Vintage Zuni Silver, Turquoise, Coral Knife Wing Pin Pendant Necklace

Our Zuni Knife Wing Pin Pendant Necklace is a commanding example of the intricate inlay work for which Zuni jewelers are renowned. Likely created in the 1970s and unsigned, it possesses the presence and complexity of an earlier collector’s piece. Jean Marie has traveled the Southwest and collected Native American jewelry for decades, yet she has never encountered a Knife Wing of this extraordinary scale. At 3½ inches tall, it makes an immediate statement when worn: bold, graphic, and wonderfully modern in its use of line, color, and form. Suspended from a simple black leather cord, the figure becomes the entire focus; it can also be worn as a pin.

The figure represented is Knife Wing, known in Zuni tradition as Achiyalatopa. In Zuni stories, Knife Wing is associated with strength and the War Chiefs, and is remembered as a figure who helped guide the Zuni people to their homelands. The imagery has become an enduring part of the visual language of Zuni jewelry, but its meaning is more nuanced than the simplified descriptions often found in the marketplace. This piece honors that tradition through its dramatic, finely balanced interpretation of the figure.

Zuni Pueblo lies in western New Mexico, and its jewelry tradition became especially celebrated during the twentieth century for remarkable lapidary skill. Zuni artists developed an international reputation for the patient cutting, fitting, and polishing of turquoise, jet, coral, and shell into intricate pictures and patterns. Inlay work of this kind demands both a painter’s eye for color and a stone cutter’s precision. Every tiny section must be individually cut, ground, shaped, polished, and fitted into the silver framework before the composition can be finished as a unified whole.

Here, vivid turquoise, coral, luminous mother-of-pearl shell, and deep black jet or onyx are arranged in dozens of individual fragments across the sculpted silver figure. Tiny triangles, rectangles, and irregular slivers create movement through the wings, headdress, body, and limbs. The silverwork is equally compelling, with dimensional edges, carefully formed details, and darkened recesses that heighten the contrast of the inlay. The result has an unexpectedly contemporary feeling—part jewelry, part miniature sculpture—despite its deep connection to a long-standing Zuni artistic tradition.

Its unsigned status is part of its mystery, not a diminution of its artistry. The scale, weight, density of the inlay, and strength of the design point to a maker of exceptional patience and command. No factory-made piece could reproduce this exact arrangement of natural materials, or the human decisions visible in every small segment of stone and shell.

Jean Marie selected this exceptional piece because it embodies what she loves most about Native American jewelry: artistry with a point of view, a sense of history, and the ability to transform what one wears into a personal statement. Whether pinned to a black coat, worn over white linen, or suspended as a dramatic pendant, it is a piece for the woman who does not wish to disappear into the background. Collectible, sculptural, and impossible to overlook, it is a work of wearable art with the power to become part of its next wearer’s story.

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Likely dating to the 1970s  
3.5" x 2.5"  
Leather necklace included  
Made in New Mexico, USA