NAVAJO WEAVERS

Sandra Busatta

A Short History of Navajo Weaving

DINETAH

The Navajos began to exist historically at the

end of the 15th century, just before the Spanish

entradas, and as a nation in the European

sense, through a series of interactions with the

USA in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In the mythic genesis, after some

catastrophe the Navajo spirits climb

through four or more layered worlds

until they get to the present world.

The first founding event of the Navajo

nation, is the deportation to Fort

Sumner, NM between 1864 and 1868.

This trauma is a catastrophe that

gives birth to the new Navajos.

Back to their

country they

began thriving:

while all the

tribes had their

lands shrunk,

the Navajos

broadened

them fourfold.

Fort Sumner, NM (1864-68)

THE BIRTH OF THE DINE’

The emersion of the Diné H.B. Molhausen: Navajos 1853

THE STOCK REDUCTION (1933)

“Old records mention Hopi farming in Canyon the

Chelly, Havasupais living along the Echo Cliffs

north of Tuba City, and Paiutes around Navajo

Mountain. Did they join the Navajos freely? Did

any become slaves? Where did they go?”

Navajo Rocky Point Community School , 1982

The Navajos did not share

the same fate, but they

could not colonize new

pastures, since the arrival of

the railroad had brought

new people to the

Southwest. The result was

the second catastrophe that

hit the Navajo world: the

Stock Reduction and the

imposition of a modern

animal husbandry (1933).

This way the Navajos

entered the capitalist

market as they never had

before.

THE NAVAJO GOLDEN AGE

“The ancient arts of Navajo culture probably bloomed

brightest in the years between the Long Walk back from

Fort Sumner and Stock Reduction in the 1930’s. Navajo

Country had peace, livestock and little interference from the

outside world. That had never happened before and might

never happen again” (Navajo Rocky Point Community School, 1982).

During these years they

abandoned most of their use

goods and began entering the

market, buying items from

licensed traders and producing

for the capitalist market.

Cameron, AZ woolsacks for sale

Going to the Gallup Ceremonial

1938-39

Shonto Trading Post

THE SANTA FE RAILWAY AND FRED HARVEY CO.

In the Southwest writers, artists, Santa Fe

Railway’s and Fred Harvey Co.’s marketing

geniuses polished the formerly despised

Spanish past in the so called Santa Fe style,

which relied on an architecture inspired to the

pueblos and the haciendas, and could exhibit

picturesque deserts, Mexicans and Indians

and a noteworthy crafts tradition for the

tourist to consume.

The railway favored the

development of silver jewelry.

Between the late 1880s and the

early 1890s the Navajos began

using turquoise stones, but silver

items were not marketed before

1899. That year Fred Harvey

Company, related to the Santa

Fe Railway, asked the trading

post dealers to have lighter

silverware produced. The

Navajos had to set cut and

polished stones from Persia,

supplied by the company itself,

in the objects. These items were

to be sold in the East and in the

Indian curio shops.

Silverware for the Harvey Co. hotel shops

Influences on Navajo silversmiths

SILVER JEWELRY

SILVER SWEATSHOPS

Silversmithing is the only craft

job organized according to

factory standards: expanding

tourism has made small size

factories common, ranging

from 2-3 to 40-50 silversmiths.

At Gallup, NM there are

factories where Indians and

non Indians are employed to

manufacture items labeled

“Indian crafted”. Sometimes

Indian workers are supplied

molded silver pieces and stones

to assembly, but often they buy

the pieces from wholesalers and

assemble them as cottage

industry workers, involving all

the family, children included.

Tuba trading post

THE TRADING POSTS

A landmark event in the making of the

Navajo nation is the coming of the

traders into the reservation in the

1880s. The trading post is more than a

place where goods are bought and sold

for the Navajos. It is a social center, a

post office, an employment agency, a

pawnbroker’s shop and a local bank.

Shonto Trading Post. Trading a Rug Dinnebito Trading Post. Shopping women

The traders first began with

the barter and cash money,

then used due bills and moved

on to traders’ tokens, later

preferred credit secured by

pawn jewelry and finally

unsecured credit based on

futures, that is the future

production of woolen rugs,

silverware, sheep, cattle and

wages. Babbitt Brothers Trading Post

Dinnebito Trading Post. Rugs and Pawn Vault 1999.

“With the unsecured credit institutionalized, Navajos became debt peons to

traders, a relationship that existed for many Navajos in the 1970s, while the

traders themselves came increasingly under the control of large wholesalers.

Thus the traders transformed the Navajos into customers for consumer goods

and producers of carpet wool, livestock, and luxury crafts. The railroad

provided the means for this traffic to expand. The increasing indebtedness of

the Navajos suggests increasingly unfavorable terms of trade, but quantitative

studies are lacking”. (Aberle 1983:642)

Tec Nos Pos Trading Post Hubbell Trading Post

John Lorenzo

Hubbell was a very

influent trader; he

called silversmiths

from Mexico to teach

their craft to “his”

Navajos, invented the

Ganado rugs and was

a favorite partner of

Fred Harvey

Company. He was

well aware of the

dealer’s role:

merchant and

confessor, peace

judge, jury, shaman

and de facto absolute

master of his domain.

His son defined

himself “the king of

northern Arizona”

THE “KING” TRADER

Most traders’ licenses expired in the decade 1980-

1990 and the tribal government took over many

trading posts. Yet also the Navajo trading posts

work in the same way: the system by which the

Navajo “ricos” (wealthy) have traditionally

exploited the landless poor’s services according to

the traditional semi-feudal Hispanic New Mexico.

NAVAJO TRADING POSTS

TOURISM AS A CONDITION OF MODERNITY

Specialized production of Indian souvenirs and ethnicity as a selling strategy began

early in the Northeast of America. By 1830 the American Grand Tour and the Northern

Tour led admired throngs to visit the paramount tourist site: Niagara Falls.

When the Santa Fe Railway came to the Southwest in the 1880s it was the right

moment: the elitist tourist and the wealthy collector could go away from the

maddening crowd to Navajo and Pueblo country, where the Grand Canyon offered a

“sublime” alternative to Niagara Falls.

TOURISM AND ANTITOURISM

Elite tourist consumption is

contradictory because to be

economically viable, Indian art

must be manufactured in

multiples but consumers must

suppress this awareness and

imagine Indian objects as unique.

“Antitourism”, promotes the

“real” travel and condemns

“tourist” art and mass tourism as

plebeian. Commodified Indian

items commemorated an

anticipated disappearance of the

Indian himself but, after Native

American demographic boom,

they today commemorate the old-

time Indian, more “authentic”

and less “spoiled” by modernity.Jim Abeita, Navajo painter

TRADERS AND WEAVERS

“After 1890, rugs began to take the place of blankets. Until about

1910 there was a “dark age” in Navajo weaving, quality fell off,

and the native designs almost ceased; bordered specimens

predominated. Then came a change for the better, due largely to

efforts of the traders to raise the standard of Navajo weaving. Art

lovers and scientists did their part, too.” (Bertha P. Dutton 1975)

Hopi House Grand Canyon VillageOld Navajo blankets

1890 is a landmark date for

the Navajos: weavers

stopped weaving for home

consumption and began to

produce for the outside

market, using commercial

yarns. The traders showed

the weavers samples with the

patterns to copy: J. B.

Moore, owner of the Crystal

trading post, who also ran a

large mail order business,

commissioned copies of

Oriental carpets to his

weavers. He had some

problems with the “stubborn

and conservative women”,

but he managed to overcome

their “foolish opposition”.

Oriental carpet and Navajo rug

Hubbell Trading Post: rug samples to copy

NAVAJO ORIENTALISM

The traders did not favored the birth of

modern wool processing plants in the

reservation but they sent the wool to the

Eastern plants to be washed and dyed,

then they imported it into the

reservation and sold it to their weavers

who produced rugs as piece workers.

They created a market for mass

consumers for the rugs woven with

commercial yarns and dyes, but sold to

elitist buyers, that associated the notion

of “Indian” with that of “natural”, hand

spinned woolen rugs dyed with natural

colors, less gaudy than aniline colors.

The primitivist paradigm also chained

the weavers to their prehistoric vertical

looms.

THE PRIMITIVIST PARADIGM

The influence of the customers – either traders,

collectors or museums – has favored “pictorial”

rugs, portraying naïf scenes of Navajo everyday

life, “life trees” with flowers and birds,

sandpainting rugs reproducing religious

subjects, but has discouraged the free

development of the weavers’ creativity for a

long time.

The American flag, woven as early

as 1873, has been appreciated only

recently, as well as the NRA eagle of

the New Deal, the Santa Fe trains,

the alphabet letters and phrases

such as “NRA member”, “US We Do

Our Part”, “Jesus Saves” or “Go To

Hell”. Much before Andy Warhol,

Navajo weavers were inspired by

labels and signs: Conoco gasoline,

Ivory soap, Folger coffee. The

purists shivered: a square or five

striped American flag? Ridiculous! A

clear evidence of a degenerate art.

ANDY WARHOL’S

GRANNIES

Only a far-sighted collector appreciated

these rugs; the Girard Collection, however,

is exhibited not in an ethnographic museum,

but at the Museum of International Folk Art

in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The new colored yarns

triggered Navajo weavers’

creativity. Unfortunately,

the merry rugs decorated

with small trains, Arbuckle

coffee’s little angels,

airplanes, Christmas trees

and did not appeal to the

tastes of the Eastern

customers. The Eastern

clientele favored the

Oriental carpets or at least

a Navajo imitation.

INDIAN ART

OR FOLK ART?

AUTHENTICITY AND TRADITION

The wooden spindle and the prehistoric

vertical loom must guarantee ethnic

autenticity, which means being pre-modern

and even pre-medieval, suggesting untold

antiquity lost in the mists of a primitive world,

not without contradictions.

“A weaver might create a

rug with a computer-

generated design, but it is

woven with the same

techniques as that of the

grandmothers” (Kally

Keams Navajo weaver 1996).

Contrary to silversmithing,

where the use of electricity,

modern machines and factory

work organization is common

(though not advertised far and

wide), Navajo weaving has a

primitivist trademark of ethnic

authenticity it cannot give up:

the prehistoric loom.

“No Navajo weaver can earn a

living at her craft. Neither can a

non Indian earn a livelihood by

knitting socks. Both crafts

continue as avocation rather

than occupations”. (Tom Bahti 1973)

“At the present some outstandingly fine

weaving is being produced by a few

Navajo, but in general the work seems to

bespeak an approaching demise of the

weaving art. Fewer looms operate. The

situation may be compared to fancy

work”. (Bertha P. Dutton 1975)

HOW MUCH DOES A NAVAJO WEAVER EARN?

A 1973 survey made by

the Navajo Community

College at Many Farms,

Arizona, determined the

length of time it took a

good weaver to make a

rug, from catching and

shearing a sheep to selling

the rug: 350 hours. The

survey does not consider

both possible time of

transportation and car

expenses. The rug, about

90x150 cm., had been sold

to a local trader for $105,

less than 30 cents per

hour.

HOW MANY PEOPLE WORK ON A RUG?

“The process of weaving is communal rather than individualistic. It involves more than

the weaver(). It is literally a family affair. The wool and mohair used to make warp

and weft come from sheep and goats maintained by the family members, some of whom

are sheepherders. Children of all ages help gather plants and vegetables for dyes;

siblings help process the wool and mohair in various phases of preparation.” (W. Thomas 1996)

The ideology of a superior “wholeness” of Navajo life hides

economic relations within the extended family and obscures the fact

that only 30 cents per hour “pay” for the work of many people.

CHILD LABOR IN NAVAJO COUNTRY?

“For all the trouble I made with the sheep and lambs, my mother used to whip me

sometimes (). I worked so hard at home! () I worked on blankets too () My

mother was selling the blankets. () She tried to make me work the way I used to, and

she was still whipping me ().” (Interview to a Navajo woman in 1940, D. C. Leighton 1982)

The famous Elle of Ganado,

Arizona worked together with

her very young daughter who

began weaving when she was five

years old. Another child weaver,

Tuli, was also regularly engaged

at the blanket rooms at the

Alvarado hotel. Yet, most child

weavers were as unknown as

their mothers.

Nine- and ten-year olds were learning to

make the family’s bread and to card and

spin wool. Children of both sexes were

sent out to herd sheep at an early age.

They were held responsible for the herd

and were often severely punished if the

sheep wandered away.

Elle of Ganado and her daughter at the Alvarado Hotel, Albuquerque

A child weaver

AMERICAN INDIANS VS. ASIAN INDIANS

Isn’t it true that children in poor countries must work to feed themselves and their

families? RUGMARK: Children would not have to work if employers paid their

parents a living wage and if governments made affordable education for all

children a priority (RUGMARK, against child labor in handknotted carpet industry of India, Nepal and Pakistan).

This is also true for Navajo children.

R.B. Burnham & Co. Trading Post: Virginia Bru’s first rug Nepal child carpet weavers

In many countries, carpet weaving

is an ancient and honored craft.

Why deny children this form of

cultural and intellectual

expression? RUGMARK:

Children who weave carpets are

usually given the most boring,

repetitious tasks because they are

too young to execute complex

designs.

Dinnebito Trading Post. Stella Bahe’s first rug

Child shepherds

Won’t the weaver’s craft

disappear if children don’t learn

it? The weaver’s craft will

disappear if weavers aren’t paid

a living wage. Though there are

many differences, this is

obviously also true for Navajo

apprentices and weavers.

EVEN A GOOD CAUSE HIDES CHILD LABOR

“Hand made rugs and blankets have always

been an important part of Native American

culture and economy.(). Adopt an Elder

Program sponsors rug sales directly from the

weavers who get one hundred per cent of the

profits. Young and talented Navajo children

living in the Navajo nation did all the rugs and

blankets in this exhibit. The collection is on loan

from Adopt an Elders Program”.

Utah Arts Council Visual Arts Program “Navajo Children

Weaving the Future”

WHO ARE THE WEAVERS ?

Occasional weavers learned to

weave in their youth but did not

continue, though sometimes they

may earn much needed money

weaving a rug. They represent the

most numerous group. Revival

weavers weave out of strong

ideological motivation, because

they think is a marker of their

ethnic identity.

Household weavers, the most conservative

group sell approximately one rug of various

quality every one or two months, providing a

modest, but steady income to the family.

Professional weavers place their craft above

everything, work full time to superior quality

rugs and sell for thousands of dollars to

collectors who know them well.

Elle of Ganado and two child weavers

Weaver Kathy TabahaDinè College ad

WEAVING THE ETHNIC PRIDE

By romanticizing work

organization, the ethnic

nationalists mute the dire

fact that in an area where

unemployment peaks to 50-

70%, weaving usually

supplies one of the few

income sources, often

already sucked in by

unsecured credit and

pawns. Weaving, however,

may be enough interesting

economically, that some

men have become weavers.

From a traditional weaver’s point of view, the act

of weaving and the whole process of preparation

and laboring is exhilarating. To a Navajo,

weaving is an act of love and desire – desire in the

sense of wanting and longing” (W. Thomas 1996)

Lena Atene, : “I only went to four years of

school because I had to do weaving at home

to help make a living”. Stella Cly, learnt

weaving from her father when she was 14

years old: “He would say: it is food. It will

be your livelihood”. Elders of the Ndahoo’aah Project at

the Monument Valley High School, Utah (1995)

ART OR

WORK?

“A quick survey of American

Indian Art issues published over the

past two decades reveals two

things. First, almost nothing is

mentioned about the economic

conditions under which Native

American artists or craftworkers

produce and/or sell their objects.

Second, the lack of attention to the

economic underpinnings of artistic

production is accompanied by

lengthy reports on auction sales

and glossy advertising copy

hawking Native wares through chic

galleries” (Albers 1996).

NAVAJO RUGS VS. TRADE BLANKETS

Navajo women bought factory blankets made with Jacquard looms and sold

the trader their handmade blankets, and later rugs, woven on their

prehistoric looms, that would bring them cash and credit at the store, in a

circular way. As the 1927 Pendleton catalog puts it: “These Indian Blankets

were originated for the Indian – not by him”.

Shiprock Agency 1910Harrison Begay: Yebichay Dance

Until about 1875 the Navajos produced blankets for

their own use and for trading to other Indians. By

1880s inexpensive, machine made blankets from

Pendleton, Oregon and other companies, appealed to

women who before might spend half a year weaving

a blanket of similar size.

Navajo family at Cameron Trading Post 1930s

While Navajo weavers are

still far from stepping into

the Industrial Revolution,

the tribe is well into the 21st

century for the home

market. Navajo Textiles

Mills, based in Mesa,

Arizona, buys almost all its

wool on the Navajo

reservation and outsources

the work contracting with a

group of mills in the

Southeastern United States

to manufacture blankets for

the Indian market.

“A blanket is still one of the most special gifts

for Indian people. You see people buried with

blankets, and people give them to newborn

children. The trade blanket is a part of all

Indian life” (Al Pooley, Navajo Textiles Mills)

POST-MODERN

NAVAJOS

THE ETERNAL COMPETITOR: THE HOPI FIGHTS BACK

Ramona Sakiestewa, Hopi designer of trade blankets

Very successful trade blanket company

Sakiestiewa Textiles Co. also

outsources production outside the

Southwestern reservations.

NAVAJO RUGS: A GLOBAL CRAFT?

Wool yarns imported from:

1870s-80s Germantown, Pa;

1860s-70s: (cotton yarns) North

Carolina, Kentucky;

1930s Pendleton, OR;

1970s-80s New York, NY, Portland,

OR, Stamford, CT;

1970s-80s: Universal Textile and

Machinery Inc, Johnsonville, South Carolina

1980-2003: Brown Sheep Co.,

Mitchell , Nebraska; John Wilde &

Brother, Inc., Manayunk,

Pennsylvania; William Condon &

Sons, Prince Edward Island, Canada;

Britain;

Possible importations from:Australia, New Zealand, Oaxaca

(Mexico), Canada.

Raw Sheep’s fleece imported

from: United Kingdom, New

Zealand, Nebraska, Colorado,

Wyoming.

«However, the purist’s approach - favoring

exclusively hand-processed materials is hardly

practical or logical today. () Trade materials (

) have, in fact, become a genuine part of the

tradition of weaving. Moreover, they are key to

the continuation of the craft ()» Hedlund 2003.

THE ZAPOTECS VS. THE NAVAJOS

“Thus far, the Oaxaca product has

not proven to be more than a

threatening nuisance ” said

Dockstader in 1978 (page 205); he

was wrong. Long known for their

copies of Navajo rugs, the Zapotecs

are now even hosted by Native

Peoples magazine: “With handspun

churro wool, vegetal and aniline dyes

() the Zapotecs’ skill and artistry

rival those of the best Navajo and

oriental rug weavers” (Fischgrund Stanton

1999)

TEOTITLAN DEL VALLE

OAXACA, MEXICO

During the second US-Mexican bracero

program a large number of Zapotecs

emigrated to the USA, and when men

returned home, they invested their savings

in land, animals and very often in looms

and wool. Beginning in the 1970s, women

and girls began to weave in great numbers;

by late 1980s a few merchants had achieved

petty capitalist employer status and a

semipermanent division between weavers

and merchants developed. By the mid-

1980s, significant capital accumulation had

taken place in Teotitlan as well as in the

communities of Santa Ana del Valle and San

Miguel, where the looms were also put in

motion by the weaving boom.

Also Mexico capitalized on Indian ethnicity in order

to launch its tourist market, as well as an "Indian"

identity connected to the Revolution. Though

competing with that ideology, Zapotecs exploited

well their political connection with the government

party and invested the savings from immigration to

the USA in order to develop a flourishing textile

industry. Even if also Zapotec weavers are not yet

allowed to abandon their medieval upright pedal

looms by the market, they seem better positioned to

compete with Navajo textiles because they are less

dependent on welfare and government support and

more on commercial capital.

ETHNIC

RIVALRIES

WHO WILL WEAVE THE FUTURE?

The Indian-land nexus, constructed by the Santa Fe calendars in the early 20th

century, is still at the heart of the southwestern tourist industry. Indian

producers have been involved into market economy but they earned little in

return. The history of the Navajo Nation has prevented the birth of a class of

Navajo capitalists, though there is social stratification between landed and

landless people. Most rich Navajos belong to the politically connected tribal

bureaucracy. While fewer and fewer looms are working in Navajo country,

more and more looms are producing textiles in Oaxaca. In Texas Maya

immigrants weave factory made imitation Navajo saddle blankets.

A 100% AMERICAN

AND INDIAN ART

Perhaps the only way for

Navajo rugs to survive

competition is keeping on

being an icon of Navajo AND

American identity, well

embedded in the nativist

tradition.

THE END