Jewelry

Spiritual decoration

When making jewelry, Native Americans selected materials for their spiritual or magical qualities. Animal claws, crystals, shells, sticks, cornhusks, beads made of grass seed, dried rose hips, silver-berries from silverberry shrubs, and later metal and glass beads, among other things, were used to create necklaces, bracelets, armlets, and earrings, as well as many other unique adornments worn by both men and women. Hunters of northeastern and other tribes would adorn themselves with animal parts, wearing antlers, hooves, fur, and bones to gain strength and protection from the animal's spirit. Among the Plains Indians, for example, a necklace made of grizzly bear claws was worn by a man to honor his killing of the great bear. Bear claw necklaces, sometimes strung alternately with human finger bones, were also prized among the tribes of the Great Basin, a desert region in the western United States that comprises parts of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada.

While the materials were selected carefully, the design or type of the jewelry also had special significance. Along the coast of the modern state of Alaska, Eskimo men wore labrets, or pierced ornaments, at the corners of their mouths that looked like small walrus tusks to signify the importance of the animal to their survival. Pierced ears among the tribes of the Great Basin were believed to enable people to live long lives and allow them to enter the spirit world after death. Nose ornaments of bone or metal were similarly important for men in the Southeast. Arapaho warriors created necklaces for themselves patterned after dreams or visions they had had. The Iroquois nation of the Northeast placed great importance on wampum, a belt beaded with purple and white shells in designs of particular meaning. The designs on wampum recorded important events, and the length and width of the belt indicated the importance of the event. Wampum was used as money for trading, as treaties to solve disputes between tribes, and as a courting item between young women and eligible men. Among the tribes of the Southwest, including the Navajo and Pueblo Indians, turquoise, a blue and green mineral, has had special meaning since as early as 300 C.E. Native Americans of the Southwest adorned themselves with turquoise earrings, necklaces, and other jewelry. The mineral was also central to religious ceremonies, especially Navajo prayers for rain.

A symbol of wealth

Although most jewelry had spiritual meaning, some indicated social status or was worn simply for decoration. For example, pearls could only be worn by the children of noblemen in the Natchez

tribe of the Southeast. While women of the Iroquois nation typically wore many beaded necklaces, for ceremonies they showed off their collections, wearing as much as ten pounds of beaded jewelry at once. Men of the Plateau region wore multiple strands of shell and glass bead loop necklaces with chokers made of dentalium, long thin white tubular shells from the Pacific coast. After 1850 some Plains Indians began to wear breastplates, once worn as armor, simply for decoration. Breastplates, or chest coverings made of horizontally strung long shells called hair pipes, became so popular that people from other tribes began to wear them as well, and European Americans on the East Coast began to manufacture glass and metal beads to make decorative breastplates. Trade with Europeans and white settlers, as well as the changes to Native American culture due to the movement of white settlers into their homelands, introduced new materials, designs, and uses for jewelry among various tribes.

The living members of many tribes throughout the modern-day North American continent continue these jewelry traditions. For some, such as the Navajo of the Southwest, the sale of their jewelry provides a significant amount of their income.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Dubin, Lois Sherr. North American Indian Jewelry and Adornment: From Prehistory to the Present. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999.

Paterek, Josephine. Encyclopedia of American Indian Costume. Denver, CO: ABC-CLIO, 1994.