Native American Jewelry

Native or Indian American jewelry can be categorized into two categories – metalwork and beadwork. Though jewelry styles differ from one Native American tribe to another, the materials used to create the jewelry like beads, shells, copper and silver, ivory, amber, turquoise, and other stones were the same.

In addition to the aesthetic beauty, jewelry had religious, social, economic, and political significance for Native Americans. Jewelry was worn or exchanged by Native Americans to signify an individual’s rite of passage. Beads were exchanged to validate treaties, as currency exchange and benchmark oral traditions.

Silver is used abundantly in Native American jewelry. Prior to the Europeans conquest of the Native Americans, metalwork jewelry was simple, consisting of etched copper and silver pendants, earrings, and sterling silver beads.

Indian beadwork is very popular, combining intricate peyote jewelry and bone hair pipe chokers. Other interesting beadwork traditions include the wampum bead jewelry of the eastern Indians to the shell and turquoise heishi necklaces of the southwestern Indians. The floral beadwork of the northern Indians and the dentalium strands of the west coast Indians are other examples of interesting beadwork.