Preamble
For your convenience, I have listed below posts that also focus on rugs.
Navajo Rugs
Persian Rugs
Caucasian Rugs
Turkish Rugs
Navajo Rugs of the Ganado, Crystal and Two Grey Hills Region
Navajo Rugs of Chinle, Wide Ruins and Teec Nos Pos Regions
Navajo Rugs of the Western Reservation
Introduction [1]
When the Spaniards began penetrating the southwest, Indian villages fell one by one and, except during relatively brief revolts, they became under foreign rule. Not so the Navajo. They faded back into their tribal lands. Along the perimeters of New Spain the Navajos again turned their lives around. They obtained domestic livestock from Spanish herds. Then, giving less time to farming, they followed their flocks of sheep across vast tablelands. They melded their values with huge horses that ware cheaply kept, easily trained and proudly ridden as fast as the wind.
Their subjugation was brought asbout by a military strategy now called 'scorched earth' that Colonel Kit Carson invoked in 1863. Beginning in 1869 with an issue of government sheep, the Navajos managed to restore their livestock industry and to increase their own population to 35,000 self-sufficient citizens by 1930.
It was Spain that introduced the first catalyst, namely sheep, which would alter forever the course of Southwestern weaving. Following a long-standing policy of making colonies self-sufficient and profitable, the Spaniards brought sheep by the thousands from Mexico, and decreed that their subjects should weave with wool. Submissive natives obliged.
Weaver demonstration at The Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.
Navajo Rugs of Ganado, Crystal and Two Grey Hills Region
Although geographic names no longer guarantee origin, the terms are still meaningful and useful. Weavers, exhibitors, traders and buyers often continued to be characterize by regional name, if not by geography. Of course some weaves, notably saddle blankets, were never limited to a specific local. Today, as in the past, saddle weaves may originate from almost anywhere.
Navajo Rugs of the Ganado
Dating to the 1870s, the famous trading post of D. Lorenzo Hubbell at Ganado is today under the protection of the National Park Service; this post continues to serve the needs of the Navajos.
This is a one-of-a-kind rug usually done in Ganado red, but on impulse produced in blue by Mary Begay and Grace Henderson Nez in 1974 (48 x 72 inches).
Courtesy: Hubbell Trading Post.
An old motif in a new weave is this third phase chief blanket of handspun, predyed, processed wool by Elizabeth Kirk and Helen Davis (48 x 48 inches).
Courtesy: Hubbell Trading Post.
This Klagetoh by Grace Henderson Nez (48 x 70.5 inches).
Courtesy: Museum shop, Museum of Northern Arizona.
Navajo Rugs of Crystal
Within the wooden flanks of the Chuska Mountains, due north of the Navajo capital, Window Rock, perches Crystal, another trading post important to Navajo weaving. Crystal is outback, but like all other trading posts, it is more accessible today than in the past. From 1897 to 1911 J.B. Moore, a Crystal trader, educated scores of Navajo women in the weaving of rugs in styles that easteners presumed Indian pattern to be.
J.B. Moore with a weaver and rug at the Crystal Trading Post, from the 1911 catalog.
A modern Crystal rug by Mary Moore has border-to-border designs in muted hues of vegetable dyes (37 x 63 inches).
Courtesy: Museum shop, Museum of Northern Arizona.
Navajo Rugs of Two Grey Hills
It was to this spectacular and isolated province that the patterns of J.B. Moore migrated eastward from Crystal, to evolve into one of the better known and more prized Navjo textiles. Historians credit two competing traders, George Bloomfield and Ed Davies, with providing the motivation and instruction with which the weavers transformed their nondescript early rugs into premium Navajo fabric by mid-1920s.
Toadlena Trading Post.
There are no two identical rugs woven in the Two Grey Hills style. This is a unique work by premier weaver Daisy Taugelchee.
Courtesy: Mullan Collection.
Two Grey Hills tapestry of the first rank is this 1974 creation by Dorothy Mike, with threads spun as many as ten times to equal the fineness of linen (25 x 37 inches).
Courtesy: Museum shop, Museum of Northern Arizona.
Reference:
[1] D. Dedera, Navajo Rugs, Northland Publishing, Flagstaff, Arizona (1990).
For your convenience, I have listed below posts that also focus on rugs.
Navajo Rugs
Persian Rugs
Caucasian Rugs
Turkish Rugs
Navajo Rugs of the Ganado, Crystal and Two Grey Hills Region
Navajo Rugs of Chinle, Wide Ruins and Teec Nos Pos Regions
Navajo Rugs of the Western Reservation
Introduction [1]
When the Spaniards began penetrating the southwest, Indian villages fell one by one and, except during relatively brief revolts, they became under foreign rule. Not so the Navajo. They faded back into their tribal lands. Along the perimeters of New Spain the Navajos again turned their lives around. They obtained domestic livestock from Spanish herds. Then, giving less time to farming, they followed their flocks of sheep across vast tablelands. They melded their values with huge horses that ware cheaply kept, easily trained and proudly ridden as fast as the wind.
Their subjugation was brought asbout by a military strategy now called 'scorched earth' that Colonel Kit Carson invoked in 1863. Beginning in 1869 with an issue of government sheep, the Navajos managed to restore their livestock industry and to increase their own population to 35,000 self-sufficient citizens by 1930.
It was Spain that introduced the first catalyst, namely sheep, which would alter forever the course of Southwestern weaving. Following a long-standing policy of making colonies self-sufficient and profitable, the Spaniards brought sheep by the thousands from Mexico, and decreed that their subjects should weave with wool. Submissive natives obliged.
Navajo Rugs of Ganado, Crystal and Two Grey Hills Region
Although geographic names no longer guarantee origin, the terms are still meaningful and useful. Weavers, exhibitors, traders and buyers often continued to be characterize by regional name, if not by geography. Of course some weaves, notably saddle blankets, were never limited to a specific local. Today, as in the past, saddle weaves may originate from almost anywhere.
Navajo Rugs of the Ganado
Courtesy: Hubbell Trading Post.
Courtesy: Hubbell Trading Post.
Courtesy: Museum shop, Museum of Northern Arizona.
Navajo Rugs of Crystal
Within the wooden flanks of the Chuska Mountains, due north of the Navajo capital, Window Rock, perches Crystal, another trading post important to Navajo weaving. Crystal is outback, but like all other trading posts, it is more accessible today than in the past. From 1897 to 1911 J.B. Moore, a Crystal trader, educated scores of Navajo women in the weaving of rugs in styles that easteners presumed Indian pattern to be.
Courtesy: Museum shop, Museum of Northern Arizona.
Navajo Rugs of Two Grey Hills
It was to this spectacular and isolated province that the patterns of J.B. Moore migrated eastward from Crystal, to evolve into one of the better known and more prized Navjo textiles. Historians credit two competing traders, George Bloomfield and Ed Davies, with providing the motivation and instruction with which the weavers transformed their nondescript early rugs into premium Navajo fabric by mid-1920s.
Courtesy: Mullan Collection.
Courtesy: Museum shop, Museum of Northern Arizona.
Reference:
[1] D. Dedera, Navajo Rugs, Northland Publishing, Flagstaff, Arizona (1990).
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