Inside the Navajo Silversmithing Tradition
Navajo silversmithing is one of the great American craft traditions — a body of technique and aesthetic developed over 170 years by the Diné people of the Navajo Nation, rooted in Mexican platero craft but transformed into something entirely its own. Today it encompasses everything from traditional ingot-silver stampwork to contemporary overlay and tufa cast work by living masters whose pieces belong in museums as readily as on wrists. Understanding where the tradition came from makes everything in it more meaningful.
The Origins: The 1860s
The Navajo people did not have a silversmithing tradition before the 1860s. The craft was learned — specifically, from Mexican plateros (silversmiths) who worked in the New Mexico territory in the years after the Long Walk, the forced relocation of the Navajo people by the U.S. government in 1864-1868.
The first Navajo silversmith is traditionally identified as Atsidi Sani (“old smith”), who learned metalworking from a Mexican craftsman named Nakai Tsosi around 1853–58, before the Long Walk. After the Navajo returned to their homeland in 1868, smithing spread rapidly through the Nation. By the 1880s, Navajo silverwork was being traded throughout the region, and by the early twentieth century it had become a defining feature of Navajo cultural and economic life.
The Core Techniques
Navajo silversmithing draws on a body of techniques that have remained remarkably consistent across 170 years, even as individual artists have developed distinctive personal styles:
Ingot silver work — The most traditional Navajo approach: silver is melted and poured into ingots, then worked by hand — hammered, filed, and shaped — into sheets, wires, and forms. Ingot silver has a different density and surface character than rolled commercial sheet silver. Calvin Martinez is among the living artists who still work in ingot silver.
Stampwork — Steel stamps are pressed into silver by hammer to create repeating patterns of geometric forms: triangles, crosses, raindrops, chevrons, sunbursts. The stamp is the instrument; the artist's hand and eye determine the pattern. Stampwork can be applied in a single row or in multiple rows covering the full surface of a band.
Repousse — Silver is pushed from the reverse face to create dimensional relief on the front. Combined with chasing (working the front face to refine the forms), repousse creates sculptural elements that rise from the surface of the silver. Darryl Becenti's eleven-row repousse cuffs represent this technique at its most demanding.
Overlay — Cut-out silver forms are applied over a contrasting base, creating dimensional two-tone designs. The Hopi tradition made overlay its defining technique, but Navajo artists have also developed significant overlay work, particularly in the mid-twentieth century.
Tufa casting — Silver is poured into hand-carved volcanic stone molds, creating castings with the organic, rough-hewn surface texture of the mold. Every tufa cast piece is genuinely unique — the mold cannot be used identically twice. Read more: Tufa Casting — The Ancient Art of Navajo Silver.
11-Row Stampwork Repousse Cuff by Darryl Becenti — a masterclass in what the Navajo silversmithing tradition can achieve at its most technically demanding.
The Stone Tradition
Turquoise has been significant to the Navajo people long before silversmithing began — it appears in Navajo ceremony, oral history, and cosmology as a stone of sky, water, and blessing. The integration of turquoise into silver jewelry was a natural expression of existing cultural values about the stone's significance.
The range of stones in contemporary Navajo jewelry extends well beyond turquoise: coral (traded through networks reaching the Mediterranean and Pacific), spiny oyster shell from the Sea of Cortez, jet from New Mexico's coal deposits, and mother of pearl and shell from Pacific coastal trade. This material range reflects centuries of Navajo trade relationships and cultural exchange across the continent.
The Living Tradition
Navajo silversmithing is not a historical artifact. It is a living practice with several hundred active professional artists working today, from established masters to emerging voices. The artists represented at Turquoise Mustang — Delbert Gordon, Calvin Martinez, Chris Yazzie, Philander Begay, and others — represent the contemporary generation of this tradition at its finest level.
Their work is rooted in 170 years of accumulated craft knowledge and guided by individual artistic vision. It is made by hand, one piece at a time, by a named artist who has spent decades developing skill in a tradition that demands both technical mastery and cultural understanding.
Browse the Native American Collection. Meet the artists: Meet Our Artists. Learn the techniques: The Mine Files.