Pedro Jose Quivera using a pump-drill

Portrait of a man (named Ah-fit-che, better known as Pedro Jose Quivera), the governor of San Felipe pueblo, sitting on a blanket, demonstrating the use of a pump-drill, a tool used to drill holes in flat turquoise and shell beads. According to James Stevenson's original note for this photograph (prepared circa 1885), 'the point of the drill is a small flake of flint fastened in a slit in the lower end of the shaft which is tightly wrapped either with a string or sinew. When the stone point becomes dull it is sharpened by flaking the tip in the same manner that flint arrow points are made. The wheel is made sometimes of stone, wood, or bone, the former being preferable. The piece of turquois[e] to be drilled is placed in a suitable cavity in a block of wood and held there by the thumb of the left hand while the drill is manipulated by the right, as shown in the picture. Turquois[e] and shell bead drilling is extensively practised by the Indians of the Rio Grande valley.'

Due to the nature of these images, prints will reproduce any signs of age, wear or damage that occurred before they were archived by the Pitt Rivers Museum.