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A Field Guide to Southwest Jewelry · by Mateo James

Crossed Arrows and Arrow Symbols in Southwest Silver Jewelry

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Crossed Arrows and Arrow Symbols in Southwest Silver Jewelry

Arrows / Crossed Arrows · Field Guide · Symbols & Iconography

Arrow and crossed-arrow designs are among the most widely documented symbols in Southwest silver jewelry, appearing in stampwork bracelets, concha belts, overlay, and cast pieces from New Mexico and Arizona. Pre-1940 sources identify them as one of the most common commercial designs of the era. Crossed arrows are associated with friendship and peace; single arrows with direction and protection.

Mateo's Field Notes

Few Southwest jewelry motifs have a more thoroughly documented commercial history than the arrow. John Adair, writing in 1944, identified the arrow combined with a generalized bird design as "one of the most common pre-1940 commercial designs" in Southwest silversmithing — a mark of just how deeply embedded this motif was in the market before mid-century. The Fred Harvey Company, which drove tourist-market jewelry sales through Harvey House restaurants and curio shops along the Santa Fe Railway corridor in New Mexico and Arizona, built arrow imagery into its catalog staples: Margery Bedinger documented "a plethora of crossed arrows" in Fred Harvey-era pieces, where they appeared alongside swastikas (pre-reclamation designs), thunderbirds, and other commercial standbys.

The Indian Silver Jewelry corpus records the meaning frame that entered the commercial record: arrow designs originate in associations of direction, protection, and defense; crossed arrows in particular carry the meaning of friendship and peace. This reading — which circulated through the Harvey-era trade and its successors — made crossed arrows a natural choice for tourist-market pieces meant to be given as gifts. Hopi overlay silversmiths also incorporated crossed-arrow designs: the documented Hopi design vocabulary confirms their use in overlay technique, adding a Hopi Pueblo dimension to what might otherwise be read as solely a Navajo or Fred Harvey form.

Arrow designs have no documented ceremonial restriction in the source corpus, making them among the most freely used motifs in the Southwest jewelry tradition.

Collector's Handbook

  • Fred Harvey era (c. 1900–1940): Arrow and crossed-arrow stampwork is a signature of this period's commercial production. Pieces from this era are often lighter in gauge and more standardized in design than handmade pre-Harvey work — but they represent a genuine and historically significant chapter of Southwest jewelry.
  • Common forms: Stampwork bracelets and concha belts are the most common carriers; arrows also appear in cast pieces, overlay, and as repeated design elements in necklace stations.
  • Reading crossed vs. single: Crossed arrows (X-form) carry the friendship/peace association documented in the trade literature. Single arrows may point in a specific direction, a design choice some smiths used intentionally.
  • Hopi overlay: Crossed-arrow designs in Hopi overlay technique are bold graphic interpretations — look for the characteristic two-layer construction with oxidized background and polished surface-layer arrows.

Artists in Our Directory

Paul Saufkie is a documented Hopi silversmith in our directory. While not specifically listed for arrow work in our source corpus, Saufkie is part of the Hopi overlay tradition that incorporated arrow motifs. Visit his page for more on his documented work.

Related

References

  • Adair, John. The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths. 1944. (ADAIR, pp. 203–204)
  • Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. 1973. (BEDINGER, pp. 57–63)
  • Indian Silver Jewelry. (ISJ-1868, p. 38)

Explore authenticated Southwest jewelry at T.Skies — pieces by Navajo, Hopi, and Pueblo artists across the stamp and overlay traditions.