Hand Crafted Jewelry: Resources Directory Guide

 

 

 

Spanish Jewelry

The Spanish Main was the name given to the New World land seized by Spain in the late16th century. This territory stretched from northern California to the tip of South America. They contained the treasure of the Aztec and Inca peoples and the silver mines of Peru and ecuador. Plundering this enormous wealth, the Spanish began shipping this fortune through the Caribbean and back across the Atlantic to Spain. The value of the cargo exceeded man's wildest dreams. In 1519 Hernan Cortes landed in Mexico with 600 soldiers and 16 horses. The native inhabitants were no match for the invaders, who were tough, professional solders, armed with muskets, swords, and crossbows. They swept aside all opposition and marched into the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Cortes took the emperor Montezuma hostage and ransacked the great city of its fabulous treasure. During the next three years he effectively destroyed the Aztec empire and gave Spain access to a source of unimaginable wealth.

In the sixteenth century the Spanish introduced the European form of silversmithing to the native tribes. These techniques influenced their styles of jewelry-making as has a host of new techniques and materials introduced in the nineteenth and twenty centuries. But in any case, whether using the ‘old’ methods of fashioning jewelry or by using some of the newer techniques, there still remains an unbroken chain of excellence linking the earliest crude pendants of the ancient people of the Salt River to the array of Southwest Indian jewelry that we have available to us today.

The Navajo Indians were the most influential in the spread of early jewelry making techniques and were mainly responsible for spreading this craft throughout the Southwest to other tribes. The Pueblo and Hopi cultures of the Rio Grande were descended from the Anasazi. Mimbres and Mogollon are also believed to be descended from the Anasazi. There are some in academia that says the Spanish started to influence jewelry making by the Pueblo cultures as early as the 14th century. But there are others that believe this influence did not occur until the early part of the 16th century.

The Navajo can be characterized as nomadic within their “Denetah” meaning homeland. They did some minor farming, but only to the extent of planting a crop and leaving to grow on its own. Eventually, they would come back to harvest their crops. The Navajo and the Apache have been compared to the Mongols of the 12th and 13th centuries in this regard. These nomadic cultures not only raided but they were also able an willing to acquire and adapt that of the conquered that they wanted. Concha (concho) probably originated from their frequent contact with their Pueblo and Spainish neibors, as well as their “ketoh” or bow guards and beaded necklaces.

During approximately 200 years of living closely to the Spanish, the Navajos would at times fight and conquer their neighbors and at other times trade and learn from them. In either case, they continued to be influenced by the Spanish. These first examples of Native American jewelry were the most valued of possessions for a Navajo family.

 

 

 

 

 

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