Rajashri - Royalty - Black and White with Silver Bone Choker

Jewelry styles were different in every American Indian tribe, but the differences were less marked than with other arts and crafts, because jewelry and the materials used for making it (beads, shells, copper and silver, ivory, amber, turquoise and other stones) were major trade items long before European arrival in America. After colonization, Native American jewelry-making traditions remained strong, incorporating, rather than being replaced by, new materials and techniques such as glass beads and more advanced metalworking techniques. There are two very general categories of Native American jewelry: metalwork, and beadwork.