What Is a Ketoh? The Navajo Bow Guard in Silver

A ketoh is a wide leather wrist guard, originally worn to protect a Navajo bowman's wrist from the snap of the bowstring, mounted with a silver plaque once the art of smithing was learned. Bedinger calls them "massive and dramatic" — most are 3.5 inches wide, covering the entire back of the wrist. Among collectors, the ketoh is prized as one of the few forms in Navajo silver that resisted commercialization and remained, in Adair's words, "the exclusive property of the Indian."

Mateo's Field Notes

Before silver, ketohs were simple. Adair documents them directly: "Navajo men used to wear a leather strap or ketoh around their wrists to protect them from the snap of the bowstring. In the days before silver-working, ketohs were simple, undecorated pieces of leather, about four inches wide, held together by lacing." As late as Adair's 1938 fieldwork, bow and arrow were still used to kill small animals in the northwestern reaches of the Navajo reservation, and simple undecorated leather ketohs could still be found there.

The question of when silver first appeared on ketohs is not settled. Bedinger is honest about the gap: "We do not know when ketohs first were mounted with silver, although, as Navajo men wore them constantly, we should expect smiths to ornament them soon after metalworking was learned." The documentary record begins to clarify in the 1870s and 1880s: Mera illustrates one from "the early part of the 1880s"; Mrs. Stevenson mentions them in 1879. By 1896 when Eikemeyer observed them, each ketoh contained "from three to four silver dollars worth of metal, and prominent men alone wore them."

The earliest silver-mounted ketohs carried bands of silver — or copper or brass where silver was not available — fastened to the leather. By Adair's time, the form had matured to curved silver plaques fastened to the leather by copper or silver shanks. The design language of the cast ketoh is distinctive: four shallow S-shaped bars lead from center to corner; four more bars extend to the midpoints of the edges. The turquoise typically sits at the center, giving "just the accent needed to complete the design." Bedinger adds: from old ketohs it seems this design existed before turquoise-setting was learned; once setting was mastered, stones were added consistently.

Tom Burnsides, Adair's Navajo field companion at Pine Springs, documented the casting technique directly. Adair records: "I got some of it and made a cast for a ketoh [bow-guard, frequently spelled gato]. But that stone was too soft and cracked all the way through. The next time the stone was just hard enough, and I made a good ketoh." The sandstone mold technique — carve the negative into stone, pour the hot metal, break away the mold — is captured in Bedinger's plates, including a Taylor Museum sandstone mold and the casting made from it. The skill required to carve an open-pattern mold of slender elements that would withstand molten metal pressure meant casting came only after wrought-metal technique was mastered.

Adair notes the social weight of the ketoh plainly: Navajo men wore them at squaw-dances, at sings, and when coming to town. Silversmiths made ketohs for Pueblo men as well as their own. During the summer rain-dances at Hopi villages and at Zuni, Kachina dancers wore bow-guards as an essential part of ceremonial dress. Bedinger adds: "Most Navajo men still wear ketohs as ornaments, treasured especially for their masculine connotations."

Dimensions record a practical distinction: standard ketohs run 3.5 inches wide; smaller ones at 2.5 inches were made for boys. The leather on the back of the wrist is typically covered entirely by decoration on a mature piece. The ketoh in the Denver Art Museum — decorated with crescents and chevrons stamped on leather without silver mounting — marks the transition point between functional leather and ornamental silver.

Makers Known for This Form

• Darryl Dean Begay — Dine (Navajo); works in heavyweight traditional forms including cast pieces
• Charlie Bitsui — Dine (Navajo)
• Everett Teller — Dine (Navajo)

Related Links

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

References

• Adair, John. The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths. University of Oklahoma Press, 1944, pp. 34–36, 56.
• Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. University of New Mexico Press, 1973, pp. 53–55.

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