LF PNW Native Peoples (Traditional) Jewelry
I’ve been incredibly infuriated lately by the fact that every store within an hour of me that does in fact ensure the people who made the pieces they’re selling get an appropriate cut of the profit is bringing in pieces from the Southwestern or Central US tribes. If I wanted that, I would’ve gotten some when I lived in Texas.
Anyone in the PNW know where I can find local native artisans selling their works? I’m in the Spokane Valley vicinity (considering the fact that I’m across state lines).
3 Replies
I'll preface this by saying I've never been to the PNW and this is just stuff I googled/some stuff I kind of know in the back of my head so take it with a grain of salt.
It's a bit of a hike, but I think you'll have better luck looking closer to Lewiston and the Nez Perce Reservation: the Nimiipuu/Nez Perce have a long history of jewelry making (that's where the name "Nez Perce" comes from) although they don't make it with precious metals and stones like the Navajo, it's usually made from elk bone, porcupine quill, and glass beads.
The Nez Perce Tribe has a list of member-owned businesses on their website: https://nezperce.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/NPT-Business-Directory-2024-small.pdf It looks like a lot of the businesses under "Arts and Crafts" make jewelry, but there doesn't tend to be much info online, they mostly just have facebook or ig pages. You can probably dm some of them to see if you can have things shipped to you if you don't want to travel 2 hours each way to buy earrings.
I also found this shop in Lewiston, but they seem to not have most of their stock available online compared to what shows on their Google Maps page: https://www.nezpercetraditions.com/shop/jewelry-accessories/3?page=1&limit=30&sort_by=category_order&sort_order=asc
Nez Perce Traditions, LLC
Jewelry & Accessories | Nez Perce Traditions, LLC
I'm not surprised that you're mostly seeing southwestern jewelry--the silver/turquoise style that you're used to seeing is not that old and was inspired by Spanish jewelry. It was always made with the non-Native market in mind, and it's the primary Native jewelry tradition to become mainstream outside of the tribe that invented it. (Of course there are still plenty of Navajo and other Native Americans that wear and make it, these are living and evolving cultures and being a relatively new tradition doesn't make it "inauthentic")
yeah. i don’t consider the style inauthentic by any means, i’m mostly just like “why on earth is there absolutely nothing within 50 miles of me that’s traditionally made by local tribes”
i do know there’s also some native art show weekends that happen here; i looked them up after i made this thread, though i also noticed they come from a wide breadth of tribes. which is cool!! i like migration. i just also don’t remember who’s from where off the top of my head. 😓