Native American Indian Jewelry Guide

For thousands of years, Native Americans from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Coast have employed their local natural resources for manufacturing jewelry.  Utilized for both utilitarian and ornamental purposes, the variations of Native American jewelry are as rich and diverse as the cultures that created them. Tribes of the American Northwest, such as the Nez Perce, used abalone shells, olivella shells, antlers, animal bones and teeth for assembling and decorating jewelry. In the Southwest, an abundance of turquoise allowed the Navajo, Zuni and Hopi to develop the skills necessary to become master artisans of this beautiful gemstone. The Iroquois of the Northeast Woodland tribes were some of the earliest architects of the small cylindrical shell beads of wampum, used for necklaces, belts, and currency.  When Lewis and Clark encountered the Sioux near the banks of the Missouri River, they gave wampum as a gift and used it as trade. Not limited to the production of shells, tribes of the Great Lake region were some of the earliest producers of copper, pounding the metal into bracelets, tubular beads and other forms of Native American jewelry. 

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