30s RARE YELLOW THUNDERBIRD SANTO DOMINGO NECKLACE

BRAND Unknown.

DESCRIPTION
This is something really special!
Never seen another of these with the thunderbird with the yellow face!

Following the 1929 stock market crash and the subsequent Great Depression, spectacularly inventive jewellery crafted from found, repurposed, and plastic materials, appeared for sale from residents of Santo Domingo Pueblo.
A story says that a train crashed and the Kewa Pueblo used whatever they found in the cargo to produce amazing jewellery!
For example the black plastic on the back face, was taken from the batteries.

Santo Domingo (now often referred to as Kewa Pueblo) benefited from its location near both the Santa Fe Railway and the highway for selling these wonderful and, at the time, wonderfully affordable pieces.

Santo Domingo is one of the Rio Grande Pueblos in Northern New Mexico. For centuries the Pueblo people have been mining turquoise at Cerrillos, south of what is now Santa Fe, and have been acquiring other turquoise from as far away as Nevada, California and Colorado.
“Santo Domingo jewellery” and “Kewa Pueblo jewellery” are interchangeable terms. Both refer to the beautiful and cleanly cut Native American jewellery made by the Pueblo peoples on a specific reservation in New Mexico called Kewa Pueblo.

MATERIALS Bones (or horn?) beads, stones and plastic (black side).

YEAR Great Depression Era (1930s).

CONDITION Unpolished to preserve the amazing patina. No sign of damage or repair. No missing beads. No missing stones.

MEASUREMENTS
Lace circumference - 23 inches.
Pendant - 1.75 inches x 2 inches.