174 NAVAJO SILVERSMITHS. 



handle of the powder-charger shown in PI. XIX; in the lower cavity 

 depicted in the same figure was moulded the piece from which the bowl 

 of this charger was formed. The circular dejiression, delineated in the 

 lower right corner of Fig. 3, PL XVIII, gave form to tha ingot from 

 which the sides of the canteen-shaped tobacco-case (Fig. 6) was made. 



Tongs are often made by the Navajo silversmiths. One of these which 

 I saw had a U-shaped spring joint, and the ends were bent at right 

 angles downwards, so as more eftectually to grasp the flat-sided cruci- 

 ble. Often nippers or scissors are used as tongs. 



Ordinary scissors, purchased from the whites, are used for cutting 

 their metal after it is wrought into thin plates. The metal saw and 

 metal shears do not seem as yet to have been imported for their benefit. 

 Some of the more poorly provided smiths use their scissors also for 

 tongs, regardless or ignorant of consequences, and wlien the shears lose 

 their temper and become loose-jointed and blunt, the efforts of the In- 

 dian to cut a rather thick plate of silver are cuiious to see. Often, then, 

 one or two bystanders are called to hold the plate in a horizontal 

 position, and perhaps another will be asked to hold the points of the 

 scissors to keep them from spreading. Scissors are sometimes used as 

 dividers, by being spread to the desired distance and held in position 

 by being grasped in the hand. By this means I have seen them attempt 

 to find centers, but not to describe circles. It is probable that had they 

 trusted to the eye they might have found their centers as well. 



Their iron pliers, hammers, ,ind files they purchase from the whites. 

 Pliers, both flat-pointed and round-pointed, are used as with us. Of 

 files they usually employ only small sizes, and the varieties they prefer 

 are the flat, triangular, and rat-tail. Files are used not only for their 

 legitimate purposes, as with us, but the shanks serve for punches and 

 the points for gravers, with which figures are engraved on silver. 



The Indians usually make their own cold-chisels. These are not used 

 where the scissors and file can be conveniently and economically em- 

 ployed. The re-entrant rectangles on the bracelet represented in Fig. 

 4, PI. XIX, were cut with a cold-chisel and finished with a file. 



Awls are used to mark figures on the silver. Often thej' cut out of 

 paper a pattern, which they lay on the silver, tracing the outline with 

 an awl. These tools are sometimes purchased and sometimes made by 

 the Indians. I have seen one made from a broken knife which had 

 been picked up around the fort. The blade had been ground down to a 

 point. 



Metallic hemispheres for beads and buttons are made in a concave 

 matrix by means of a round-pointed bolt which I will call a die. These 

 tools are always made by the Indians. On one bar of iron there may 

 be many matrices of different sizes; only one die fitting the smallest 

 concavity, is required to work the metal in all. In the picture of the 

 smithy (PI. XVII, in the right lower corner beside the tin-plate), a piece 

 of an old horse-shoe may be seen in which a few matripes have been 

 worked, and, beside it, the die used in connection with the matrices. 



