Navajo

The Navajo tribe is one of the largest Native American tribes in North America. They are culturally and geographically spread out over a large area, and their territory spans parts of what is now known as Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and California. The Navajo are a part of the Athabascan-speaking peoples who were originally from the northwest region of North America. Today an estimated 350,000 native Navajos are living in the United States alone.

Navajo society is organized by matrilineal clans, and clan relationships govern a great deal of social life – who you are related to, and how you should behave toward them. A person is traditionally introduced by naming their clans. The language is classified as Athabaskan, part of the wider Na-Dene family, and it is the most widely spoken Native American language in the United States.

The Navajo Heritage

Navajo religious life is complex and is not monotheistic. It centers on the Diyin Dine’e, the Holy People, and on ceremonies intended to restore hozho – balance, order and beauty. Ceremonial practice is bound up with healing, and much of it is conducted by specialists over several days.

Navajo accounts describe emergence into this world through earlier worlds below, and the deeds of figures including Changing Woman and the Hero Twins, one of whom is Monster Slayer. We keep this short deliberately: these are living religious traditions, they are told properly by Navajo people and in ceremony rather than summarized on a jewelry site, and we would rather point you toward Navajo sources than paraphrase badly.

Navajo is spoken by roughly 170,000 people, by far the largest number of any Native American language in the United States. It is very much a written language: the modern orthography was developed between 1935 and 1940 by Robert Young and William Morgan, and the language is among the best documented in North America, with dictionaries, grammars, a long-running newspaper and even a Navajo-language release of Star Wars.

The consonants and vowels are combined to create the sounds of speech. According to linguists, one of the most critical aspects of the tribe is its many parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns.

The traditional Navajo dwelling is the hogan – built of logs and earth, roughly round or many-sided, with the doorway facing east to the sunrise. Hogans are still built and still used ceremonially. Adobe pueblo building belongs to the Pueblo peoples rather than the Navajo.

Chief’s blankets are woven in horizontal bands and are classified by collectors into phases, with the earliest examples being the rarest and most valuable. They were traded very widely and were worn well beyond Navajo country, which is how the name arose – they were not restricted to chiefs.

The famous Navajo “Chief’s” blankets are woven on a loom by Navajos, and some have been taken to museums for archiving. The weavings, made with yarn dyed with natural dyes, depict their history’s symbols, patterns, and cultural views. These blankets are considered highly valuable, as each one is classified as an original piece that craftswomen cannot replicate.

Navajo Jewelry – A Long History

Navajo jewelry has been an essential part of their culture for centuries. The jewelry is not just aesthetic; it also has a functional purpose of keeping evil spirits away – a story that explains Navajo jewelry about how evil spirits are kept out. The value of Navajo jewelry is often related with mystic stories and fascinating tales.

Turquoise carries protective meaning in Navajo tradition, and jewelry has never been purely decorative. We would rather not retell a specific ceremonial account here, because versions differ and they are not ours to tell. What matters for a collector is that the stone was significant long before it was commercial.

The pendants were created using turquoise, which is a strong spiritual stone. Turquoise is said to protect against negative energy, emotions, and supernatural powers. Turquoise also has healing properties. It can heal physical wounds, emotional pain, and spiritual problems.

Turquoise is also the single largest factor in what a Navajo piece is worth today. We go through what makes a turquoise stone valuable in a guide of its own.

Silver dominates, with gold appearing in higher-end contemporary work. Alongside turquoise, Navajo silversmiths set coral, jet, spiny oyster and mother of pearl – a combination often called the four sacred stones when used together.

Navajo Turquoise Jewelry

Navajo silversmithing is younger than most people assume. Navajo smiths learned metalworking from Mexican plateros in the 1850s, and Atsidi Sani is credited as the first Navajo silversmith. Turquoise was not set into silver until around 1880. Before that, silver reached the Southwest through trade rather than local manufacture.

The differences are worth knowing too. Zuni silversmiths are celebrated for fine lapidary and inlay, Hopi work is built around the overlay technique, and the Pueblo people are known above all for heishi beadwork.

So Navajo silverwork has a history of roughly 170 years rather than the many centuries often claimed for it – though the use of turquoise and shell as adornment goes back very much further. That short, well-documented span is part of why the work can be dated with reasonable confidence.

If you own a piece and want to place it somewhere in that history, our guide to how old your Navajo jewelry is walks through the construction details that date it.

The jewelry features a variety of different styles that have evolved. The styles include earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, and pendants. The jewelry is made using different materials for many of the designs. Some materials are made from silver, bronze, and gold along with turquoise. The colors used consist of red, white, and black, which corresponds to the colors used in traditional Navajo clothing to protect against evil spirits.