Four Winds Gallery
Links to articles:
Fetishes - Objects with Magic Properties
The Beauty of Turquoise
North American Plains Indian Beadwork
The Photography of Edward Sheriff Curtis
Collecting Indian Jewellery
Regional Style Navajo Rugs
The Beauty of Turquoise
The word turquoise is derived from the French language and means Turkish stone. It seems that the mineral (made from hydrated copper plus aluminium phosphate, under high temperatures near copper deposits) was first introduced to Western Europe from Persia, by way of Turkey. The history of turquoise spans millennia and encompasses the world, with deposits centered in Africa, Burma, Iran, Tibet, Peru, China and the American Southwest. Scientific research has shown that ancient beads found in South America originally came from the Cerrillos turquoise mine near Santa Fe. In Ancient China, turquoise was second only to jade in esteem and value, whereas, in ancient Mexico it was reserved purely for the gods. The Asians considered it to be a protector against the evil eye.
For thousands of years the people of Santo Domingo Pueblo combined turquoise with seashells, jet and other materials to form heishi, flat disc like beads. Turquoise was and still is a popular medium for mosaic jewellery (cut stones laid in interlocking geometric patterns). Zuni, the lapidarists, are among the most famous for mosaic jewellery. Some Navajo claim that Atsidi Sani was their first metal smith, learning from the Mexican plateros in New Mexico in around 1853. Atsidi Chon was one of the first to set Turquoise on silver, sometime around 1878. The knowledge was shared with other Navajos and then passed on to other tribes. Fetishes, the turquoise animal carvings by the Zuni are used for protection, religious ceremonies and for body adornment. In the early 1900's, carving was transformed from this to commercial use in jewellery production. Zuni lapidarists would drill and string the small carvings into "fetish" necklaces and earrings or traders would arrange with Navajo and Zuni smiths to set the carvings in silver for pins, rings and bracelets.
Map showing locations of historic Southwestern turquoise mines and varieties
found at each site.
Click image above to see enlarged map.
Leekya Deyuse (1889-1966), better known as Leekya, and whose work can be seen in Four Winds Gallery, was originally a maker of large tab, nugget and disc bead necklaces in the old style. He later became very famous for his fetish jewellery and carvings and was considered a pioneer in the carving of turquoise and coral. He was one of the most well known Zuni jewellers of his time. He tended to use more blue-green turquoise rather than the lighter blue and carved in this material because of its softness and ability to be shaped into an animal.
Teddy Weahkee (1890-1965) was another very well known and highly collectable Zuni fetish carver who also loved turquoise. His carvings in turquoise are more angular than those by Leekya.
Among the Indians of the Southwest, turquoise was used for religious and ornamental purposes and for the Navajo turquoise jewellery was passed as currency. This jewellery is known as Old Pawn. Even before pawn became part of the pueblo economic system, turquoise and silver were part of the barter system among the Zuni, Hopi, White Mountain and Jicarilla, Apaches, Navajo, Ute, Havasupai and Walapai. The Apache believed turquoise would help warriors and hunters to aim accurately and liked to attach a small piece to the bow so the arrow would fly true. Turquoise was so highly valued by the Zuni that a string of turquoise beads could have been worth several horses. In Zuni tradition the rich blue colour of the stone symbolises "the supreme life giving power". Fragments of turquoise are used for the eyes of fetishes and are commingled with sacred cornmeal and presented as an offering to masked deities. Most tribes believe that turquoise brings good fortune, energy, healing, protection and ensures a long a life of health and happiness, hence its age-old popularity as a personal ornament.
Turquoise has been part of the Native American tradition for centuries. Some of the world's finest and most beautiful jewellery is produced in Arizona and New Mexico. Turquoise was, and is so popular to use because it occurs naturally near the surface of the earth, making it possible to obtain with primitive tools. Secondly, it is soft therefore easily worked into distinctive shapes while the colour reflects things that the Native Americans admired the most, sky and water. Pueblo Indian legend says that turquoise steals its blue colour from the sky.
When the Navajos first began setting it in silver it was relatively scarce, even in the Southwest, and the call for it by Indians and later tourists, led to the reopening of a number of dormant mines. Reopening is the correct term as most of the mines which are worked today are known to have been worked by the prehistoric Indians.
Turquoise is never faceted as it is opaque. A lot of the best contemporary turquoise is nugget style (baroque) and not ground to any conventional gem cut. There are two reasons for this, the first being economy. Since turquoise crumbles easily in grinding, there is less wastage in nugget cuts and the process is not as time consuming. Another reason is that nugget cuts work better with the free form silver work that is most characteristic of contemporary jewellery.
The number of mines in the Southwest that produce turquoise is relatively few. Many dealers claim that they can identify a stone's origin simply by looking at it and assessing the colour, hardness and matrix. This may be true of a few dealers in relation to the high-grade stones produced by each mine but as the quality diminishes the similarity increases and one lower grade stone looks very much like another. The quality of the turquoise can vary within a given mine although some mines or areas produce more top quality stones than others. In more recent years some of these stones have come from Lone Mountain, Nevada; Kingman, Arizona; Bisbee, Morenci and Los Cerrillos, New Mexico. This last area has been in great use since prehistoric times and most of the stone from there has a distinct greenish cast to it. This greener stone is more typical of the turquoise used by the Indians in the 1880s, today most buyers prefer the clear, bright blue variety.
The price of turquoise depends on whether it is in its raw state when it is purchased by weight, or if it has been cut and polished, in which case it is wholesaled by the carat. Top grade turquoise is being sold more frequently at retail prices by the carat. The price per carat varies considerably even among stones produced from the same mine, and also may vary depending on its cut.
Despite its cyclical history the current popularity of turquoise goes on and although demand for it may dip somewhat there is too little turquoise and still relatively strong demand for much to change.
When the New Mexico Legislature adopted turquoise as the state gem in 1967, it officially acknowledged the importance of the "sky stone" in the culture and the history of the Southwestern people. Perhaps in the popular mind nothing is more emblematic of the land of enchantment than turquoise jewellery.
Natural Turquoise can captivate and attract many a collector, it is uniquely interesting and provides the wearer with positive energy. Each form of turquoise has a story, an origin and for some a deep spiritual significance.
References
Joe Dan Lowry & Joe P Lowry, Turquoise Unearthed: An Illustrated Guide, Rio Nuevo, 2002.
Deborah C Slaney, Blue Gem, White Metal, exhibition catalogue for 'Blue Gem, White Metal: Carvings and Jewelry from the CG Wallace Collection', Heard Museum Phoenix Arizona, 1998.
Arnold Vigil (ed), The Allure of Turquoise, New Mexico Magazine, 1995.
Carl Rosnek & Joseph Stacey, Skystone and Silver: the Collector's Book of Southwest Indian Jewellery, Prentice-Hall, 1976.
Gregory Schaaf PhD, 'Turquoise: Sacred Stones' in Native Peoples: Arts and Lifeways, Vol XVI No 6 Sept/Oct 2003.