Marta,
My foster daughter that I raised Is Navajo Indian. I also taught in
upward bound post college. Our students were off the Rez (what is
known as the Navajo and Hopi areas of the mass reservation of Az, and
some Pueblo from New Mexico. Out of curiosity because I had never
heard of this even when i worked in high end Indian Jewelry stores, I
called of few of the people I know. If you were told this in
Santa Fe (one of the stores I worked at was there) You bought a
story.
I’ve cleaned up many many pawn pieces. Mostly they leave the patina
so that the people who pawned it would know their piece, and those
buying pawn once it was no longer pawned, would know it was old and
pawn.
In fact once I called my foster daughter he real mother asked if I
could clean all of here jewelry when I’m out there this summer. It
hadn’t been cleaned in a few years, and one of her other real
daughters who use to do it, moved to South Dakota.
Final word, beware of some marketing stories told to tourists.
A G G I E (not age like the darn spell checker turns it into)