Pacific northwest native american6/4/2023 ![]() ![]() Our jewelry and our clothing represent where we come from. ![]() As Jim Hart summed up, “For our people, what we wear is who we are. The marginal, almost non-existent, treatment of jewelry in the vast scholarly tomes on Northwest Coast art is contrasted by contemporaneous factual materials documenting the ubiquitous presence of silver bracelets at gatherings along the coast throughout the last two centuries. The fundamental history of Northwest Coast jewelry has been doubly marginalized by the biases of art history and anthropology, a scholarship that only lately has acknowledged the importance of art for sale (tourist art) and that still codifies work in precious metals as “craft” rather than “fine art.” But it is in keeping with the Northwest Coast art aesthetic that the body would be adorned and decorated with the same attention and grace as houses, canoes, dance regalia and other personal and community possessions. I find that by tracking artworks, ceremonial, commercial, and personal contexts can be investigated in ways that illuminate both the details and the broad strokes of cultural and social exchanges. One of the goals of this dissertation is to advance the understanding of Northwest Coast jewelry beyond the museum catalog card-beyond just the facts of when, where, and, if lucky, by whom-to explore how objects function in multiple contexts and how meaning is mutable, dependant always on specific contextual circumstances. ![]() Bracelets are used in various ceremonial contexts, are part of a large market for Native commercial goods, and perhaps most importantly can symbolize idiosyncratic familial and interpersonal connections. Jewelry-specifically silver and gold engraved bracelets-can be a valued marker of crest display and clan identity. The central thesis of this dissertation is that Northwest Coast jewelry has always served multiple functions and values in Native cultures, only some of which are discernible from the object itself. ![]()
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