Customer Reviews

Zuni: A Village of Silversmiths

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Like _The Fetish Carvers of Zuni_, which came out at around the same time, this is a well formatted, accessibly written book full of helpful illustrations. _Zuni: A Village of Silversmiths_ is a larger book, covering a larger topic perhaps.

The book opens with a translated transciption (that is to say, printed text in English) of some older Zuni ladies responding to questions about why they wear jewelry and which jewelry they choose to wear and why. It gives a nice starting point to the text. This opening section is called "A Conversation between Zuni Seniors and Milford Nahohai."

The next section, "The Inside and the Outside," was written by Jim Ostler. As we read on, we are first introduced to Zuni, the people, and Zuni, the place. There is a lot of history and culture to cover in this background section, to get us up to speed to understand the setting for the story. But it is not too bad -- almost every page has at least one interesting photo, old ones in black and white and new ones in color. It's not as good as a trip to the southwest, but it helps.

Marian Rodee was the lucky one to take on "Historic and Contemporary Jewelry," the meat of the book. There are lovely features about individual artisans and their families, including Bernice and Robert Leekya, the Iule Family, Clark Couyancy, Eleanor Ahiyite, Lorraine Laweka, Alice Quam, Bonnie Quam, Bryant Waatsa, Jr., Edith Tsabetsaye, Linda Hustitio Wheeler, Ed Beyuka, Andrew and Don Dewa, Gus Panteah, Arnie and Duran Gaspar, Olivia Panteah, Veronica Poblano, Dennis Edaakie, Rolanda Haloo, Carlton Jamon and Smokey Gchachu. Of course, this book is now a dozen years old, and the current roster of Zuni silversmiths will have changed and will continue to do so.

Then there are two more "conversations": one between Charles Hustito and Jim Ostler, and another with Milford Nahohai and Jim Ostler. The conversations are interesting and fun to read, and also well illustrated.

There is a short bibliography and an index.

My only complaint about this book is that it does not have, as the fetish carver books do, any family tree illustrations. Family tree diagrams can be very helpful in understanding how the artists and artisans are related. But I cannot remain dissatisfied even for a minute, really. It's a fine book and I highly recommend it!