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Turquoise/Native American jewelry

Messages
13,672
Location
down south
Don't count on it.I am one of those guys.
That tourist trade jewelry was designed by white traders.

It's often hard to judge someone's tone from reading text, but I'll give you the benefit of doubt that you were joshing around. Otherwise, you are selling your (those) people short. I'll give you that much jewelry traded with tourists probably is designed by whites, but much like the blanket makers of the Pacific northwest, they had to take those design ideas from somewhere. Native Americans were designing and making their own jewelry, and pawning it when they needed some extra scratch, long before white tourists started showing up and buying it. Something was already in place to drive the demand.
The original intent of my post to Alan was to suggest that perhaps the indiginous people were savvy to astronomy, which they were. Archaeological evidence suggests that pre-Columbian people had very extensive working knowledge of the movements of the stars. Even after the European invasion, when the great city states were long gone and they were living a nomadic existence in tents, they still were in tune with the changes in the sky that came with the seasons. To suggest native people of the time had no knowledge of the solar system is fairly offensive.
I have seen a lot of your art and jewelry here in the pages of FL, and you are extremely talented, so I certainly hope you weren't suggesing as much.


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howardeye

Practically Family
Messages
569
Location
NW Indiana
Steve Yellowhorse it is as you know him well. He does not get his ideas from man but from the one and only true God that created all things and his jewelry represents those creations as you and I know very well!
 

Michaelshane

One Too Many
Messages
1,928
Location
Land of Enchantment
It's often hard to judge someone's tone from reading text, but I'll give you the benefit of doubt that you were joshing around. Otherwise, you are selling your (those) people short. I'll give you that much jewelry traded with tourists probably is designed by whites, but much like the blanket makers of the Pacific northwest, they had to take those design ideas from somewhere. Native Americans were designing and making their own jewelry, and pawning it when they needed some extra scratch, long before white tourists started showing up and buying it. Something was already in place to drive the demand.
The original intent of my post to Alan was to suggest that perhaps the indiginous people were savvy to astronomy, which they were. Archaeological evidence suggests that pre-Columbian people had very extensive working knowledge of the movements of the stars. Even after the European invasion, when the great city states were long gone and they were living a nomadic existence in tents, they still were in tune with the changes in the sky that came with the seasons. To suggest native people of the time had no knowledge of the solar system is fairly offensive.
I have seen a lot of your art and jewelry here in the pages of FL, and you are extremely talented, so I certainly hope you weren't suggesing as much.


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Old pawn and tourist trade jewelry are two different things.Jewelry that was made for native consumption was far better,heavier,and had no arrows or tepees,or Indian designs.

Ancient Pueblo people certainly studied the stars.
Dine' also.As did all people.
 
Messages
13,672
Location
down south
Old pawn and tourist trade jewelry are two different things.

Never said they were. Perhaps I miscommunicated. The mere existence of the one (pawn jewelry) is what created and drove the market for the other. The easier it became to access the western portions of the US. by tourists, the more modern economic principles fell into place.

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Michaelshane

One Too Many
Messages
1,928
Location
Land of Enchantment
Never said they were. Perhaps I miscommunicated. The mere existence of the one (pawn jewelry) is what created and drove the market for the other. The easier it became to access the western portions of the US. by tourists, the more modern economic principles fell into place.

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Pawn jewelry did not create the market for Indian jewelry.
 
Messages
13,672
Location
down south
Pawn jewelry did not create the market for Indian jewelry.

If the earliest visitors to the area, returning to the cities back east with jewelry purchased during their trip didn't help, along with touring "wild west" circuses, to fuel a demand, which would have resulted in the lesser quality-aimed for tourist production jewelry in the same way that visitors to post-war Hawaii bringing home Hawaiian shirts created a market for cheap import knockoffs in the 60s and 70s, then I'm certainly open to hearing your interpretation of what did.

b.t.w. the painting of the little girl in the other thread is very beautiful.

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Atticus Finch

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,718
Location
Coastal North Carolina, USA
This is the only piece of turquoise that I own, but I've had it for a long time. One of my high school teachers was originally from New Mexico. When she returned from visiting her family one Christmas, she brought it to me as a gift. That was in 1969 or 1970. I wore it throughout my hippie years but retired it sometime after undergraduate school. I recall that she said it was made by Native Americans living near her home town, but I know nothing about it beyond that.

4297ec8a-f253-4592-912f-04238b2aa791_zps4d266ce9.jpg


AF
 
Messages
15,083
Location
Buffalo, NY
Turquoise and silver ring

robinsonring1.jpg


robinsonring2.jpg


robinsonring3.jpg


The work of Hopi silversmith Morris Robinson (Talawytewa) working from the mid 1920s-mid 1960s. I posted a ranger set of his making earlier in this thread.
 
Messages
15,083
Location
Buffalo, NY
Here is a recently acquired buckle made by Hopi artisan Morris Robinson. Design is perhaps an abstraction of Hopi "H" and the snake motif from his mark? Crafted in brass rather than silver, which seems unusual. Date unknown.

brassrobinson1.jpg


brassrobinson2.jpg


brassrobinson3.jpg
 

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