About the Author

John Adair, (1913-1997) was a founder of the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild and the chief anthropologist on the staff of the Cornell Navajo Field Health Project.

Adair received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1937 and a doctorate from the University of New Mexico, where he studied from 1946 to 1948. He taught anthropology at Cornell early in his career and at San Francisco State University from 1964 to 1978.

Reviews

With the care of a meticulous and thorough scholar, the author has told the story of his several years' investigation of jewelry making among the Southwestern Indians. So richly decorative are the plates he uses for his numerous illustrations showing the jewelry itself, that the conscientious narrative is surrounded by an atmosphere of genuinely exciting visual experience."" - Dallas Morning News.

""The wealth of detail, the exact documentation, and the excellent tables, charts and plates make The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths a book of exceptional worth."" - American Sociological Review.

""The analysis of the economic aspects of the craft is painstaking and well carried out. Reading between the lines one must inevitable envisage the long weary hours spent in traveling to the isolated hogans and trading posts in quest of these data. This is no armchair compilation, but one that carries with it the tang of juniper wood burning in winter hogans, of the wet earth after a sturdy 'he' rain and the odor of coffee and mutton cooking over open fires. It is a labor of love plus a lot of sweat."" - New York Herald Tribune.

For the first time in anthropological history, Mr. Adair presents the development of the Pueblo silversmiths and includes a roster of native Indian smiths which will delight the hearts of all collectors of silver. - New York Herald Tribune.