The Concho Belt: History, Design Phases, and What Collectors Look For

The concho belt is a leather belt set with a series of silver plaques — conchas — that the Navajo derived from Plains Indian ornaments, which themselves descended from Mexican and ultimately Spanish metalwork traditions. Three documented design phases track the form's evolution, and collector terminology maps directly to these phases. It remains the grandest statement piece in the Southwest silversmithing tradition.

Mateo's Field Notes

Adair is direct on the origin question: "Arthur Woodward has conclusively demonstrated that the Navajo derived the concha from the Plains Indians." The Ute, Comanche, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and other Southern Plains tribes wore rings, bracelets, brooches, conchas, and hair plates — metal ornaments obtained from traders in exchange for hides, made of brass, copper, and German silver. The Navajo, encountering these ornaments through trade and conflict, adapted them in silver after acquiring smithing skills.

But the Plains Indians themselves did not originate the form. Woodward's research traces it further: the concha form diffused to Plains tribes from eastern craftsmen — Delaware and Shawnee smiths skilled in metalwork — and before them, from Spanish and Mexican sources. Bedinger documents the chain directly: a Spanish or Mexican silver concha for a spur was excavated in Dona Ana County, New Mexico, showing the lozenged central opening and scalloped outer edge that characterize the earliest Navajo conchas. "Altogether," scholar Mera concludes, "it now begins to seem probable that prior to the adoption of silversmithing by the Indians of the Southwest there had once existed in the Spanish colonies a fashion for ornaments embodying the... features just described."

The naming question is worth addressing plainly. Adair notes in a footnote: "In oral usage and as a trade term, concha is frequently pronounced and spelled concho." The Spanish-derived correct form is concha (plural conchas); concho/conchos is the trade variant. Both appear throughout the literature, and collectors use both interchangeably.

Long Moustache, interviewed by Adair, described what may be the first concho belts made by Navajo smiths themselves, after the return from Fort Sumner: "After the return from Fort Sumner the two smiths began to hammer out big silver disks or plates which, strung together, made an ornate belt. They got the idea for these from some belts they had taken from the Utes." The outer edge was scalloped or stamped; each disk carried a diamond-shaped slot through which the leather laced. "No conchas, no bridles" appear in photographs from the Fort Sumner period, Adair notes — the absence confirming the post-1868 timeline for Navajo-made examples.

The "grand prize of the dandy Navajo buck is his belt" — Bourke's 1936 observation, quoted by Bedinger — tells you something about the social weight these belts carried. A complete belt with matching buckle, worn well, was a declaration of wealth and skill that no other piece of jewelry quite matched.

Bedinger documents three design phases clearly. First-phase conchas carry the diamond or slot-shaped central opening through which the leather strap laced directly — the form closest to the Spanish spur-concha prototype. Second-phase conchas replace the slot with a solid center, the leather now attached by a hidden loop soldered to the back — a cleaner visual. Third-phase work introduces what Mera calls "the bicurvate leaf-shaped unit," and butterfly or elaborated open-center forms. By the turn of the century, Bedinger writes, "Die work abounded, repoussage was frequent, filing and cold chiseling were used, and even applique is occasionally found. Nor were the elegance and color of turquoise forgotten."

The buckle evolved alongside the conchas. Early belts tied with leather thongs. Then harness buckles appeared — too small, which "created a feeling of anticlimax, which the Navajos were quick to recognize and remedy." Buckles grew larger and more elaborate, eventually becoming a major display object in their own right. A concha could be converted into a buckle by cutting out the center and soldering a tongue; or a separate buckle could carry out the design of the conchas, or deliberately depart from it. Bedinger records a plate of documented buckles ranging from a fine early cast ketoh-pattern buckle set with hand-polished stones circa 1900-1910, to a modern cast buckle using a double naja motif circa 1960.

Makers Known for This Form

• Felicita Eustace — Cochiti; documented in the concha tradition
• Darryl Dean Begay — Dine (Navajo); heavyweight traditional forms
• Charlie Bitsui — Dine (Navajo)

Related Links

• Southwest Jewelry Field Guide — hub
• Stampwork in Navajo and Pueblo Silver
• Repoussage and Chasing
• Glossary of Silversmithing Terms

References

• Adair, John. The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths. University of Oklahoma Press, 1944, pp. 29–30.
• Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. University of New Mexico Press, 1973, pp. 61–68.

By Mateo James | T.Skies Co-Op Field Guide