NAVAJO RUG

SOMETHING like a century ago the women of the Navajo Tribe in Arizona began to develop the weaving of our present day Navajo blankets. Events had moved along in an orderly fashion to bring the necessary materials and instructions into the Navajo empire. As early as 1540, Coronado with his ill fated followers drove sheep before them when they captured the famed Seven Cities of Cibola, nothing more or less than the adobe fore-runner of the present day Zuni and regardless of the fact that the glorious search for gold ended in disgrace and death for unfortunate Fray Marcos who had spread wild tales of barbaric splendor; regardless of the fact that the Indians hated and rejected the invaders, they gradually accepted the gift of Spanish sheep, and right there in that village was born the germ of the greatest source of income of any Indian tribe the Navajo Rug!

The sheep prospered in this strange land, and the Indians cherished them because it was easier to pull the wool off of their backs and twist it into yarn than to gather wild cotton and flax and kill rabbits with their native throwing sticks, tan and cut and braid their skins into coverings for the villagers. The introduction by the Spaniards of sheep and horses greatly altered the destinies of native people of the Southwest. The Indians took readily to the sheep. Being practical farmers the pueblo dwellers could see the advantage of having their food and clothing combined in one small Navajo women dipping their sheep. Because they are afraid strange hands may injure their precious animals, they even do this heavy work.

docile animal that could live well on the sparse grazing around the villages and could be shut up into little corrals at night away from wild animals and wilder neighbors. The sheep having been domestic creatures in Europe for centuries showed no desire to run wild in the new world.

We know the Hopis were great weavers when the Spaniards first came to their pueblos, inasmuch as Coronado describes the cloaks worn by these natives when he first encountered them. "They have square cloaks of woven cotton about a yard and a half long. The Indians wear them over their shoulders like a Gypsy and bind them at the waist with woven cotton sashes." In a prehistoric burial at Canyon de Chelly, heart of the Navajo This living room at the Thunderbird Ranch at Chin Lee shows the four distinct uses of rugs: floor covering, door curtains, table cover and wall decorations.

In country, Earl Morris, in his work of excavation, found just such a cloak a few years ago.

The Navajos seemingly have had no great amount of craftsmanship of their own. There is no question but that their basketry, their pottery and even their home building has been borrowed from other tribes, while weaving, the outstanding industry of the Navajo was plainly stolen from the Pueblo along with the theft of Pueblo women and Pueblo sheep.

In 1680, when there was a struggle to the death between the Pueblo Indians and the invading Spaniards, the Navajos took no sides in the war. Rather, they used the fighting to their own advantage. While the Pueblos were occupied with fighting the Spaniards the Navajos crept in and stole the flocks and as good measure carried away Pueblo women to weave the wool from the plundered sheep. And while the Spaniards tried to recapture the Indian villages and restock the hated missions, the Navajos attacked the Spanish camps from the rear and rode triumphantly away on the horses of the Dons. At another village Pueblo women were voluntarily sent by their menfolk into the Navajo country to evade capture by the Spaniards, and they merged into the tribal life. These refugees voluntarily drove their prized flocks before them into the Navajo country and this fact turned the Navajos from a wandering maurauding nomadic people into (Turn to Page 27)