When people think of turquoise Indian jewelry, they usually have one very specific look in mind: turquoise in a color that’s a dark robin’s-egg to deep sky blue, with a substantial black spiderweb matrix. What they think of, even though most of them don’t know it, is Morenci turquoise: It’s the classic, iconic, archetypal TURQUOISE as thing-in-itself when it comes to Indian jewelry.
Morenci turquoise comes from Arizona — specifically, from the Clifton-Morenci Mine in Greenlee County, in the southeastern corner of the state near the New Mexico border. The area had been worked for both copper and turquoise to one degree or another by white soldiers and settlers and business men since 1864, give or take. The original “mining man” to control the area was, ironically, one from my own home state: one William Church, a mining magnate from Detroit who bought the parcels in 1872 to add to his Detroit Copper Mining Company portfolio. However, mining in Michigan was a vastly different proposition, particularly in the 1870s, from mining in Arizona, where summer temperatures exceeded 100 degrees daily and access to water was a constant battle. Moreover, so the stories go, Goyathlay (known to history as Geronimo) and his people harried the Church operation semi-regularly. While Church had struck copper by 1880 and was engaged in getting it out of the earth, the burden became too onerous and he sold his claim to Phelps Dodge, already established in the area as an extensive mining operation (and one that would do major damage to tribal sacred lands in the century-plus to come).
By the mid-20th Century, copper mining was in full and profitable swing at Morenci, but with a twist: Reportedly, mine workers found the vein in the course of their work and began digging for the valuable blue stone. The company, incensed at the distraction from its mission (or, more accurately, its profits), dug up all the turquoise it could find and buried it all under tons of waste rock from the mining operations, so that the workers would be forced to return their attention strictly to copper. It was thought to be too deeply buried to be reachable in any cost-effective way. Nonetheless, in 1956, mining rights to the turquoise were granted to a white man named William Brown, who went by the nickname “Lucky” and who had spent years working turquoise deposits throughout the Mountain West. He, and subsequently his sons, worked the Morenci vein through the duration of the lease, which ended in 1954. Reportedly, the family still works the area and occasionally manages to extract a little, but the vast majority of the turquoise has already been mined. The family now cuts and cabs the stockpiled rough, so “new” Morenci does appear on the market, but most (perhaps all) of comprises new nuggets and cabochons from existing rough, not newly-mined turquoise. [See here for an explanation of the differences between “rough,” “nugget,” and turquoise in other “states of being.”]
Despite the fact that Morenci turquoise is no longer being mined (at least, not in any real way), it is not, generally speaking, an inherently high-value turquoise: Good-quality Morenci turquoise cabochons tend to run in the range of $6-$10 per carat. This is substantially higher than, say, your average Sleeping Beauty or Royston turquoise cabochons, which often run to $2-$3 per carat, but it’s nowhere near the value of real collector’s-grade turquoise — the top end of that scale is held firmly by Lander Blue, which can exceed $200 per carat for high-end cabs. [For a discussion of turquoise generally, with some references to comparative values, see here.] Morenci’s true value exists in its iconic look and its perception in the public consciousness as “real turquoise,” and in the increase in value it attains when combined with sterling silver or other materials to create beautiful Native art. And, of course, for people who love the stone, as we do, it’s inherently valuable just for its beauty of color and texture.
For Native artisans, one of the great advantages of Morenci turquoise is its relative cost-effectiveness. Because the color of high-quality Morenci is so intense, because it usually carries a bold dark matrix, and because it accepts a good polish even in a free-from nuggety state, it can be used to create beautiful Indian jewelry without the added cost of having it cut and cabbed to a mirror sheen. Classic Morenci is the deep blue color of the Western sky at mid-morning. Its spiderweb matrix, which is actually pyrite (also known as “fool’s gold”), appears inky black in most lights, accented by sparks of apparent silver where the flecks of pyrite make themselves better known. Even in its nuggety state, it’s a smooth, cool stone, the type that feels soothing to the touch, like a worry stone. An example from our inventory is the pendant shown at right, which appears on this necklace from our Other Artists: Miscellaneous Jewelry Gallery:
Clarita and Vera Tenorio (Kewa Pueblo) have created this single-strand fetish necklace out of dozens of tiny horses. Each horse is carved out of blue turquoise with a pale, almost golden-colored matrix, and is accented with jet inlay eyes. About 32″ long, the top of the strand is snugly wrapped with heavy-duty natural-fiber twine and accented with a single free-form turquoise stone. The added pendant is a wholly separate piece: a sterling silver water bird with a body of brilliant Morenci turquoise.
Turquoise; jet; sterling silver; natural-fiber twine
$375 + shipping, handling, and insurance
[Note: The Morenci turquoise water bird pendant has been removed, for reasons discussed here.]
I can attest to the feel of the stone in the pendant: As you gaze at it, to the upper left is a natural ridge; below it on the right is a hollow, perfectly fitted to a thumb. It’s impossible to resist stroking it. And the matrix itself is highly textured, but not precisely “rough”; it, too, feels good to the touch.
One of the drawbacks of any stone being regarded by the outside world as “classic” or “iconic” is that, for a certain segment of the potential customer base for Indian jewelry, it spoils the use of any other stone. I’ve written before about the difficulties some Navajo and Zuni silversmiths encountered in decades past in using the less expensive (but in its own way no less beautiful) Sleeping Beauty turquoise, also from southern Arizona:
As an aside, there was a time, in the early to mid-20th Century, when non-Native tourists to this area first seized on turquoise as a collector’s item and decided on their own that certain factors determined identification and value to the exclusion of all else. For a time, one of those factors was the presence of a black (which usually meant silvery pyrite, but it appeared black at a glance) spiderweb matrix in the stone. Unfortunately, they wanted such a stone in the jewelry made by Native artists in the Four Corners region, particularly those who did fine inlay work, for which turquoise with a lot of matrix is not especially useable. They began refusing to pay what the items were worth, even refusing to accept that the artists were indeed using turquoise, insisting that it couldn’t be turquoise without the “black” webbing. It often got rather ugly, to hear the stories, with tourists accusing hardworking Indian artisans of being liars, cheats, and thieves, all for representing their work honestly and accurately. So some resourceful artisans began creating their own webbing: They rubbed black shoe polish (bootblack) over the stones to work the color into the natural pores and crevices, then polished off the excess. Voilà! Instant “matrix.”
Why the need for a false “matrix?” Because white tourist had convinced themselves that there was exactly one form of “real turquoise,” and it was Morenci. If it didn’t look like Morenci, it couldn’t possibly be real turquoise; it must be crooked Indians trying to pass off fakes and steal their hard-earned dollars. [And all of the racism embodied in the noxious stereotypes that permitted such thought processes should give anyone pause for a few moments here.]
As noted in the passage above, inlay artisans prefer matrix-free turquoise, and the best [collectively] inlay artists are, unquestionably, those of Zuni Pueblo. The same is true of petit-point (also known as “needlepoint”) silversmiths, who bezel-set tiny, perfectly matched cabochons in complex, delicate work. But some Zuni artisans do use Morenci for larger pieces, and Morenci has long been a favorite of Diné (Navajo) silversmiths. One reason, of course, is affordability; another is local availability. But another major reason is style: Navajo silverwork tends toward the big and bold, and large chunky nuggets of brilliantly-hued turquoise are perfect for the pieces traditionally produced by Navajo silversmiths. Here’s an example from our inventory, also from our Other Artists: Miscellaneous Jewelry Gallery:
This big, bold, beautiful Navajo cuff does double duty as a watchband. The band itself is finely-worked sterling silver in the classic eagle-feather motif . Each side of the band features several carats’ worth of chunky Morenci cabochons in a brilliant sky blue. The watch shown is old, inexpensive, and nonworking, used for display purposes only. A vintage family piece from Wings’s private collection; artist unknown.
Sterling silver; large free-form Morenci turquoise nugget cabochons
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
In this case, the lighting in the gallery has altered the color in the photo a bit; the stones are actually a brilliantly clear deep sky blue. And like the stones in the pendant above, they are largely in their natural state: free-form, nuggety, lightly polished, smooth and yet textured — and, of course, highly touchable.
Today, it’s possible to buy Indian jewelry with Morenci cabochons that look like ordinary modern cabochons: silky smooth and polished to a reflective finish. They’re still beautiful, but to me, they lack the stunning natural beauty, the spirit, inherent in traditional Morenci turquoise nuggets. Fortunately, there are plenty of both types out there, and everyone can find something in the “real Indian turquoise” to suit his or her own taste.
Next week, more from a different turquoise mine.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
