Historic Zuni Pueblo Inlaid Ingot Silver Knife Wing God Bracelet

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A very striking and beautiful historic Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico inlaid ingot-silver “Knife-Wing God” bracelet, c.1930’s-40’s

This bracelet is without a doubt one of the most outstanding and dramatic pieces of historic inlaid Zuni jewelry

that we have ever seen. This stunning Knife-Wing God bracelet is a true tour de force of superior craftsmanship and inspired design. It was made by an unknown, but clearly major and most highly-accomplished artist, most likely as

a custom order for an important Zuni area trading post, quite possibly C.G. Wallace’s famous post at Zuni Pueblo. Wallace regularly exhorted his extremely talented band of in-house Zuni and Navajo silversmiths, many of whom like Leo Poblano, Austin Wilson, Etsitty Tsosie, Frank Vacit, Della Casa, Roger Skeet and others were among the finest in

the business, to make such shockingly dramatic and elaborate large-scale pieces to attract and impress his exclusive high-end clientele, and, of course, obtain from them equally impressive prices.

At left, Charles Garrett (C.G.) Wallace, c. 1920’s. At center, a view of Zuni Pueblo, c. 1930. At right, The C.G. Wallace Trading Post at Zuni Pueblo, c. 1920 with C.G. Wallace in the center wearing a white hat pictured with some of his all-star Navajo and Pueblo silversmiths.

C.G. Wallace photos source and © Sotheby Parke-Bernet. Zuni Pueblo photo source and © Edward S. Curtis, U.S. Library of Congress.

“The Zuni Knife-Wing God (A-tchi-a la-to-pa), a sky being, has a combined human-bird form. Though an

animistic spirit, he holds no religious significance when rendered in silver but is merely decorative. As described

by anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing, who lived with the Zunis from 1879-1884:

'This curious god is the hero of hundreds of folklore tales, the tutelary deity of several societies of Zuni. He is represented as possessing a human form, furnished with flint knife-feathered pinions, and tail. His dress consists of

the conventional terraced cap (representative of his dwelling place among the clouds)... His weapons are the Great Flint-Knife of War, the Bow of the Skies (the Rainbow), and the Arrow of Lightning. His guardians or warriors are the Great Mountain Lion of the North and that of the upper regions. He was doubtless the original War God of the Zunis.'

-Quotation source and © Garland’s, U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology

This bracelet is a wonderful, sort of cross-cultural artwork standing at the precise intersection of traditional

Pueblo culture and craftsmanship and early 20th Century American tourist travel culture. While the Zuni Knife-Wing God is an extremely important and powerful Zuni cultural symbol, its use in jewelry is not religious in nature, but simply decorative.

The bracelet’s overall design is simply superb here with a marvelous and dramatic sense of scale, proportion and color. The eight separate inlay panel compositions are all most creatively designed and artistically rendered; beautiful, vivid and dynamic with a terrific sense of motion and energy. The hand craftsmanship of the extremely detailed stone and silver work is particularly outstanding, the stone-on-stone inlays of black jet, white shell, turquoise, orange coral and Spiny Oyster shell are incredibly complex and intricate, perfectly-cut, precisely-matched and all set into large and very finely-serrated silver bezels, the silverwork is most finely and sensitively done wilth subtle curvatures and contours which make the piece fit and feel extremely comfortably, especially for such a large-scale bracelet.

The bracelet’s inlaid Knife-Wing God figure is composed of no fewer than 88 (Yes, we counted, twice.) individually-cut

and meticulously hand-fitted together small pieces of the various stones and shells. The Knife-Wing figure itself measures an impressively large 2 1/2” in height by 2 1/2” in width at its widest point. The bracelet’s inner circumference end-to-end is 5 7/8” and the gap between the terminals is 15/16” for a total interior circumference of 6 13/16”.

The bracelet weighs a substantial, yet very comfortable 57 grams or 2 ounces. The stones and silver are in excellent original condition. The bracelet also has an excellent provenance; we originally purchased it eleven years ago from

the distinguished personal collection of one of the country's foremost collectors of and dealers in historic Pueblo and Navajo jewelry, the late Laura Anderson of Mattapoissett, MA.

We unconditionally guarantee that you will be seriously and frequently turning heads everywhere you go while wearing this exceptional piece, including, almost certainly, your own. We can tell you from our direct personal experience that no matter how long you own or how often you wear this piece, you will simply not be able to believe how good it is every single time you look at it.

SOLD

The Knife-Wing God figure is composed of eight separate inlay panels each enclosed within a serrated silver bezel. Accentuating these panels in and around them are ten very finely stamped applied silver “raindrops” and the figure’s face is flanked on both sides by applied silver wire decorations. The figure is further decorated on both sides by large applied silver panels with beautifully rendered chisel work accents. There are more finely-applied stamp work designs extending down both sides of the bracelet’s triple-split ingot-silver shank to the bracelets terminals. Clearly, a staggering amount of very highly-skilled and extremely detailed hand work went into making this fine sculptural piece.