FORM & LINE

An informative primer on the diverse beauty of Northwest Coast Indigenous jewelry.

An informative primer on the diverse beauty of Northwest Coast Indigenous jewelry.

Indigenous cultures around the world have developed distinctive forms of adornment that reflect their environment and their ethos. Greenstone pendants are synonymous with Māori culture in New Zealand, turquoise creations from the American Southwest are world-renowned, and tagua nut jewelry has become a top export for Native Ecuadorians. Similarly, Indigenous artists from the Northwest Coast of North America—from Alaska to Oregon—are amongst the only peoples in the world to create jewelry by hand-engraving precious metals. The evolution of this art form reflects both the development of jewelry making along the coast and the aesthetic systems of the cultures that live there.

Engraving itself has a long history. Seljuk artisans of modern-day Turkey were producing intricately incised objects by the 11th century, and by the beginning of the 15th century, artisans in what are now Italy and Germany were hand-engraving printing plates to create reproductions of two-dimensional artworks. In North America, Indigenous artists did not begin to engrave silver jewelry on a regular basis until Canada settled the Oregon boundary dispute with the United States in 1846. The resulting treaty established the international border along the 49th parallel and precipitated settlement and colonial activity in the Colony of Vancouver Island and around the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Vancouver, which created a