176 NAVAJO SILVERSMITHS. 



The processes of the Navajo silversmith may be best understood from 

 descrii)tions of the ways in which he makes some of his silver orna- 

 ment. I once engaged two of the best workmen in the tribe to come to 

 Fort Wingate and work under my observation for a week. They put up 

 their forge in a small outbuilding at night, and early next morning they 

 were at work. Their labor was almost all performed while they were 

 sitting or crouching on the ground in very constrained positions ; yet 

 I never saw men who woiked harder or more steadily. They often la- 

 bored from twelve to fifteen hours a day, eating their meals with dis- 

 patch and returning to their toil the moment they had done. Occasion- 

 ally they stopped to roll a cigarette or consult about their work, but 

 they lost very few moments in this way. They worked by the job and 

 their prices were such that they earned about two dollars a day each. 



The first thing they made was a powder charger with a handle in the 

 shape of a dart (Fig. 2, PI. XIX). Having cut in sandstone rock (Fig. 2, 

 PI. XVIII) the necessary grooves for molds and greased the same, they 

 melted two Mexican dollars — one for the bowl or receptacle, and one 

 for the handle — and poured each one into its appropriate mold. Then 

 each smith went to work on a separate part ; but they helped one an- 

 other when necessary. The ingot cast for the receptacle was beaten into 

 a plate (triangular in shape, with obtuse corners), of a size which the 

 smith guessed would be large enough for his purpose. Before the pro- 

 cess of bending was quite completed the margins that were to form the 

 seam were straightened by clipping and filing so as to assume a pretty 

 accurate contact, and when the bending was done, a small gap still 

 left in the seam was filled with a shred of silver beaten in. The cone, 

 at this stage, being indented and irregular, the workman thrust into it 

 a conical stake or mandrel, which he had formed carefully out of hard 

 wood, and with gentle taps of the hammer soon made the cone even 

 and shapely. Next, withdrawing the stake, he laid on the seam a mix- 

 ture of borax and minute clippings of silver moistened with saliva, put 

 the article into the fire, seam up, blew with the bellows until the sil- 

 ver was at a dull red-heat, and then applied the blow-pipe and flame 

 until the soldering was completed. In the meantime the other smith 

 ha^i, with hammer and file, wrought the handle until it was sufficiently 

 formed to be joined to the receptacle, the base of the handle being 

 filed down for a length of about a quarter of an inch so that it would 

 fit tightly into the orifice at the apex of the receptacle. The two parts 

 were then adjusted and bound firmly together with a fine wire passing 

 in various directions, over the base of the cone, across the protuber- 

 ances on the dart-shaped handle, and around both. This done, the parts 

 were soldered together in the manner already described, the ring by 

 which it is suspended was fastened on, the edge of the receptacle was 

 clipped and filed, and the whole was brought into good shape with file, 

 sand, emery-paper, &c. 



The chasing wasthe nextprocess. To make the round indentations on 



