Washington Matthews

“ The appliances and processes of the smith are much the same among the Navajos as among the Pueblo Indians. But the Pueblo artisan, living in a spacious house, builds a permanent forge on a frame at such a height that he can work standing, while his less fortunate Navajo confrère, dwelling in a low hut or shelter, which he may abandon any day, constructs a temporary forge on the ground in the manner hereafter described. ”

“ They build a large fire of dry juniper, and when it has ceased to flame and is reduced to a mass of glowing coals, they smother it well with earth and leave it to cool. If the fire is kindled at sunset, the charcoal is ready for use next morning. ”

“ Crucibles are made by the more careful smiths of clay, baked hard, and they are nearly the same shape as those used by our metallurgists, having three-cornered edges and rounded bottoms. They are usually about two inches in every dimension.
Fig. 1, Pl. XVIII represents one of ordinary shape and size, which I have in my collection. The Navajos are not good potters; their earthenware being limited to these crucibles and a few unornamented water-jars; and it is probably in consequence of their inexperience in the ceramic art that their crucibles are not durable. ”

“ A little instrument employed in levelling the edges of the metallic hemispheres, is rude but effective. In one end of a cylinder of wood, about three or four inches long, is cut a small roundish cavity of such a size that it will hold the hemisphere tightly, but allow the uneven edges to project. The hemisphere is placed in this, and then rubbed on a flat piece of sandstone until the edges are worn level with the base of the wooden cylinder. ”

“ 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 worked harder or more steadily. They often labored from twelve to fifteen hours a day, eating their meals with dispatch and returning to their toil the moment they had done. ”

“ Metallic hemispheres for beads and buttons are made in a concave matrix by means of a round-pointed bolt which I will call a die. These tools are always made by the Indians. On one bar of iron there may be many matrices of different sizes, only one die fitting the smallest concavity, is required to work the metal in all. ”

“ Often, then, one or two bystanders are called to hold the plate in a horizontal position, and perhaps another will be asked to hold the points of the scissors to keep them from spreading. Scissors are sometimes used as dividers, by being spread to the desired distance and held in position by being grasped in the hand. ”

“ For polishing, they have sand-paper and emery-paper purchased from the whites; but as these are expensive, they are usually required only for the finishing touches, the first part of the work being done with powdered sandstone, sand, or ashes, all of which are used with or without water. At certain stages in the progress of the work, some articles are rubbed on a piece of sandstone to reduce the surfaces to smoothness; but the stone, in this instance, is more a substitute for the file than for the sand-paper. ”

“ A forge, a bellows, an anvil, crucibles, molds, tongs, scissors, pliers, files, awls, cold-chisels, matrix and die for molding buttons, wooden implement used in grinding buttons, wooden stake, basin, charcoal, tools and materials for soldering (blow-pipe, braid of cotton rags soaked in grease, wire, and borax) , materials for polishing (sand-paper, emery-paper, powdered sandstone, sand, ashes, and solid stone) , and materials for whitening (a native mineral substance—almogen—salt and water) . ”

“ These savage smiths also display much ingenuity in working from models and from drawings of objects entirely new to them.
They are very wasteful of material. They usually preserve the clippings and melt them in the crucible, or use them in soldering; but they make no attempt to save the metal carried off in filing, polishing, and by oxidizing in the forge, all of which is considerable. ”

“ The Indians usually make their own cold-chisels. These are not used where the scissors and file can be conveniently and economically employed. The re-entrant rectangles on the bracelet represented in Fig. 4, Pl. XIX, were cut with a cold-chisel and finished with a file.
Awls are used to mark figures on the silver. Often they cut out of paper a pattern, which they lay on the silver, tracing the outline with an awl. These tools are sometimes purchased and sometimes made by the Indians. ”

“ Their method of preparing charcoal is much more expeditious than that usually employed by our charcoal-burners, but more wasteful; wood, however, need not yet be economized on the juniper-covered mesas of New Mexico. ”

“ After being put in the fire two or three times they swell and become very porous, and when used for a longer time they often crack and fall to pieces. Some smiths, instead of making crucibles, melt their metal in suitable fragments of Pueblo pottery, which may be picked up around ruins in many localities throughout the Navajo country or purchased from the Pueblo Indians. ”

“ XVII. The nozzle is made of four pieces of wood tied together and rounded on the outside so as to form a cylinder about ten inches long and three inches in diameter, with a quadrangular hole in the center about one inch square. The bellows is worked by horizontal movements of the arm. I have seen among the Navajos one double-chambered bellows with a sheet-iron tweer. This bellows was about the same size as the single chambered one described above. ”