West by Southwest Ernie Bulow

THE NAME GAME

THE NAMELESS COUPLE WITH A DOZEN MONIKERS

his article might seem

Tout of character, and a little too specialized. In defense, in Gallup, the Native American jewelry business far outgrosses any other merchandise, and always has. Gallup may have started life as a train stop, then a coal mine, but it soon became THE INDIAN CAPITOL OF THE WORLD. By the turn of the last century Indian jewelry had become an important commodity. A century later we find a dozen names that carry super sales power.

EVERYBODY IS NAMED DISHTA, OR WEAHKEE OR POBLANO. Leo Poblano only did stonework, the same as the Cellicions,

THIS IS THE CLASSIC C ELLICION KNIFEWING. THE CURL OF THE WINGS DATES IT TO THE MIDDLE YEARS names on pieces where the actual artist was unknown outside the village?

Neva and Arnold Cellicion were stone workers, they never set their own pieces, thus are forever unknown. In Skystone and Silver there is a bracelet shown in the fourth color section [they are not paginated] attributed to Navajo John Bedonie. It is a nice Cellicion Knifewing and Bedonie can take credit for the atrocious silver work. In another book there is an

TOM WEAHKEE ATTRIBUTION-CELLICION EARLY YEARS--BUT LOOK HOW THE WINGS ARE ATTACHED and yet all kinds of often dreadful things are attributed to him. Of course, there is the influence of C.

G. Wallace who particularly liked Leo’s pieces (he also carved charming fetishes). Wallace deliberately created several superstars. Why not put one of the “good” entire concho belt similarly misattributed.

This phenomenon has a simple explanation. There is no question in my mind that traders know perfectly well who made every item in their inventory. But if that’s right, where do names like Gordon Leak and Mingos House come from?

In the famous 1976 auction catalog there are many pieces with the wrong names on them.

ARNOLD PREPARING FOR RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY

Ernie Bulow

So, ultimately, it was the trader who supplied names of artists to the public. Never more than half-a-dozen traders were working out of Zuni. The secondary market jumped from 5 to five hundred, and names got jumbled, changed, lost, and the public would never know. Take for example the cast Knifewings attributed to Juan De Dios in the Kennedy Museum of Art at Ohio University. Where they got De Dios, who died around 1940, is not a mystery. The design is the same as the original, but the silverwork is more precise and the whole piece(s) seems too slick. I have seen a number of these, and some are signed with the initials of a known Navajo caster who worked for the Tobe Turpen Shop.

MARIETTA LEEKELA SOSEAH SET THEIR WORK. Manufacturing—faking—is widespread, then and now. This is why, of course, traders pushed their best people, either through technique or design or both. But many pieces arrived without a name. This has not improved much. Books on the subject of Zuni jewelry have been rather sparse and the authors don’t ever set foot in Zuni. The two exceptions are Adair’s Navajo and Pueblo Silversmithing 1944 and the five small books documenting the Zuni jewTHIS LATER EXAMPLE IS ATTRIBUTED TO THE FICTIONAL MINGOS HOUSE THIS BRACELET WAS SET BY SISTER MARIETTA CELLICON RAINBOW MAN

TEDDY WEAHKEE ATTRIB. KNIFEWING HAS NEW ELEMENTS OF STYLE-PINCHED WAIST AND WINGS LOST THEIR CURL

most far-fetched one is in Gregory Schaaf’s American Indian Jewelry. Schaaf attributes the Knifewing piece to Mingos House, one of the fictional names used by Wallace. Mr. Schaaf thanks Cowboys and Indians Magazine for the information. elry collection of Toshio Sei. They are riddled with errors even though these men spent a lot of time in Zuni. Why would a person write a book on Zuni jewelry without finding anything out about the piece? The

Neva was from the Leekela family who were also great silversmiths. Many of the Cellicion pieces were set by her sister Marietta. Neva told me that Marietta and Teddy Weahkee set a lot of their work, which explains why Teddy Weahkee would be shown as the maker. Sadly, she told me, they sold piles of their sets to C.

G. Wallace, who had them set by house Navajo silversmiths.

Arnold Cellicion (1928-1974) and Neva Leekela (1930-2012) had a limited repertoire, a Knifewing and a Rainbow Man, but each was excellent—the Knifewing having no similar versions. When Mr. Sei heard about the maker of the marvelous Knifewing, he passed it on to me. I knew some of the family because of their beadwork. Since there are no signatures, how do we establish their claim to the design?

I was sent to see a third-generation silversmith who happened to have an example, unset, in the family for years. I thought it was gorgeous, but the family didn’t want to sell it. In the next couple of years, I spoke with Neva several times, but it’s impossible to ask all the right questions.

On the earliest pieces the curl of the wings was defined. The more curl, the earlier it is. Neva continued to work long after Arnold was murdered. Her daughter tells me her hats were smaller and her wings curled less and less as time passed.

TOM WEAHKEE FALSE ATTRIB. LIKELY

This week I found three CelliNAVAJO SILVERWORK cion pieces attributed to Tom Weahkee. That was a new one. Well, Teddy gets credit for a lot of the Cellicion’s pieces, why not his brother Tom? Except Tom didn’t do this kind of work—was famous for large silverwork, like hollow ware and lamp shades. Teddy and Tom were not brothers but step-brothers and Tom, I’m told, was very private and solitary. He lived behind the trading post in a small trailer.

One thing that has bothered me for years, (no jokes here) is the logical disconnect that would insist that Teddy Weahkee made these same Knifewings, or Tom, or any other competent silversmith. Why would somebody of Weahkee’s stature copy other people’s designs? Believe me, in Zuni nothing passes without being noticed. Such a thing would simply not be done.

SOMETIMES NAVAJO SMITHS DID GREAT