendant with a crescent shape is called a naja.” ^[15]

Where the English name came from8 passages · 6 books

Who probably coined “squash blossom,” and why the books doubt it describes the bead.

On the English name, Bedinger (1973) wrote:

“The term "squash blossom" has been in use for many years, but there is no evidence of when or by whom it was first applied.”

Bedinger (1973), p. 82 AS OF 1973 ^[9]

A 1975 caption made the same point about the name:

“The Navajo did not coin the word "squash blossom" for "bead which spreads out."”

Stacey (1975), p. 21 AS OF 1975 ^[13]

On the English name, Jacka suggested in 1995:

“The ornament was quite possibly misnamed by a trader who thought it resembled a squash blossom.”

Jacka (1995), p. 22 AS OF 1995 ^[14]

On the English name, Adair (1944) gave his own reading:

“It is highly probable that this term was coined by a white man, who, upon asking a Navajo what the bead represented, was told a squash-blossom. The Navajo did not mean that the bead was symbolic of the flower, but merely that the bead looked like the flower”

Adair (1944), p. 44 AS OF 1944 ^[16]

Baxter (2000) on where the name came from:

“Non-native Indian traders brought the terms “squash blossom” and “squash blossom necklace” into general usage, and the fact that these beads did not originally represent squash blossoms was mostly forgotten.”

Baxter (2000), p. 165 AS OF 2000 ^[17]

He dismissed the plant names, Woodward (1946):

“The Navajo silver ornaments of this type, seen so extensively on necklaces, have been referred to, without any adequate basis for so doing, other than rationalism, as "squash blossoms," or "sun flower blossoms."”

Woodward (1946), p. 36 AS OF 1946 ^[18]

Bedinger (1973) quotes the anthropologist John Adair on how Zuni people related the bead to the squash plant:

“This does not mean that it [the bead] is representative or symbolic of squash to the Zuni mind; rather, its form suggests to his mind the blossom of that plant.”

Bedinger (1973), p. 82 AS OF 1973 ^[9]

According to Adair (1944, p. 158), the Zuni equated the Navajo bead with the head decorations of wood and yarn worn by their ceremonial dancers, which represented the blossom of the squash plant, an important Pueblo crop; he added that he did not know how the English name squash-blossom came into use. ^[16]

Pomegranate, sunflower or squash: the Spanish-Mexican roots of the blossom8 passages · 5 books

The case for a Spanish-Mexican pomegranate behind the blossom, and the sunflower reading Bedinger heard and set aside.

In his own words, Woodward (1946) stated the pomegranate thesis in 1938:

“It is my contention that all of these beads were originally Spanish-Mexican trouser and jacket ornaments.”

Woodward (1946), p. 35 AS OF 1946 ^[18]

And he drew the conclusion from museum costumes, Woodward (1946):

“If one were to remove these buttons or cape ornaments from the original garments and string them, the result would be a fine "old" Navajo necklace.”

Woodward (1946), p. 36 AS OF 1946 ^[18]

Writing in 1993, Tryk traced the form:

“The blossoms were probably originally pomegranates in Mexican Spanish jewelry.”

Tryk (1993), p. 71 AS OF 1993 ^[20]

Turnbaugh (2007, p. 40, caption) traced the squash blossom bead to silver pomegranate blossom buttons that some Spanish men wore as trouser ornaments. They noted that the Navajo (Diné) bead grew steadily longer through the 20th century and that, as of the late 1980s, it was often set with turquoise. ^[11]

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 83), the Yalálag people of Oaxaca, Mexico, probably in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, made necklaces of coral and glass trade beads with cast silver pomegranates spaced along them just as on a Navajo necklace, which suggested to the researcher Neumann that the Navajo idea may have come from such necklaces rather than from trouser buttons. ^[9]

Bedinger (1973) explained how the fruit could have become a flower:

“Unlike the ancient Persians or the Spanish, the Navajos did not know the pomegranate; and the way that the sepals soon were lengthened into a trumpet suggests that the craftsmen were making the ornaments more like what they saw every day.”

Bedinger (1973), p. 85 AS OF 1973 ^[9]

According to Frank (1990, p. 199, Fig. 251), a Spanish Colonial wooden chest from northern New Mexico, dated to the early 1800s, carried two flowering pomegranates; he wrote that the pomegranate or squash blossom motif was common in the Spanish frontier colony well before the Navajo silver version appeared in the later nineteenth century, and that silver "squash blossom" ornaments were worn on Spanish and Mexican capes, jackets and trousers. ^[10]

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 83), Mrs. John Wetherill of Kayenta told her firmly that the form came from the sunflower, whose tiny central florets have the trumpet, bulb and stem of the early beads; Bedinger nonetheless found stronger evidence for the pomegranate, following Arthur Woodward's argument that the beads began as Spanish-Mexican trouser and jacket ornaments shaped like the fruit. ^[9] Stacey (1975, p. 8) also records, in Sharon and Robert Ashton's article, that pomegranates were later spaced between the silver beads of these necklaces, which became known as squash blossoms. ^[13] Jacka (1995, p. 22) also quotes Woodward: "It is my contention that all of these beads were originally Spanish-American trouser and jacket ornaments." ^[14]

When the necklace appeared7 passages · 5 books

Dates for the necklace’s first appearance, from the 1870s to about 1900, and the reasoning behind each.

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 35), Mrs. Stevenson placed silver beads among the first things the pioneer smiths made despite the skill they required, and Adair thought it likely the Navajos learned bead-making sometime during the 1870s. ^[9]

Bedinger (1973) quotes the traveller G. W. James, writing in 1904, on how common the necklaces had become:

“"scarcely a man or woman of any standing in the tribe does not possess a home-manufactured necklace of silver beads"”

Bedinger (1973), p. 36 AS OF 1973 ^[9]

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 82), John Adair judged that the blossom bead came into existence after 1880, because neither Washington Matthews nor John G. Bourke mentioned it, and the Laboratory of Anthropology scientists agreed. ^[9]

According to Adair (1944, p. 44), the squash-blossom necklace probably did not come into existence until sometime after 1880, since Washington Matthews did not mention beads of this type in his report. ^[16]

According to Jacka (1995, p. 21), the squash blossom necklace was probably introduced around the turn of the century: Washington Matthews did not mention it in the 1880s, but the Franciscan Fathers included it in their Ethnologic Dictionary of 1910. ^[14]

Matilda Coxe Stevenson's manuscript, which Woodward (1946) quoted while warning that she was at times not historically correct, put the form late:

“The silver squash blossom was a more recent achievement in the silversmith's art.”

Woodward (1946), p. 63 AS OF 1946 ^[18]

Tryk (1993, p. 50) contrasted the silver squash blossom, a tradition she dated only to the late 1800s, with shell and turquoise mosaic, a style present in the Southwest for thousands of years. ^[20]

How the silver beads were made9 passages · 3 books

How the silver beads were made, from Matthews in 1883 to Charlie Bitsui at the bench.

Bedinger (1973) names the smith credited with the first Navajo silver bead:

“One pioneer, Shorty Smith, is credited with making the first one”

Bedinger (1973), p. 35 AS OF 1973 ^[9]

Bedinger (1973, pp. 35–36) reprints Washington Matthews's 1883 account of bead-making: a Mexican dollar was beaten thin, cut into disks, domed into hemispheres, strung in pairs on a wire to form globes, and all the seams soldered in one firing before filing, polishing and blanching. ^[9]

The hollow silver bead behind every squash blossom strand was described first-hand by Matthews in 1883:

“One of the smiths proceeded to cut out the rest of the planchets, while his partner formed them into hollow hemispheres with his matrix and die.”

Matthews (1883), p. 177 AS OF 1883 ^[19]

Matthews (1883) on how the halves became beads:

“The hemispheres were now strung or, I may say, spitted on a stout wire in pairs forming globes.”

Matthews (1883), p. 177 AS OF 1883 ^[19]

And the soldering, as he recorded it in 1883:

“The mixture of borax, saliva, and silver was next applied to the seams of all the beads; they were put into the fire and all soldered at one operation. When taken from the fire they were finished by filing, polishing and blanching.”

Matthews (1883), p. 177 AS OF 1883 ^[19]

According to Adair (1944, p. 83), Charlie Bitsui began each squash-blossom bead with two hemispheres pounded into a steel bead mold and soldered together, then made the blossom from a small silver tube cut at one end into three petals, which he bent outward and curved. ^[16]

Adair (1944) timed it:

“It took him almost an hour to make this one bead.”

Adair (1944), p. 84 AS OF 1944 ^[16]

And Adair (1944) drew the lesson for a whole necklace:

“I was able to appreciate better the tremendous amount of labor which goes into the making of a whole necklace containing dozens of these beads”

Adair (1944), p. 84 AS OF 1944 ^[16]

On how the bead reached Zuni, Adair (1944) recorded:

“Lanyade said that the Zuñi learned to make these beads from Atsidi Chon, the Navajo smith.”

Adair (1944), p. 157 AS OF 1944 ^[16]

The naja, the cross and the Pueblo necklaces8 passages · 4 books

Early najas without blossoms, cross pendants, and the Pueblo necklace that swaps both.

Frank (1990, Fig. 27, p. 35) on how the earliest najas were worn:

“Often these early najas were worn strung with beads but without squash blossoms, as shown by early photographs of Southwest Indians.”

Frank (1990), p. 35 AS OF 1990 ^[10]

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 81), crosses were also used as pendants, especially on older necklaces, and there was evidence that the cross came before the naja; she added (p. 82), following Adair, that many old necklaces with large pendant crosses attributed to the Navajo were in fact made by Mexican or Pueblo smiths. ^[9]

Frank (1990, Fig. 130, p. 111) described the Pueblo form of the necklace:

“The Pueblo Indians made their necklaces by replacing the usual squash blossoms with crosses and the naja with a double-barred pendant.”

Frank (1990), p. 111 AS OF 1990 ^[10]

According to Frank (1990, p. 111, Fig. 130), the clasp and the mixed types of beads and crosses on one Pueblo necklace of about 1915 showed that it had been restrung. ^[10]

Adair (1944) traced the cross necklaces often credited to the Navajo to their Pueblo neighbors:

“This type of necklace was always more popular with the Pueblo Indians than with their Navajo neighbors. The silversmiths of Isleta and Laguna made such pieces in great numbers.”

Adair (1944), p. 45 AS OF 1944 ^[16]

Baxter (2000) distinguished a Pueblo variant:

“However, the creation of silver necklaces with small crosses in place of the squash beads, and a larger single-, double-, or triple-barred cross as the central piece, is viewed as a jewelry form more characteristic of Pueblo endeavor and taste than that produced by Navajo jewelry-makers.”

Baxter (2000), p. 142 AS OF 2000 ^[17]

According to Frank (1990, p. 87, Fig. 99), a necklace of the early 1900s (accessioned 1932) with silver crosses in place of the usual blossoms and hands with a center scroll as naja terminals was probably of Pueblo origin, maybe Isleta. He linked its sandcast style to a photograph William H. Jackson took at Hopi around 1878 of a man wearing a squash blossom necklace with very similar sandcast blossoms, and called the later piece a revival of that style. ^[10]

According to Frank (1990, p. 170, Fig. 210), a Hopi squash blossom necklace of the 1890s showed Hopi traits in the large round bead part of each blossom and the thin silver stems through which the buckskin was strung. ^[10]

Reading an old necklace: what dates it and what doesn’t8 passages · 2 books

What the books say does and doesn’t date an old necklace: bead shape, stems, restringing, clasps.

According to Bedinger (1973, p. 81), there was no way to date the shape of a silver bead, except that large round beads, the easiest to make, came first, and no way to tell whether angled beads were Navajo or Pueblo, since one smith copied another. ^[9]

For anyone dating a necklace by its details, Bedinger (1973) was direct:

“There is no evidence, however, that crosses or pomegranates or coins prove one necklace older than another. Nor can one say that a necklace with none of these embellishments is older than others with them.”

Bedinger (1973), p. 85 AS OF 1973 ^[9]

According to Frank (1990, p. 36, Fig. 28), on a necklace collected in the 1880s the largest beads had large holes, and the two short, stubby squashes on thin, simple loops were typical of early squash blossoms. ^[10]

Frank (1990, Fig. 195, p. 160) read the blossom stems on a necklace of circa 1880 as an age clue:

“Their small, round, wirelike loops replace the normal flat silver stems, indicating good age.”

Frank (1990), p. 160 AS OF 1990 ^[10]

According to Frank (1990, p. 160, Fig. 195), the blossoms on that necklace were long, thick and not flared out like later ones, and one was of the old short, plump variety like those made by the Mexicans. ^[10]

Frank (1990, Fig. 84, p. 76) on why old necklaces often carry mixed beads:

“Many necklaces broke under wear and in the process lost beads and squashes. This accounts for necklaces restrung with different types of beads, such as this piece.”

Frank (1990), p. 76 AS OF 1990 ^[10]

According to Frank (1990, p. 68, Fig. 73), a sandcast squash blossom necklace attributed to 1920 had a sandcast naja whose flower form fell from two silver curves; flared bead ends showed little wear, and its clasp was a later non-Native addition. ^[10]

According to Frank (1990, p. 112, Fig. 132), a necklace of the 1920s had sandcast blossoms in fleur-de-lis form with filed stems, with a matching fleur-de-lis on top of the naja. ^[10]

Stones in the blossoms: Zuni influence and turquoise4 passages · 4 books

When stones came into the blossoms, and four necklaces that show it.

Writing in 1944 of the late 1930s, Adair dated the stone-set blossom as a recent change:

“This use of stones on the beads is again Zuñi influence, and beads like this have, in recent years, become popular with the Navajo (as well as with white people), so that today they make beads of this style for themselves.”

Adair (1944), p. 45 AS OF 1944 ^[16]

According to Frank (1990, p. 88, Fig. 100), one necklace of about 1920 had a small, square green turquoise in every squash blossom, with a small sandcast naja set with seven small stones. ^[10]

Turnbaugh (2007, p. 80, caption) illustrates a Navajo squash blossom necklace, ca. 1970s, whose naja and trumpet-like blossoms were set with green turquoise from the Manassa mine in southern Colorado. ^[11]

Schiffer (2008, p. 54) illustrated a petit point squash blossom necklace and earrings by Rosemary Panteah, Zuni, 1976: twelve blossoms of sixty-six stones each and a naja of 112 stones, more than 800 stones in total. ^[8]

Later makers, coins and variations6 passages · 2 books

Coin necklaces, makers from the 1960s on, and the Indian Market award named for the form.

Byron Hunter, manager of the Heard Museum Shop, told Jacka (1995, p. 36) that although some squash blossoms made from old coins were made earlier, most appeared during the seventies, when silversmiths were buying up all the old coins they could find. ^[14]

Bassman (1997, p. 15) pictured two 1960s squash blossom necklaces by Della and Francis James, one with square domed beads and a cast naja, the other with stamens emerging from the blossoms. ^[12]

Bassman (1997, p. 64) pictured an overlay 'variation of a squash blossom necklace' with eleven coral stones by David Lincoln, one of several variations she showed alongside classic forms. ^[12]

Bassman (1997, p. 68) pictured a squash blossom variation by Perry Shorty strung with Liberty coins dated 1919-1935, with Globe turquoise on its cast naja, and a second squash blossom with 109 Blue Gem turquoise stones and cast corn. ^[12]

Bassman (1997, p. 71) recorded that a stamped cornflower necklace by Thomas Jim won the Squash Blossom of Colorado Award at the Southwestern Association of Indian Affairs 1989 Annual Indian Market in Santa Fe. ^[12]

Bassman (1997) explained the award:

“This award is for excellence in design and execution of a squash blossom necklace”

Bassman (1997), p. 71 AS OF 1997 ^[12]

Frequently asked questions

What is a squash blossom necklace?

A silver bead necklace with a crescent pendant — the naja — at its center, flanked by flared silver “blossom” beads, usually five or six per side, on a chain of round hand-made silver beads. Turquoise is common but not required.

Why is it called a squash blossom?

Because outsiders thought the three-petal side beads looked like squash flowers. The Diné name for the bead is yo ne maze disya gi — “bead that spreads out” — with no reference to squash. Adair (1944) thought a white man probably coined the English name, and Baxter (2000) credits non-Native traders with spreading it. The petal form has been traced to the pomegranate: our own reporting points to the pomegranate motifs of Andalusia, and the reference books to Spanish and Mexican silver pomegranate buttons.

What is the naja, and is it a sacred Navajo symbol?

The naja is the inverted crescent hanging at the necklace’s lowest point. Naja is the Diné (Navajo) word for crescent, and it can also be worn on its own as a pendant. It is not a sacred Navajo symbol. Our source, written by a Diné journalist, states that Diné do not consider the naja to have spiritual or symbolic significance within their culture and religion. It is highly esteemed, which is a different thing: a mark of wealth and bravery, worn by men and women. The crescent’s protective meaning, against the evil eye, comes from Moorish Spain. The full account is in our article The Naja.

How old is the squash blossom necklace?

The books disagree. Baxter (2000) has the earliest necklaces made from 1870 onward. Adair (1944) thought the blossom bead came after 1880, because Washington Matthews did not mention it, and Jacka (1995) placed the necklace probably around the turn of the century. Frank (1990) points to a photograph William H. Jackson took at Hopi around 1878 that shows very similar blossoms.

Who makes squash blossom necklaces?

Most often Diné (Navajo) silversmiths, who are most associated with the form, but Pueblo artists make them as well. Stone-set blossoms are, in Adair’s account (1944), a Zuni influence that the Navajo had recently taken up, and Frank (1990) shows a necklace of about 1920 with turquoise in every blossom. Pueblo smiths also made a cross necklace, with crosses for blossoms and a barred cross for the naja.

A note on accuracy. We strive for accuracy, and this page is continuously updated with new information from the artists, their families, and the community. Corrections welcome.

Sources

Navajo Silver: A Brief History of Navajo Silversmithing, p. 37
Frank & Holbrook, Indian Silver Jewelry of the Southwest, 1868–1930, pp. 35–36
Smithsonian American Art Museum; Maxwell Museum of Anthropology (UNM) — institutional collection records
Arizona Highways (1954 Southwest Indian jewelry issue), p. 29
Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry, p. 142
The Naja — story and photographs by Ungelbah Dávila-Shivers (Diné), with Diné elders Carmalie Denetclaw, Ceria Hogue and Paulo Dineclah on the naja’s meaning and the origins of Diné silverwork.
The Evolution of a Squash Blossom Necklace — the necklace’s construction and history, including the Zuni turquoise inlay and the 1970s boom.
Schiffer, Nancy N. Turquoise Jewelry. Revised 4th ed. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2008. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2008.
Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1973.
Frank, Larry, with the assistance of Millard J. Holbrook II. Indian Silver Jewelry of the Southwest, 1868-1930. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1990. First published 1978 by New York Graphic Society. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1990.
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.
Bassman, Theda. The Beauty of Navajo Jewelry. Photography by Gene Balzer. Walnut, California: Kiva Publishing, 1997. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1997.
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.
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.
Schiffer, Peter N. Indian Jewelry on the Market. Text and photography by Peter N. Schiffer. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1996. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1996.
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.
Woodward, Arthur. A Brief History of Navajo Silversmithing. With field notes by Richard Van Valkenburgh. Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 14, 2d ed. Flagstaff: Northern Arizona Society of Science and Art, December 1946 (first edition 1938). Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1946.
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.
Tryk, Sheila. Santa Fe Indian Market: Showcase of Native American Art. Photography by Mark Nohl; introduction by Allan Houser. Santa Fe, NM: Tierra Publications, in cooperation with SWAIA (Southwestern Association on Indian Affairs), 1993. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1993.