Having just visited the latest turquoise exhibit at the Indian Arts and Culture Museum in Santa Fe, I am still savoring the power and beauty of the mineral and wonder at what humans have made of it.
It came to my attention that turquoise, like so many things in society, can be elusive and illusive when it comes to assigning value.
For example, not long ago wooden beads painted turquoise were discovered in a dig at an ancestral pueblo archaeological site. From this discovery and other contemporary work, we know it is the color of turquoise and not the fragile, small deposits of blended cooper, aluminum and iron that have value in the eyes and mind of indigenous people.
Further, there are no separate distinct words for green and blue in the many tribal groups that occupied and still occupy much of the US Southwest.
What? No words to distinguish blue from green? That boggles my anglo brain.
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