Navajo
Elsie Benally Yazzie of the Folded Arms Clan was born ca. 1921 in McKinley County, New Mexico. She was an active silversmith 1940’s-1990’s.
With 12 children to feed while living in a hogan 20 miles south of Gallup, N.M., Elsie Yazzie’s time was consumed with this work; the income from the silverwork was critical. She and her husband, Chee, worked together to create concho belts, spoons and other items that he would take into town to sell to one of the local trading posts, supplementing the income he made working for the railroad. According to her son, Lee Yazzie, Elsie always seemed busy with this work but somehow also managed to give her children that special loving attention they each needed. She taught jewelry making to her children, nine of whom are jewelers today.
Elsie was featured in NMAI (National Museum of the American Indian) magazine. The article was titled the Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family. Elsie did much of her work in the 60's and 70's and then passed down the tradition to her children Lee, Raymond and Mary Yazzie.
“My mom always use to say that what you work with, like the turquoise, the coral, the jet, and all those other things, the medicine man use those as offerings to different things. She use to tell us in our history, the turquoise and the shells and the jet and all this…. Those were given to us through life. They have a prayer with it, and you are supposed to say a prayer for it. (Raymond Yazzie, Elsie’s son)
