PREHISTORIC BRONZE WORK FROM THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC

no proof for this assertion, no copper having been found harder than pieces which we can hammer out to-day. The corroded surface, or fragments of stone which were not freed from the copper, may possibly have given rise to the idea that the metal was hardened, and among persons unacquainted with the subject, some may have mistaken for cupper, alloys of metal somewhat resembling it in color. That casting was understood by the people who made the copper implements found in Wisconsin and neighboring regions, is also a popular fallacy. The roughness of the surface caused by uneven corrosion, due to the presence of veins of silver or other impurities, may have been mistaken for a roughness due to flowing the metal into a mold.

Practically no knowledge of gold was possessed by the Indians north of Mexico, although some gold-plated objects have been found as far north as the mounds of Ohio. These few pieces may have been obtained in trade with the people of Mexico. The most interesting gold work made by Indians of the United States is found in Florida, where several pendants and disks were discovered, and one ornament cut to represent a bird is distinctly in the style of other Indian art.

Just where they obtained their gold is unknown, but it is supposed that most of it came from vessels wrecked along their coast. A pottery disk has been found in Mexico, upon which is represented a turkey gobbler whose wattles are plated with gold. In the vicinity of Panama, weapons or implements of gold are rarely, if ever, found, but many ornaments come from there, and the people were apparently skillful in smelting, alloying, plating, and casting. Ninety per cent of the ornaments represent animals, and were used as pendants. They were probably modelled in wax which was molded in clay, the wax being melted out and the gold poured in.

Some of the silversmiths among the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands are able goldsmiths. An artist, who accompanied me along the northwest coast of America in 1909, told me that one of the pieces of gold work shown us by Edensaw, the chief and smith of Masset, was a work of art worthy of a place in one of our best jewelry stores. The work is of the same general style as the silver work of the same Indians, and often represents highly conventionalized animal forms. These people, who are noted for their numerous artists able to do excellent carving and painting, may find in metal work an occupation, for some of their young men, that will be as natural to them as fishing for the canneries, and a source of independence and self-respect.

Silver was not used generally in the United States in preColumbian times, although it is found in the metallic state as veins in the copper of the Superior region. Silver objects have been found in the mounds of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Some of it was pounded out as a thin plating on a backing of copper. Since the Indians have been able to get silver from our people, they have used it more extensively, and necklaces, many brooches, lockets, crosses in great numbers, and bracelets made of silver are frequently found in the village sites, graves, and mounds of the United States. The Navaho, Thlingit, and Haida Indians, as well as the Iroquois and some Pueblos, developed a characteristic industry in this material.

The Navaho Indians learned to work silver from the Mexican silver workers, who formerly supplied them with silver ornaments, and they now outstrip the Mexican in technique. The Navaho known as the "Old Smith" was probably the first of his tribe to carry on the work, and he learned it from a Mexican known as Cassilio, who was still living in 1870. Copper and brass were worked by the beginners who were able to get sheet copper and copper wire from the Indian traders. Very few tools are employed and these are simple. The bellows consists of a skin bag about a foot long, held open with wooden hoops. It is provided with a valve and a nozzle. A forge, crucibles, an anvil, and tongs are used. Molds, the matrix and die, cold chisels, scissors, pliars, files, awls, and emery paper also come into play. A soldering outfit, consisting of a blowpipe, and a torch made of oil-soaked rags, used with borax, is manipulated successfully by the skillful smith. He uses grinding stone, sandstone dust, and ashes for polishing his manufactures, and, for whitening them, salt and water with a mineral called almogen. The Navaho silversmiths have made buckles, bridles, buttons, rings, round, hollow beads, earrings, crescent shaped pendants, bracelets, crosses, powder chargers, tobacco boxes, and disks used on belts. Nowadays they make souvenir spoons, and rings with turquoise settings, for the tourist trade. The work is characteristic of the Navaho, as the Haida work is peculiar to the northwest coast, though both secure the silver from the white people, and the Navaho has even taken many of his designs from them. His silver work is considered better than that of the Pueblo Indians. The copper and brass bracelets which the latter make were once used as money, and their silver articles are even now used in that way. Many of the pieces are made from coins, and the value of the coins sets the price of the artifact made from them. The Navaho, however, valued his work according to the "gold standard."

The Zuni Indians of the arid southwest get much of their silverwork from the Navaho smiths, and perhaps they all learned silversmithing from them, as one of the four Zuni who know the art learned the trade from a Navaho. They use Mexican dollars for material and do not now work other metals. There are two regular forges in Zuni Pueblo. In 1854 Captain Sitgreave illustrated a Zuni forge which was still useful in the early part of this century. This forge was made of adobe and had a bellows made of two skin bags. The large silver objects were often cast in sandstone molds and then ornamented by tooling but not by engraving. Scissors and shears are used for cutting thin pieces of silver into artifacts. The Zuni naturally

IOWA INDIAN MAIDEN WITH SILVER BROOCHES

perform their work in a manner similar to that of their Navaho neighbors, but they do not make as many rings set with turquoise.

Iroquois silversmiths make crowns, bracelets, buckles, finger rings, earrings, crosses, and nose rings. About the beginning of the eighteenth century the French and English found that trinkets of brass were not sufficiently valuable in the eyes of the Indian, and, in their eagerness to secure his trade, introduced great quantities of silver ornaments. Some of the Indians were so covered with these that they appeared as if dressed in armor. After the supply from the whites fell off, native silversmiths pushed the work. A few Iroquois smiths