The Horsehair Weavers

Ramon, 43, is the matriarch of a remarkable family that boasts more than 20 percent of the 50 horsehair weavers of the Tohono O'odham Nation. When they first noticed their Mexican neighbors using fine ropes crafted from horsehair, the O'odham, with a centurieslong tradition of utilizing whatever came to hand to survive in the harsh Sonoran Desert, started making their own ropes. “It just evolved from there to what it is now,” says Terrol Dew Johnson, co-director of Tohono O'odham Community Action (TOCA), a community development group that established the Tohono O'odham Basketweavers Organization.

For centuries tribes traded baskets, but as they shifted from traditional trade and subsistence to Western-style economies in the early 20th century, the O'odham began selling baskets to non-Indians.

Ramon says O'odham women first started using hair from horses' tails for miniature baskets in “about the 1940s, I think, for the tourist trade.” Johnson believes that women began making baskets, trays and fetishes as small as a baby's thumbnail even earlier, in the 1920s or 1930s.

Today, frog, mouse, cat and turtle fetishes vie with diminutive O'odham trays and baskets for collectors. Bob Nuss, who owns Drumbeat Indian Arts in Phoenix, says that most horsehair products sell to non-Indian collectors and tourists.

“I've had cats and mice in here before, but what the local Indian community wants are horsehair earrings and bola ties,” says Nuss, who advises potential buyers to look for tight stiches, neat patterns and straight coils.

“My grandma and my mom did baskets,” says Ramon, who started weaving at age 11. “First I learned how to weave yucca. Then I learned horsehair.” Ramon expertly splices a 3-foot strand of hair onto the coil, forming the foundation for another petite version of the yucca and bear grass baskets once used by the O'odham for storing, preparing and cooking food. “We would shake out corn and wheat, and shake corn kernels and hot coals into the basket to bake it,” Ramon says.

“Knowing what people did to survive, most of my students don't know that baskets weren't made to sell, but to use in daily life,” Ramon adds. The acclaimed artist demonstrates her art at TOCA's Sells store and at workshops across the Southwest. She used to teach basketry at Hasan Preparatory & Leadership School in Tucson.

Gathering and preparing native plants for more traditional O'odham basketry requires days of arduous labor. “We have to wear long sleeves and gloves to keep from getting scratched or bitten by bugs or stung by scorpions,” says Ramon's daughter Faith, 19. This may account for horsehair's popularity.

Ramon used to cut the tails from wild horses. “It takes two or three washings to get all the dirt out,” says Faith-not to mention the hazards inherent in yanking hair from a horse's tail. But horses in the Sells area can rest easy these days; Ramon now purchases horse hair from Tandy Leather.

Johnson says that Ramon's baskets helped support her through many tough times. “Her baskets paid her way through nursing school.” Today, the bulk of Ramon's income comes from weaving, rather than nursing.

Ramon says, “If I finish a 6-inch squash blossom tray and it looks straight, Terrol will buy it for $1,200 to $1,500.” Ramon's smaller trays sell for around $250. However, a mouse that rests easily on a dime sells for as little as $12 at Indian art markets.

It takes Ramon three months of “working when it's quiet” to produce a 3-inch tray with the Man-in-the-Maze pattern; a 1-inchhigh kitten, complete with whiskers and tail, takes an entire day to produce.

Ramon also crafts earrings and necklace pendants, such as the set she recently completed for the wife of former Tohono O'odham Nation Chairman Edward D. Manuel.

Ramon works her horsehair magic from her gray stucco home in Sells. A ladder scrounged from a bunk bed leads Ramon's grandchildren, nieces and nephews up to a treehouse built with scrap lumber in the crotch of a tree. The yard is landscaped “rez” style in wild bushes and trees. Her tidy living room brims with baskets, pictures and baby paraphernalia from Ramon's growing brood.

Ramon has instilled her sense of independence in her seven daughters, who all weave. “My daughters used the money they made from baskets to pay for their own school clothes,” says Ramon proudly. Her three oldest grandchildren and her mother also weave.

Ramon's 9-year-old granddaughter Shedava bounces over. “I've made three baskets now!” she cries before running off to join her cousins clustered around the treehouse.

Once every O'odham family could boast several weavers; however the number of traditional artisans has dropped dramatically. Johnson says the necessity to participate in a wage economy, the movement of Indians to cities and the continuing pressure to assimilate into mainstream society frequently contribute to a reduction in artisans in tribal communities. “The elderlies are starting to pass on,” says Ramon. But take heart: Ramon's weaving clan as well as the weaving classes at TOCA and Hasan are helping to refuel a resurgence in traditional arts. TOCA also pays weavers far higher wholesale prices than do many dealers. This helps artisans earn enough money to make weaving their primary jobs, says Johnson. More importantly, continuing the weaving tradition helps keep O'odham culture alive and thriving.

With 12 horsehair weavers and more on the way, the Ramons can truly say they're carrying on an O'odham family tradition. Al

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