After Bosque Redondo, cotton clothing in Anglo-American and Mexican styles became popular. Today Navajo men wear typical western ranch and farm clothing: blue jeans, shirts, and broad-brimmed felt or straw hats. The women still prefer the bright calico skirts and velveteen blouses which they copied from the styles worn by American women in the mid-19th century. The skirt is ankle length and voluminous, containing from 12 to 15 yards of material. Moccasins of dyed buckskin are still popular with the women at home, but modish shoes and stockings have been adopted for town wear. In winter, both men and women use commercially made blankets draped over their shoulders for protection against the cold.
Today many Navajo men take off-reservation jobs with railroads, in lumber camps, or as migratory workers following crop harvests. Sheep still play a major role in the family economy, and annual income is supplemented by the sale of rugs and, sometimes, silverwork and jewelry.
The Navajos have worn silver ornaments for many years. A 1795 Spanish reference mentions that the Navajo captains were rarely seen without their silver ornaments, but there is no evidence that they made them at that time. They got most of their silver pieces by trading, and picked up others on raids against Ute and Commanche Indians, who in turn had obtained them from eastern Indians who were in contact with Anglo-American or French traders. A great many silver ornaments probably came from the Spaniards.
Present evidence indicates that the Navajos learned silversmithing sometime after 1850. Old silversmiths in the tribe have claimed that Mexicans taught them the craft during the Bosque Redondo captivity, citing their first smith, Atsidi Sani or “Old Smith,” who was taught by a Mexican blacksmith.
An early Navajo silversmith named Slim-Maker-of-Silver. Museum of New Mexico
Navajo silver bracelets and ring from the period 1880-1900. Smithsonian Institution