tions
of merely mechanical art, where thousands of objects of a given type
of design are turned out annually in a highly-organized silversmithing
establishment. With these Indians we have the " personal note " that is
too often missed in the ornaments of our day. This Navajo industry has
received much encouragement from the managers of the Santa Fé Railroad,
and from its agencies. Although the art among the Navajos is generally
believed to have been introduced by Spanish influence, the fact that
before the Spanish Conquest the native Mexicans were able to work
metals with considerable skill would make it not improbable that it
spread to the New Mexico tribes, and perhaps from them to the ancestors
of the Navajos of to-day. The Navajo Indians belong to the Athapascan
race and emigrated from the northwestern coast. Copper had been worked
into ornaments from of old by Indians of the same stock in Alaska, and
some remains indicate that this was the case, in rare instances, with
the Navajos. The superiority of the Navajos of a later time to the
Pueblos as silversmiths, may, perhaps, result from their already
acquired knowledge of copper-working. As the Navajo men had not the
occupation of farming, as had the Pueblos, silversmithing gained favor
among them as a fad, as a means of relieving the tedium of idleness.
There is rarely any tendency to transmit this art directly from father
to son, individual preferences being the chief factors. Indeed there is
so little of the caste spirit among the Navajos that the occupation of
the father counts for but little in determining that of the son. This
is largely dependent upon the fact that descent is principally traced
through the mother. Exogamy, marrying outside the clan, is the
orthodox code of the Navajos, a man being expected to avoid taking a
wife from the clan to
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