The Squash Blossom Necklace & the Naja

By Mateo James

Most explanations of this necklace pick one culture and stop. The real object is a record of several, stacked in order, each layer added by people who had good reason. Read in that order it becomes a much better story — and a much more accurate one.

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.

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.

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.

Zuni silversmiths added turquoise inlay to the design sometime in the nineteenth century, and 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 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.

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.

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.

What is the naja on a squash blossom necklace?
The naja is the inverted crescent hanging at the necklace’s lowest point. Naja is the Diné (Navajo) word for crescent. It can also be worn on its own as a pendant.

Does the naja have a meaning?
It carries several, from different cultures. The crescent was a protective charm against the evil eye in Moorish Spain, mounted on horse bridles, and older Mediterranean traditions may have linked the shape to fertility. Within Diné culture, per the Diné writer and elders quoted in our reporting, the naja is not held as a religious or spiritual symbol — it is esteemed as a mark of wealth and bravery, worn by men and women. The same writer frames the design as a reminder of Diné resilience — an emblem of survival rather than a religious symbol.

Is the naja a sacred Navajo symbol?
No. 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.

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. The petal form has also been traced to the pomegranate motifs of Andalusia.

Who makes squash blossom necklaces?
Most often Diné (Navajo) silversmiths, who are most associated with the form, but Pueblo artists — Zuni especially, who added turquoise inlay in the nineteenth century — make them as well.

How many blossoms should a squash blossom necklace have?
Typically five or six per side, arranged symmetrically around the naja. Counts vary; there is no fixed rule.

Are squash blossom necklaces worn by men?
Yes. Our sources are explicit that najas have always been worn by both men and women.

Sources

This page draws on the book sources cited across our Southwest Jewelry Guide and on T.Skies’ own published reporting, including interviews with Diné elders:

1. Navajo Silver: A Brief History of Navajo Silversmithing, p. 45
2. Frank & Holbrook, Indian Silver Jewelry of the Southwest, 1868–1930, pp. 47–48
3. Smithsonian American Art Museum; Maxwell Museum of Anthropology (UNM) — institutional collection records
4. Arizona Highways (1954 Southwest Indian jewelry issue), p. 31
5. Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry, p. 192
6. 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.
7. The Evolution of a Squash Blossom Necklace — the necklace’s construction and history, including the Zuni turquoise inlay and the 1970s boom.

Further reading: Silversmith & Hallmark Directory

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