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In the past centuries, bead jewelry had reflects the cultural diversity and history of its makers. The Native American tribes develop a distinct aesthetics rooted in their cultural traditions. These aesthetics were visually recorded their history and sought to capture a sense of oneness with nature. Artists and artisans produced jewelry of great beauty for personal use and as trade items. Silver became an important element of Indian communication, conveying many levels of information and remains a major statement of tribal and individual identity.
Beaders combine a variety metals, hard woods, precious and semi-precious gemstones, beadwork, teeth, bones, and other materials to create jewelry. The contemporary jeweler Pat Pruitt specializes in steel and other industrial metals in his award-winning art. Meanwhile, artist Elizabeth James Perry creates silver necklaces, bracelets, earrings on buckskin and milkweed fiber cords.
While Native artists continued to incorporate new materials and techniques into their work, jewelry in the Americas has an ancient history. Olivella shell beads, dating from 6000 B.C., were found in Nevada; bone, and possibly marine shell beads from 7000 B.C. were found in Russell Cave in Alabama; copper jewelry was traded from Lake Superior beginning in 3000 B.C.; and stone beads were carved in Poverty Point in Louisiana in 1500 B.C. Heishe bead necklaces have been discovered in ancient era. The seashells they used to make beads were also found. Oyster shell, mother of pearl, abalone, conch and clam have been important trade items in the Southwest for over 1000 years.
Native beadwork was already extremely advanced in pre-Columbian era, including utilizing of turquoise, coral, and shell grind into smooth tiny beads to make necklaces. They made carvings from wood or animal bone to make interesting beads stung into necklaces. Turquoise is one of the dominant findings of Southwestern Native American jewelry. Thousands of pieces were found in the Chico Canyon. The past history indicated that the Native Americans would mine the turquoise and then create the jewelry. Turquoise found in southern Arizona could dated back to 200 B.C.
Santo Domingo Pueblo has made bead jewelry from shells and turquoise, jet, and coral gemstones for many centuries. Sterling silver has also been added in contemporary jewelry designs. Santo Domingo is known for its bead necklaces called "heishe," Heishi is a rolled bead of shell, turquoise or coral, which is very thin cutting. Shells used for heishi included mother-of-pearl, spiny oyster, abalone, and coral.
The tiny and thin heishi was strung together by the Santo Domingo to create beautiful necklaces. These shells and necklaces were important trade items of the southwest for more than thousand years. Their jewelry was extremely valuable to the tribe, because it allowed the Santo Domingo to exchange it for almost everything necessities they needed. All the jewelry made in the earliest times was simple, plain silver with no added gemstones, and decorations were made with punches or dies in designs copied from other countries.
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