Silver Bracelet, Decorated
date: label: Accession Date
content: 6 Jul 1956
name: label: Collector
content: Miss Folsom Vail
label: Donor Name
content: Miss Folsom Vail
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Hand tooled in the fashion of the Navaho silversmith. Decorated with intaglio designs, including arrows, lightning symbol, and the swastika; also with five spaced fluted bosses in relief [resemble concho buttons]. Stamped border of parallel lines and half circles."
label: Notes
content: Note: the swastika design is actually what is usually called the Navajo "whirling log" symbol. It is in no way related to the Nazi swastika. In 1940, in response to Hitler's regime, the Navajo, Papago, Apache and Hopi people signed a whirling log proclamation. It read, "Because the above ornament, which has been a symbol of friendship among our forefathers for many centuries, has been desecrated recently by another nation of peoples, therefore it is resolved that henceforth from this date on and forever more our tribes renounce the use of the emblem commonly known today as the swastika . . . on our blankets, baskets, art objects, sand paintings and clothing." Reference: The Swastika Symbol in Navajo Textiles by Dennis J. Aigner. DAI Press, Laguna Beach, California, 2000. The swastika was also popular in the early 20th century in Europe and North America as a good luck symbol and was sometimes used decoratively in that sense on Navajo-made objects produced for the tourist market.
label: Notes
content: In a letter dated Atlanta, Georgia, June 20, 1956 the donor Miss Folsom Vail (nee Ruth Vail) writes: "There was an Indian school named, I think, 'Fort Wingate Indian School' near Gallup, New Mexico, which has now been discontinued. The lady who sent me this bracelet 'before Hitler' (between 1926-1933) told me the high school Indian boys made the Indian bracelets and sold them, so she bought this for me." In 1925 the grounds containing the old Fort Wingate were transferred to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for utilization as a school for Navajo and Zuni children. The original name, Charles H. Burke Vocational School and Hospital, was changed in 1937 to Wingate Vocational High School.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 16 Feb 2024
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Fort Wingate Indian School / Gallup (near), New Mexico, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Not Given
label: Culture
content: Navajo (Diné) (?)
label: Culture
content: Zuni (A:shiwi) (?)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 211053
label: USNM Number
content: E394212-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Bracelet