Navajo Rugs

From LAMB to LOOM This New Breed of Traditionalists Strives for Excellence

“It takes me about an hour to shear one sheep,” D.Y. Begay remarked with a smile. “Takes my dad about 15 minutes. He's good,” she added, as she and her father continued shearing a large ram. One of a new genre of weavers who reside in urban areas and who are usually younger than their reservation counterparts, D.Y. makes her home in Scottsdale. But at every opportunity, she heads for “home,” a hogan just up the road from her parents' place near Salina Springs on the huge Navajo Indian Reservation. On a chilly spring morning, I was there to observe what some believe is a rapidly disappearing traditional art: rug weaving.

Like most weavers, D.Y. learned the craft from her mother. For generations, this has been true among the Navajos. Although legend says they were taught to weave by Changing Woman, grandmother to the people and one of their most important deities, history teaches that they learned the art from the Puebloans.

This probably occurred in the early to mid-1600s when the Navajo homeland became a refuge for Puebloans fleeing from encroaching Spaniards. The first styles and designs woven by the Navajos were much like those of their tutors, but their weaving gradually took on a distinctive style, and soon the Navajos became masters of the craft.

Then in 1864 came the Navajos' four-year incarceration at Bosque Redondo (Fort Sumner, New Mexico) which threatened to destroy the craft. (See Arizona Highways, January '88.) With few sheep to provide wool, the ingenious Navajos mixed what little they had with new commercial yarns and strands raveled from soldier's uniforms or any other available fabric.

First the Army, then the coming of the railroad in 1880 furnished buyers for Navajo goods, and soon almost all weaving was being done to serve that market. Many exceptional tional weavings from that period have become prized collector's items, but on the whole, quality

(ABOVE, LEFT AND RIGHT) Long before she starts to weave, D.Y. Begay begins the process of making a new rug by shearing the sheep and carding the wool.

(LEFT) After carding, she spins the yarn.

(BELOW, LEFT) D.Y. examines some mistletoe growing on a juniper tree. This parasitic plant is often used to make rug dye.

(BELOW) The ripe fruit of the prickly pear is also used to make a dye.

Plummeted. As weavers rushed to fill the demand for their rugs, inferior dyes were used to color poorly carded and unevenlyspun yarns that were woven haphazardly onto cotton string warp.

It was not until around the turn of the century that Lorenzo Hubbell at Ganado and J.B. Moore at Crystal Trading Post began working with weavers to revive the classics. They also introduced new designs, some from oriental rugs, and encouraged the use of vegetal dyes. There was an insistance on high quality. As weavers working under the guidance of the two traders improved, so did their market. Other weavers and traders were quick to note their success, and soon quality weavings were coming from several areas on the reservation.

Traders continued to be a positive influence through the years. Today some including the Foutz family at Shiprock; Bruce Burnham at Sanders; the McGees at Holbrook, Pinon, and Keams Canyon; Dan Garland at Sedona; and Bill Malone from Hubbell Trading Post at Ganado still work with Navajo weavers, encouraging them to try innovative ideas.

To achieve weaving excellence requires an extraordinary amount of time, especially if the weaver, like D.Y. Begay, follows tradition from start to finish. Preparation alone takes many hours: sheep must be tended year-round and sheared in spring, then the wool must be washed and dried, carded, spun, and dyed.

To see some of these tasks demonstrated, we left the sheep-shearing behind and accompanied D.Y. to her hogan.

D.Y. explained the lengthy woolcleaning process, which involves using traditional yucca root as the cleansing product. “After the root is cut, you have to pull off the bark, chop the root until it's soft, then rub it together until it becomes foamy. It takes a lot of time and a lot of yucca root.

“I usually use Orvus, a detergent used by vets to clean animals. The wool is washed and rinsed over and over, then laid in the sun to dry. I tear off any stained pieces and use only the best part. Sometimes I get just a handful of usable wool from a whole fleece.” Watching D.Y. card the wool gave new meaning to “time-consuming.” Small bits of tangled fleece were combed between two cards (metal-toothed wooden boards) again and again until she had a short, fluffy roll called a batt. While it took only five minutes or so to produce a batt, the average rug requires hundreds of them. “This is a job I do in front of the television at home," D.Y. said, laughing. The spinning devoured time even though D.Y. made it look easy. The wooden spindle was twirled against her blue-jeaned thigh with one hand while with the other she twisted and pulled the attached batt into a strand of yarn of the desired fineness. Batt after batt of fleece was added as the newly spun yarn rolled down and around the shaft of the spindle. After lunch, we were off into the cedarstudded countryside to search for plants to use in the dyeing process. Several trips are made at different seasons of the year to gather the needed plants, and D.Y. uses everything from lichen and rabbitbrush to walnut and yellow daisy, as well as some commercial products such as indigo and cochineal (a tiny insect). Kettles of dye simmer for an hour or two on a fire outside or on the kitchen stove. Then the dye is strained, spun yarn (or fleece if dyeing is done prior to carding and spinning) is added, and simmering continues for another hour or so. A fixative is added, the pots are removed from the fire, and the wool is left to soak for a few days. Meanwhile the loom is prepared, and the strands of warp yarn are vertically positioned, a complicated process and an art in itself. But once that is accomplished, the weaver is finally ready to begin. "The weaving is the easy part," D.Y. said with a grin. Not so. Each strand of weaving yarn (or weft) is woven loosely into place and tamped down with a weaving comb. Placement of the different-colored yarns as they are woven back and forth dictates the design. With no pattern to work from, D.Y., like all Navajo weavers, retains an image of the finished rug in her mind as the intricate design is formed, strand by strand, on the loom. Given the time spent in preparation and weaving, many weavers were fortunate to make minimum wage, but no longer. And Bill Malone, at Hubbell Trading Post, says, "It's about time. The world has treated Navajo weaving as a craft for much too long. The better weavers today are going for works of art and are finally getting the recognition they deserve as artists." As prices have risen accordingly, so have the weavers' incomes. Knowing that her work is valued certainly adds to the self-esteem of a weaver, but the sociological rewards are more easily understood if one knows at least a bit about the Navajo Way.

From LAMB to LOOM

Caring for family which includes clan members as well as actual kinsmen is one of the first priorities of the Navajos; therefore, the weaver's contribution not only adds to the family coffers, but earns tribal prestige.

Beauty and harmony are the prevailing themes of the Navajo Way. The people not only "walk in beauty," but express it ritualistically. They believe the proper ceremony can alter adverse conditions, misfortune, illness, even death that can result from failure to maintain the harmony so necessary to well-being. Navajos therefore strive to avoid tension and conflict as they obey tribal taboos and follow traditional directives.

Weavers are no exception, and some of their practices have led to two common misconceptions about Navajo weaving. One is that an intentional "mistake" is included in each rug. Although this may be common with some weavers, it is doubtful that most do this and certainly not all. "Most weavers don't sit around and think about putting a mistake into a rug," D.Y. said. "But sometimes it does happen, and it is left in." Since weavers express beauty and create harmony within by blending diverse elements in a pleasing way, it is questionable that they would purposely create disorder. It's more likely that the majority of mistakes are just that.

The contrasting line commonly woven through one corner of a rug's border also has led to numerous misinterpretations.

D.Y. tried to explain its meaning in simple terms. "When interpreted literally," she said, "the Navajo word for the line is 'a trail' or 'a way out.' It has nothing to do with evil spirits; there is nothing 'evil' about it. Nor is it for 'good' spirits; it is for us [weavers]. "There are times when I go somewhere or I'm with a group, and I can't think of anything but my weaving. I want to be working. My mind gets so totally taken up

From LAMB to LOOM

with weaving, that it's hard to think of anything else. When both mind and body become so absorbed, a weaver may become trapped. We add the line to give us 'a way out.' Weaving is a demanding craft, yet many skilled weavers continue to produce a great diversity of styles, designs, and colors. Many rugs can no longer be categorized by the area in which they were woven. A Ganado design may be done in colors more commonly used in Wide Ruins, or a weaver may combine several styles in one rug. Sarah Begay, an exceptional weaver, took this concept one step further: she wove 28 miniature rugs of different styles into a Two Gray Hills background with a line of sacred yeibichais through the center. Seventy-one colors were used in this high-quality masterpiece.

And quality is today's watchword among Navajo weavers who blend complex designs and a rainbow of colors into intricately woven tapestries that exemplify the universal Navajo philosophy of beauty and harmony.

The time spent on the reservation with D.Y. simply reaffirmed that this traditional art is far from disappearing. In fact, considering the many talented and innovative young women who are weaving today, one might say it's just getting started, again.

Author's Note: Many fine Navajo rugs are being woven today, but, unless you are an expert, don't go out onto the highways and byways hoping to find a bargain. You might come across one, but you're more likely to find a poorly crafted rug or get stung with an inexpensive copy made in Mexico and passed off as the genuine article. To play it safe, buy only from reputable dealers or museum shops.