WEARING THE MOON Navajo and Pueblo Silver Buttons [SOLD]

WEARING THE MOON Navajo and Pueblo Silver Buttons

Gary Brockman

Publisher: Sky Hill Press, Middleton, WI

First edition, softcover, 2017

CONTENTS

Preface & Acknowledgments

PART ONE: CONTEXT

Arrival

Catastrophe

Return & Invention

PART TWO: THE BUTTONS

Interpretive Notes

Author's Note

References Cited

Additional Resources

Glossary

Index

Photo Credits

Silver buttons made by the Navajo were not meant as fasteners, but purely as decorative objects. "Aside from their importance as artistic expressions, silver buttons and other jewelry evolved into a portable form of family wealth, particularly among the Navajo. Historically semi-nomadic, the Navajo people often wore much of their wealth wherever they went. Button-embellished garments and accessories were part of everyday clothing. A modern silversmith born to the Tachinii Clan tells of old-style Navajo women herding their sheep on remote grazing lands while wearing fabulous arrays of silver buttons, even though ‘ . . .the only people who saw them were the sheep' (Swift 2016)

"The inventiveness and diversity of Navajo and Pueblo buttons demonstrate the adaptive genius of people whose histories are built upon frameworks of existential challenges and fierce competitive pressures. The silversmiths who designed and made these buttons grasped the essential nature of their material, allowing the beauty of the metal of the moon—its color, luster and malleability—to guide their minds and hands."