Nakai Tsosi — Silversmith Hallmark

Name-card placeholder — hallmark imagery to follow.

Southwestern · documented in the T.Skies hallmark library

Nakai Tsosi (Navajo: "Thin Mexican") is documented in John Adair's The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths (1944) as a Mexican smith who lived near Mt. Taylor and who is credited with teaching iron- and silverworking to Atsidi Sani — the man considered the founding figure of Navajo silversmithing. This account is derived from oral testimony recorded by Adair.

According to the account Adair records: Atsidi Sani traveled to the region near Mt. Taylor to watch Nakai Tsosi at work, learning to make bridles and later ironwork. Nakai Tsosi also knew how to work silver, though Atsidi Sani did not learn silversmithing from him until some years later. The two became good friends; Nakai Tsosi taught Atsidi Sani without charge. Their relationship was one of mutual visiting — Atsidi Sani would stay with the Mexican smith, and the Mexican smith would come and stay with Atsidi Sani at his hogan near Crystal.

Known through corpus account only. Nakai Tsosi does not appear as an independent hallmark entry in Hougart. This page records him as a historical context figure — known solely through Adair's account of the origins of Navajo silversmithing, as a teacher and early cross-cultural contact.

No hallmark, birth year, death year, or further biographical detail is available in the source record for Nakai Tsosi beyond what Adair preserves in oral testimony.

The mark

No hallmark documented. Nakai Tsosi is a historical Mexican metalsmith recorded in oral testimony; he predates the Navajo hallmark tradition and no personal stamp is attributed to him.

References

• Adair, John. The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths. University of Oklahoma Press, 1944. Approx. pp. ~1357–1368 (account of Nakai Tsosi and his role as teacher to Atsidi Sani).

Know more about this figure? Contact T.Skies. See also: Atsidi Sani (the smith Nakai Tsosi taught).