What Is the Dragonfly Symbol in Native American Jewelry?
What Is the Dragonfly Symbol in Native American Jewelry?
Dragonfly · Field Guide · Symbols & Iconography
The dragonfly is a water and rain symbol across Southwest Native American cultures, documented in Pueblo and Navajo silverwork in New Mexico and the broader Southwest region. In jewelry, it appears as pins, stamped bracelets, necklace elements, and cast pieces. One notable visual ambiguity: the dragonfly is sometimes rendered as a double-barred cross form — a shape that scholars and jewelers have both noted can read as either symbol depending on context.
Mateo's Field Notes
The Indian Silver Jewelry corpus identifies the dragonfly explicitly as "a symbol for water among the Southwest Indians" — a reading that makes the motif part of the broader rain and water symbolism that runs through Pueblo and Navajo material culture. In a landscape shaped by the seasonal rains of the high desert Southwest, water-associated symbols carried deep practical and spiritual resonance.
One of the most interesting aspects of the dragonfly in Southwest jewelry is its visual relationship to the double-barred cross. The Indian Silver Jewelry corpus notes that a particular design "is a dragonfly that is double-barred," while Rosnek and Stacey's 1976 documentation records that "the double cross with the heart has also been identified as a dragonfly." This overlap between the cross form and the dragonfly silhouette — both with two horizontal bars at the body — means that reading a piece correctly often requires context about the maker and the period. Bedinger also mentions the dragonfly symbol in the context of Pueblo jewelry motifs. Rosnek and Stacey documented Navajo dragonfly pins from the 1940s and 1950s, showing that the motif crossed pueblo and Navajo traditions alike.
The dragonfly's rain and water association connects it thematically to other water-related imagery in Southwest design. Some Pueblo lineages hold the dragonfly as a protective or medicine figure; the deeper significance of the dragonfly within specific tribal traditions is held within those communities and is not the subject of this page.
Collector's Handbook
- Cross-form ambiguity: If a piece has a double-barred cross design, it may be identified as a dragonfly in its original cultural context. Look for maker attribution and period documentation to read the symbol correctly.
- Period and nation: Dragonfly pins are documented in both Pueblo and Navajo work from the 1940s–1950s; stamped bracelets with dragonfly motifs span a broader period. Both nations used this symbol.
- Common forms: Pins, necklace pendants, stamped silver bracelets, and cast pieces. The pin format (brooch) was particularly popular for dragonfly renderings in the mid-century period.
- Water connection: When a piece combines dragonfly imagery with cloud or rain elements (stepped clouds, lightning), this reinforces the water-symbol reading and strengthens the cultural coherence of the piece.
Artists in Our Directory
No artists in our current directory are specifically documented for dragonfly work in our source corpus. Visit the Silversmith Directory to explore Zuni, Navajo, and Hopi artists whose work spans the Southwest figurative tradition.
Related
References
- Indian Silver Jewelry. (ISJ-1868, pp. 49–62)
- Rosnek, Carl, and Joseph Stacey. Skystone and Silver. 1976. (ROSNEK, pp. 204–205, 256)
- Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. 1973. (BEDINGER, p. 91)
- Dubin, Lois Sherr. North American Indian Jewelry and Adornment. 1999. (DUBIN-99, p. 270)
Explore authenticated Southwest jewelry at T.Skies — pieces by artists working across the Pueblo and Navajo traditions.