Navajo weavers | Page 6

be. To produce their varigated patterns they have a separate skein, shuttle, or thread for each component of the pattern. Take, for instance, the blanket depicted in Fig. 49. Across this blanket, between the points a--b, we have two serrated borders, two white spaces, a small diamond in the center, and twenty-four serrated stripes, making in all twenty-nine component parts of the pattern. Now, when the weaver was working in this place, twenty-nine different threads of weft might have been seen hanging from the face of the web at one time. In the girth pictured in Fig. 44 five different threads of woof are shown depending from the loom.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Weaving of saddle-girth.]
When the web is so nearly finished that the batten can no longer be inserted in the warp, slender rods are placed in the shed, while the weft is passed with increased difficulty on the end of a delicate splinter and the reed-fork alone presses the warp home. Later it becomes necessary to remove even the rod and the shed; then the alternate threads are separated by a slender stick worked in tediously between them, and two threads of woof are inserted--one above and the other below the stick. The very last thread is sometimes put in with a darning needle. The weaving of the last three inches requires more labor than any foot of the previous work.
In Figs. 49, 50, 51, 52, and 53 it will be seen that there are small fringes or tassels at the corners of the blankets; these are made of the redundant ends of the four border-cords (i.e., the portions of the cord by which they were tied to the beams), either simply tied together or secured in the web with a few stitches.
The above is a description of the simplest mechanism by which the Navajos make their blankets; but in manufacturing diagonals, sashes, garters, and hair-bands the mechanism is much more complicated.
§ VII. For making diagonals the warp is divided into four sheds; the uppermost one of these is provided with a shed-rod, the others are supplied with healds. I will number the healds and sheds from below upwards. The following diagram shows how the threads of the warp are arranged in the healds and on the rod.
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--Diagram showing arrangement of threads of the warp in the healds and on the rod.]
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--Weaving of saddle-girth.]
When the weaver wishes the diagonal ridges to run upwards from right to left, she opens the sheds in regular order from below upwards thus: First, second, third, fourth, first, second, third, fourth, &c. When she wishes the ridges to trend in the contrary direction she opens the sheds in the inverse order. I found it convenient to take my illustrations of this mode of weaving from a girth. In Figs. 44 and 46 the mechanism is plainly shown. The lowest (first) shed is opened and the first set of healds drawn forward. The rings of the girth take the place of the beams of the loom.
There is a variety of diagonal weaving practiced by the Navajos which produces diamond figures; for this the mechanism is the same as that just described, except that the healds are arranged differently on the warp. The following diagram will explain this arrangement.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--Diagram showing arrangement of helds in diagonal weaving.]
To make the most approved series of diamonds the sheds are opened twice in the direct order (i.e., from below upwards) and twice in the inverse order, thus: First, second, third, fourth, first, second, third, fourth, third, second, first, fourth, third, second, first, fourth, and so on. If this order is departed from the figures become irregular. If the weaver continues more than twice consecutively in either order, a row of V-shaped figures is formed, thus: VVVV. Plate XXXV represents a woman weaving a blanket of this pattern, and Fig. 48 shows a portion of a blanket which is part plain diagonal and part diamond.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--Diagonal cloth.]
§ VIII. I have heretofore spoken of the Navajo weavers always as of the feminine gender because the large majority of them are women. There are, however, a few men who practice the textile art, and among them are to found the best artisans in the tribe.
[Illustration: PL. XXXVI.--NAVAJO WOMAN WEAVING A BELT.]
§ IX. Navajo blankets represent a wide range in quality and finish and an endless variety in design, notwithstanding that all their figures consist of straight lines and angles, no curves being used. As illustrating the great fertility of this people in design I have to relate that in the finer blankets of intricate pattern out of thousands which I have examined, I do not remember to have ever seen two exactly alike. Among the coarse striped blankets there is great uniformity.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--Navajo blanket of the finest