![]() ( Meet the Indigenous women changing tourism in Canada.) “It blossomed into the curio trade, which helped jewelers be able to carry on their traditions.” “People started traveling West, and they’d notice things like Navajos wearing silver and turquoise bracelets or belts,” says Swentzell. When the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway connected the Midwest to New Mexico in the mid 19th century, a new audience of tourists and fortune seekers was exposed to Indigenous turquoise and crafts, giving rise to a bustling souvenir business. The results were dazzling: vine-like, sand cast silver Navajo bracelets set with blue nuggets, Zuni turquoise mosaics on silver earrings. This meant Indigenous people merged new methods and materials with traditional ones. Spanish colonists brought silversmithing to the Southwest in the 16th century. “In Navajo ways, it’s for spiritual protection and blessings.” “If you’re Indigenous, turquoise is part of your heritage, it’s predetermined,” says Morris Muskett, a Gallup, New Mexico-based Navajo jewelry maker and weaver. Applications were myriad: Kewas carved the stone into disc-like heishi beads, Zunis inlaid it into shells.Īdornments and objects were created to wear on feast days, use in ceremonies, or to trade with others. Their artisans have been using turquoise in jewelry and objects for hundreds of years. There are 23 Indigenous tribes in New Mexico, including members of 19 pueblos, three Apache tribes, and the Navajo Nation. “The craft was always centered here far more than the mining.” What turquoise means to Indigenous New Mexico ![]() “More turquoise comes out of Mexico and China today than New Mexico,” says Joe Don Lowry, the founder and curator of Albuquerque’s Turquoise Museum. Jewelers and retailers now trade in turquoise that was mined decades ago, and New Mexico-based Indigenous artists are as likely to work in local stone as in rocks from Arizona, Nevada, or Russia. Travelers won’t see that turquoise amid the structures at the UNESCO-designated Chaco Culture National Historical Park the artifacts are held in collections including the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology in Albuquerque and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. ( These ancient cities in the Americas offer fascinating clues about bygone empires.) ![]() Since 1896, archaeologists have discovered more than 200,000 pieces of such turquoise at northern New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon, including beads and small sculptures from the mysterious “ Room 33,” a tiny, treasure-laden tomb for 12 a dozen people tucked into one of the stone pueblos. mined the mineral, extracting turquoise with simple tools and carving it into beads, pendants, and nose plugs. How is turquoise mined?Īs early as the sixth century A.D., the Ancient Puebloan people of what’s now the Southwest U.S. The stone is ranked between a 5 and 6 on the Gemstone Institute of America’s (GIA) Mohs hardness scale, meaning turquoise can be easily carved but isn’t as hard as, say, a diamond (a Mohs 10).įor a crash course in how and where the mineral forms, visit Albuquerque’s exhaustive, quirky Turquoise Museum with its walk-through “mine,” hands-on education activities, and heaps of blue rocks. ![]() The resulting turquoise ranges in color from chalky white to uniform, robin’s-egg blue (common at Arizona’s Sleeping Beauty mine) to spider-webbed blue green (found at New Mexico’s Los Cerrillos mine). (It takes its name from the French turqueise or “Turkish stone,” though there is little of the mineral found in that country today.) This solidified hydrated copper aluminum phosphate has been found in Russia, China, and Iran as well as across the Southwest United States in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, southern California, and New Mexico. Turquoise occurs in spots where acidic water comes into contact with copper, forming veins or nuggets of stone. Here’s why one stone ended up being synonymous with a whole state, plus how to explore its role in Indigenous culture and crafts around New Mexico. “Santa Fe was always a crossroads for traders, and that’s helped make the stone ubiquitous in this region.” “For artisans working in-and selling-turquoise, this state is the center of gravity,” says Mark Bahti, author of several books on Indigenous jewelry makers and owner of Santa Fe’s Bahti Indian Arts Gallery. ![]() Turquoise in New Mexico has long danced between culture and commerce, between Indigenous communities wearing and sharing the stone. ![]()
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