Navajo blanket

“ The Navajos, as a rule, are not a tall race, although there is one living about two miles from town who is over six feet. His white friends call him "Lengthy." The squaw who went to the World's Fair as being the best Navajo blanket-maker of the tribe has two photographs, one of herself and another squaw, and one of the Government Building which was at the Fair, which she delights in showing to every one that goes to her hut. ”

“ Navajo women, when they weave blankets, go so completely into the blanket while they are working on it, that they always leave a path in the weaving that comes out at the last corner for their souls to get out of the blanket; otherwise they would be imprisoned in it. The cat never does things like this! ”

“ A Pueblo Woman. (From Morgan.) The Navajo, who are neighbors of the Pueblos, learned how to weave from them, but are to-day much better weavers than their teachers. Every one knows the Navajo blankets, with their bright colors, pretty designs, and texture so close as to shed water.
Some tribes of British Columbia weave soft capes or cloaks of cedar bark, and in Alaska the Chilcat Indians weave beautiful blankets of mountain-sheep wool and mountain-goat hair. ”

“ The two Navajo Indian blankets illustrated in this chapter, and the pattern on the following page, may be easily adapted for the loom. Germantown knitting wool or carpet ravelings can be used, although to obtain softer wool is better. Some of the handsomest Navajo blankets have a long nap. ”

“ A close-fitting basque of velvet forms the top part of this Navajo costume, and over all a machine-made blanket is worn. Store-made shoes, or more often the hand-made moccasins of soft doeskin trimmed with silver and turquoise buttons, are worn without stockings. The feet of Indian women are unusually small and well-shaped. The amount of jewelry that an Indian wears denotes his social rank, and, like their white brothers, they adorn the wife, so that it is not unusual to see their women decked out until they resemble prosperous Christmas trees. ”

“ But Mary, forgive an old woman for rambling away from the subject in which you are interested—Navajo blankets. Ever since we planned to make a rug with a swastika in the centre, I have been trying to evolve from my brain (and your Uncle John says my bump of inventiveness is abnormally large) a Navajo rag rug for the floor of the room you intend to furnish as Ralph's den, in the home you are planning. ”

“ Within a few weeks, a group of eighty Navajos arrived at Kanab on a trading expedition. They came on foot and brought all the Navajo blankets they could carry. They scattered among the settlements and traded their blankets for horses and returned well satisfied with the experiment.
Peaceful trading continued until the winter of 1873-74, when a party of four young Navajos was caught in a snowstorm near a ranch in Grass Valley, Sevier County. They made themselves at home at the ranch and even killed a small animal for food. ”

“ Fig. 18 represents silver ornaments made by Jake in 1881.
30. Weaving.—It is in the art of weaving that the Navahoes [20] excel all other Indians within the borders of the United States. In durability, fineness of finish, beauty of design, and variety of pattern, the Navaho blanket has no equal among the works of our aborigines. The author has written a treatise on “Navajo Weavers,”309 in which he describes their art as it existed some thirteen years ago. ”

“ Once they met a man on horseback who was dressed like a Mexican but looked darker. A Navajo? Probably. Later they saw a flock of sheep, and Gwendolyn’s ecstatic cry called their eyes to the distant figure, herding them. Yes, it was a Navajo woman in full skirt. They passed a collection of brown buildings with huts like bee-hives scattered around them, and flaunting signs announcing that this was a Navajo trading-post where one could buy real genuine Navajo blankets and silver rings made right there on the premises. At this place they all sniffed, and Teddy stepped on the gas. ”

“ Navajo blankets have a wide and merited reputation for beauty and excellence, some of them being worth a hundred dollars a piece in the New Mexican market, and over his shoulders was one of superior character, worn with the grace and dignity with which a Roman Senator might be supposed to don his toga. So vain a man could not be well otherwise than brave, and he was noted for his gallantry. ”

“ In one week's study of the passing tourist breed he could see enough funny sights and hear enough funny things—unintentionally funny things—to keep his family entertained on many a long winter's evening as they sit peacefully in the wigwam making knickknacks for the Eastern trade. [Pg 179]
EACH NAVAJO SQUAW WEAVES ON AN AVERAGE NINE THOUSAND BLANKETS A YEAR
No, sirree! Those Southwestern tribes [Pg 180] are far from being extinct—especially the Navajos. You can, in a way, approximate the tribal strength of the Navajos by the number of Navajo blankets you see. ”

“ Moccasins of dyed buckskin are still popular with the women at home, but modish shoes and stockings have been adopted for town wear. In winter, both men and women use commercially made blankets draped over their shoulders for protection against the cold.
Today many Navajo men take off-reservation jobs with railroads, in lumber camps, or as migratory workers following crop harvests. Sheep still play a major role in the family economy, and annual income is supplemented by the sale of rugs and, sometimes, silverwork and jewelry.
The Navajos have worn silver ornaments for many years. ”

“ It was as if every blade of grass, every leaf of sage, every twig of cedar, the flowers, the trees, the rocks came to life at sight of the sun. The red disk rose, and a golden fire burned over the glowing face of that lonely waste.
The Navajo, dark, stately, inscrutable, faced the sun—his god. This was his Great Spirit. The desert was his mother, but the sun was his life. To the keeper of the winds and rains, to the master of light, to the maker of fire, to the giver of life the Navajo sent up his prayer:
Of all the good things of the Earth let me always have plenty. ”

“ The Indians ravel it and use the weft. While many handsome blankets are still made only of the colors and material above described, American yarn has lately become very popular among the Navajos, and many fine blankets are now made wholly, or in part, of Germantown wool. ”

“ Glen Naspa is gone."
"Gone! Where? Nas Ta Bega, remember I lost my own faith, and I have not yet learned yours."
"The Navajo has one mother—the earth. Her body has gone to the earth and it will become dust. But her spirit is in the air. It shall whisper to me from the wind. I shall hear it on running waters. It will hide in the morning music of a mocking-bird and in the lonely night cry of the canyon hawk. Her blood will go to make the red of the Indian flowers and her soul will rest at midnight in the lily that opens only to the moon. ”

“ It works very well, and drills the hard turquoise and the softer shell neatly. These beads and ornaments of shell or turquoise are so highly prized that they easily serve the purposes of trade. So much do the Navajo desire the turquoise that they readily exchange for it their beautiful blankets, neat silver-work, or finest ponies.
Blankets have always been greatly prized by all Indians, whether they be made out of skins, bark, or wool. The white man has taken advantage of this fact, and to-day his blankets are to be found everywhere. ”

“ The most famous blankets are made by the Navajoes upon rude hand looms and are wonderfully fine in weave, color, and design.
This native skill combined with love of the work and perfect sincerity—the qualities which still make the Indian woman's blanket or [153] basket or bowl or moccasins of the old type so highly prized—are among the precious things lost or sacrificed to the advance of an alien civilization. Cheap machine-made garments and utensils, without beauty or durability, have crowded out the old ”

“ They have ear pendants, bracelets, and armlets, blue and red (of turquoise and coral) , the prehistoric and emblematic jewels of the Navajo. Their forearms and legs are black, showing in each a zigzag mark to represent lightning on the surface of the black rain clouds. In the north god these colors are, for artistic reasons, reversed. Each bears, attached to his right hand with a string, a rattle, a charm, and a basket. The rattle is of the shape of those used by the medicine men in this particular dance, made of raw hide and painted to symbolize the rain cloud and lightning. ”

“ They have always been the enemies of the Pueblo Indians, who are descendants of the Toltec and Aztec races. Unlike the Pueblo Indians, who live in villages and maintain themselves with agricultural pursuits, the Navajos are nomads and born herdsmen.
The Navajo tribe is quite wealthy now, as they possess many thousands of sheep and goats, and they are famed for their quaint and beautiful blankets and homespun, which they weave on their hand looms from the wool of their sheep. ”

“ Silver and turquoise are the jeweled wealth of the Navajo, the white metal contrasting with their sunburnt skins and the stone holding the color of their matchless skies.
The women wore velveteen bodices and curiously full skirts. They too were weighted with silver ornaments, one having the more of beads and bandeaux being the favorite wife or daughter. Some of the smaller girls moved about accompanied by the tinkling of little bells strung to their moccasins and belts.
All this in the brilliant flare of the cottonwood fire, above which fanned a mist of sparks like another Milky Way ”

“ They worked thus for four days, and the lodge was finished. They made mats of hay to lie on and a mat of the same material to hang in the doorway. They made mats of fine cedar bark with which to cover themselves in bed, for in those days the Navajo did not weave blankets such as they make now. The soles of their moccasins were made of hay and the uppers of yucca fibers. The young men were obliged to go hunting every day; it was only with great labor they could keep the house supplied with meat; for, as has been said, they lived mostly on small animals, such as could be caught in fall traps. ”

“ There is the legend of "the spider maid" teaching the Navajos to weave their wonderful blankets, though the Hopi deny this and assert that their women captured in war were the ones who taught the Navajos the art of weaving. There is the picture of the Navajo transmigration of souls up the twelve degrees of a huge corn stalk, for all the world like the Hindoo legend of a soul's travail up to life. You must not forget how similar many of the Indian [Pg 113] drawings are to Oriental work. ”

“ A little group of Pueblo Indians, lonesomely picturesque in buck-skin and red blankets, with silver and turquoise rings and bracelets, were always seated before its doors, trying to sell fruit and pottery to well-tailored tourists. It had a museum of Southwestern antiquities and curios, where a Navajo squaw sulkily wove blankets on a handloom for the edification of the guilded stranger from the East. ”

“ Before departing the sun asked them what they wished; they said, “We want bows and arrows, knives, and good leggings. There are people around the world eating our people (the Navajo) . Some of these people are great giants and some are as small as flies; we wish to kill them with lightning.” ”

“ I have heard it said by old-timers, and they could very nearly prove their suspicions through comparison of customs and the dragging in of the Bible, that the Navajo are the Jews of the Desert, a lost tribe of Israel. And suffice it to say that the true son of David has never been able to prosper in their country. The closest approach of these wanderers to the Navajo has been an invasion by marriage of a certain part of the Pueblo Indian country in New Mexico. Those who once made the effort to penetrate the Hopi-Navajo area of the Enchanted Empire have withdrawn, defeated and outwitted. ”

“ Nas Ta Bega will never have a wife—a child. He sees the end. It is the sunset of the Navajo.... Bi Nai, the Navajo is dying—dying—dying!”
XV. WILD JUSTICE
A crescent moon hung above the lofty peak over the valley and a train of white stars ran along the bold rim of the western wall. A few young frogs peeped plaintively. The night was cool, yet had a touch of balmy spring, and a sweeter fragrance, as if the cedars and pinyons had freshened in the warm sun of that day. ”

“ The Navajos of New Mexico and Arizona, a tribe living a considerable distance from the Chickasaws, follow somewhat similar customs, as related by Dr. John Menard, formerly a physician to their agency.
"The Navajo custom is to leave the body where it dies, closing up the house or hogan or covering the body with stones or brush. In case the body is removed, it is taken to a cleft in the rocks and thrown in, and stones piled over. The person touching or carrying the body, first takes off all his clothes and afterwards washes his body with water before putting them on or mingling with the living. ”

“ On the head of each yay is an eagle plume lying horizontally and pointing to the right. A similar arrangement of four plumes, all pointing in one direction (contrary to the sun’s apparent course) , may be observed on the baskets carried by the gods.
167. The gods are represented with beautiful embroidered pouches, each of a different pattern. In old days the most beautiful things in art the Navajo knew of were the porcupine quill embroideries of the northern races. The art of garnishing with quills, and later with beads, seems never to have been practiced to any extent by the Navajo women. ”