Pueblo: Navajo

Betty Yellowhorse was born at home in the spring at Lupton, Arizona, which is on the Navajo Reservation. She is from the Keeonee Clan, which is "Towering Light". Betty, like most Native Americans, grew up in a home where art was an essential part of everyday life. Her mother, Anna Yellowhorse Tahy, was a weaver. Betty started making jewelry in the 70s when Indian jewelry first became popular outside the southwest. She suffered the heartbreak of seeing her designs copied and mass-produced by unscrupulous dealers and stopped making jewelry for a while. When she met and married Louis McCabe, she started helping him make his traditional coin necklaces (the Navajo people have used coins for jewelry making since about 1890 when bulk silver was difficult to obtain). She soon saw that there were no limits to what could be created using coins and so began the development of her distinctive line of jewelry. Some of the coins she uses date back as far as the 1870's with the addition of sterling silver, lapis, coral, opal, sugalite, turquoise, jet onyx or different types of shell. Her work can be seen at the Herald Museum in Phoenix, the Foxwood Casino in Connecticut, Santa Fe, Taos and Blue Zat Gems, NJ. Wearing Betty's jewelry is like wearing a little piece of history. Just think what these old coins have been through. The famous and infamous alike may have owned these coins. Too bad they can't tell us their stories.