Native American Bracelets
5 Traditional Native American Jewelry Styles
The term Native American Jewelry instantly takes our minds to silver jewelry embellished with turquoise and petroglyph symbols. In Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni culture, Indian jewelry holds great significance due to which their unique designs and styles have gained a worldwide reputation.
In this article, we have shared different styles of Native American Jewelry that reflect the diversity of Indian culture.
Single Stone Jewelry
The most common design in Indian jewelry is a single stone piece. Whether you pick up a Native American bracelet or necklace, you will always find a single stone design featuring a beautiful stone, mostly turquoise, as a stand-alone centerpiece. Some of the widely recognizable stones that Native Americans used include opal, onyx, oyster, jet, calcite, charoite, agate, and mother of pearl.
Multi Stones Jewelry
Another popular design in Indian jewelry is multi stones. Craftspeople used more than one stone to give uniqueness to their jewelry. In basic muti-stones design, you will find three to five stones of the same kind. Typically, the stones are skillfully arranged in a particular order, either placed from largest to smallest or the biggest stone in the middle while small stones surrounding and completing the pattern.
Cluster or Beaded Jewelry
Similar to multi-stone jewelry, cluster jewelry is created with several stones, carefully placed in a close arrangement. To create a cluster, Native American use either similar sized or similar shaped eye-catching stones and place them freely to create a strong pattern. In Navajo culture, people also use beads to create beautiful Navajo beaded bracelets and necklaces using bold patterns and colors.
Rainbow Jewelry
Every piece of rainbow jewelry is always unique because of no two designs ever the same. Rainbow jewelry is created using multi-stones of different colors to create a cluster. While creating a pattern for rainbow jewelry, Native American keeps a minimum of three color variations. They use stones of the same type but different hues or shades that are noticeably different from one another. Each jewelry artist adds their uniqueness to the rainbow designs.
Inlay Designed Jewelry
While crafting inlay design, designers create designs and patterns of their choice. Mostly flattened stones are used that are properly cut, shaped, measured, and carefully laid to complete the design. The inlay jewelry designs are more popular in the Zuni tribe. However, you will notice different types of skillful patterns in all Native American inlay designed jewelry.
These were the most common Native American jewelry style that you will find to add to your wardrobe collection.
Author’s Bio – The author is an online blogger. This article is about Native American jewelry styles