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American Southwest evokes many images. Deserts of sagebrush
and cactus flowering in springtime. Navajo Indians herding
sheep and weaving colourful wool rugs.
Ten gallon hats, rawhide fringe, and tooled leather boots
from the Wild West days of cowboys, gunslingers, and hanging
judges. Pottery, rugs and baskets. Turquoise and coral silver
jewellery. Indian jewellery!
Perhaps of all the Southwestern images,
turquoise and silver is the one most widely shared. Indian
jewelry has been made for centuries; today it is created,
worn and sold almost everywhere in the Southwest.
From ancient times to the present, Indian
jewellery has been a uniquely American art form. Wilde Ones
has in some small way tried to recreate this environment
in the tiniest little corners of its shop in London and
give a small glimpse into the world of the Native American
Indians of today.
The emergence of the Native American facet of the shop came
about naturally as I grew up in California and in my formative
years had many opportunities to travel to the American Southwest.
I had always been interested in Indian life and art and
didn't realise how interested people over here would be.
I continue to travel and bring back many interesting and
unique items made by the Natives themselves. The recent
interest in fashion has spurned a whole variety of fakes
and cheap foreign imports. Real Native American work is
rare and to the experienced eye obvious when copied or when
using simulated blue stones.
It is with this knowledge and experience
that we guarantee that all our stones are real unadulturated
turquoise and coral, and all the silver is 925 sterling
which is the highest quality silver found. On some of the
antique pieces this is more difficult to prove as they did
not use the 925 or the sterling stamp, and silver bullion
was not as readily available to the silversmiths. Hence
coins of the time were melted down to make the family jewellery.These
days you can still find some of these coins being reused
in belts, buttons, earrings etc.
Aside from jewellery we also have many decorative
items such as shields, bow and arrows with quiver and quirt
beautifully decorated beaded and fringed. Basketry, pottery,
stone carvings and wool blankets are among the many other
things that we carry. We look forward to serving all your
Native American requirements in the near future!
Greg
Shop for Native
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