Silver Turquoise ring, said to have been given to C.G. Jung by a member of the Navajo Nation

Carl Jung--

Silver ring set with a natural turquoise

said to have been presented to Carl Jung by a Native American, and later presented by Jung to H.G. Baynes

A RARE RELIC OF JUNG'S MEETINGS WITH NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES. This ring is said to have been given to Jung by a Navajo, and is almost certainly connected with Jung's visit to the American South-West in January 1925. Jung and his party undertook a wide-ranging tour during their short visit to New Mexico, visiting Native American tribes in Taos Pueblo and Frijoles Canyon. His time in Taos Pueblo, where he had the opportunity to converse at length with a tribal leader whose name he transliterated as Ochwiay Biano, had a profound effect as he recalled in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. Jaffe (1963):

See,” Ochwiay Bianco said, “how cruel the whites look. Their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and distorted by folds. Their eyes have a staring expression; they are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something; they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think they are mad.”

I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad.

“They say they think with their heads,” he replied.

“Why of course. What do you think with,” I asked him in surprise.

“We think here,” he said, indicating his heart.

I fell into a long meditation. For the first time in my life, as it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture of the real white man [....] What we from our point of view call colonisation, missions to the heathen, spread of civilisation, etc., has another face – the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel intentness for distant quarry – a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen. 

H.G. Baynes (1882-1943) worked closely with Jung as a translator and analyst from the 1920s onwards (see also lots 139 and 141). His family recall this ring as being a highly prized possession which he had received from Jung who had, in turn, received it from a member of the Navajo Nation. Navajo jewellery is well-known for working with silver and turquoise. 

PROVENANCE:

H.G. ("Peter") Baynes; thence by descent