Navajo Silversmiths | Page 2

long, sixteen inches broad, five inches in height to the edge of the fire-place, and the latter, which was bowl-shaped, was eight inches in diameter and three inches deep. No other Navajo forge that I have seen differed materially in size or shape from this. The Indian thus constructed it: In the first place, he obtained a few straight sticks--four would have sufficed--and laid them on the ground to form a frame or curb; then he prepared some mud, with which he filled the frame, and which he piled up two inches above the latter, leaving the depression for the fire-place. Before the structure of mud was completed he laid in it the wooden nozzle of the bellows, where it was to remain, with one end about six inches from the fire-place, and the other end projecting about the same distance beyond the frame; then he stuck into the nozzle a round piece of wood, which reached from the nozzle to the fire-place, and when the mud work was finished the stick was withdrawn, leaving an uninflammable tweer. When the structure of mud was completed a flat rock about four inches thick was laid on at the head of the forge--the end next to the bellows--to form a back to the fire, and lastly the bellows was tied on to the nozzle, which, as mentioned above, was built into the forge, with a portion projecting to receive the bellows. The task of constructing this forge did not occupy more than an hour.
[Illustration: PL. XVI. OBJECTS IN SILVER.]
A bellows, of the kind most commonly used, consists of a tube or bag of goatskin, about twelve inches in length and about ten inches in diameter, tied at one end to its nozzle and nailed at the other to a circular disk of wood, in which is the valve. This disk has two arms: one above for a handle and the other below for a support. Two or more rings or hoops of wood are placed in the skin-tube to keep it distended, while the tube is constricted between the hoops with buckskin thongs, and thus divided into a number of compartments, as shown in Pl. 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. It was also moved horizontally, and by means of an iron rod passing from one end to the other and attached to the disks, one chamber was opened at the same time that the other was closed, and vice versa. This gave a more constant current of air than the single-chambered implement, but not as steady a blast as the bellows of our blacksmiths. Such a bellows, too, I have seen in the Pueblo of Zu?i.
For an anvil they usually use any suitable piece of iron they may happen to pick up, as for instance an old wedge or a large bolt, such as the king-bolt of a wagon. A wedge or other large fragment of iron may be stuck in the ground to steady it. A bolt is maintained in position by being driven into a log. Hard stones are still sometimes used for anvils and perhaps they were, at one time, the only anvils they possessed.
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. 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.
The moulds in which they cast their ingots, cut in soft sandstone with a home-made chisel, are so easily formed that the smith leaves them behind when he moves his residence. Each mould is cut approximately in the shape of the article which