Navajo weavers

Navajo weavers

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Navajo weavers, by Washington
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Title: Navajo weavers Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology
to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1881-'82, Government
Printing Office, Washington, 1884, pages 371-392.
Author: Washington Matthews
Release Date: February 10, 2006 [EBook #17742]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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WEAVERS ***

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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.

NAVAJO WEAVERS.
BY
DR. WASHINGTON MATTHEWS, U.S.A.

Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution, 1881-'82, Government Printing Office,
Washington, 1884, pages 371-392.

ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATE XXXIV.--Navajo woman spinning 376 XXXV.--Weaving of
diamond-shaped diagonals 380 XXXVI.--Navajo woman weaving a
belt 384 XXXVII.--Zuñi women weaving a belt 388
XXXVIII.--Bringing down the batten 390 FIG. 42.--Ordinary Navajo
blanket loom 378 43.--Diagram showing formation of warp 379
44.--Weaving of saddle-girth 382 45.--Diagram showing arrangement
of threads of the warp in the healds and on the rod 383 46.--Weaving of
saddle-girth 383 47.--Diagram showing arrangement of healds in
diagonal weaving 384 48.--Diagonal cloth 384 49.--Navajo blanket of
the finest quality 385 50.--Navajo blankets 386 51.--Navajo blanket
386 52.--Navajo blanket 387 53.--Navajo blanket 387 54.--Part of
Navajo blanket 388 55.--Part of Navajo blanket 388 56.--Diagram
showing formation of warp of sash 388 57.--Section of Navajo belt 389
58.--Wooden heald of the Zuñis 389 59.--Girl weaving (from an Aztec
picture) 391

NAVAJO WEAVERS.
BY DR. WASHINGTON MATTHEWS.
§ I. The art of weaving, as it exists among the Navajo Indians of New
Mexico and Arizona, possesses points of great interest to the student of

ethnography. It is of aboriginal origin; and while European art has
undoubtedly modified it, the extent and nature of the foreign influence
is easily traced. It is by no means certain, still there are many reasons
for supposing, that the Navajos learned their craft from the Pueblo
Indians, and that, too, since the advent of the Spaniards; yet the pupils,
if such they be, far excel their masters to-day in the beauty and quality
of their work. It may be safely stated that with no native tribe in
America, north of the Mexican boundary, has the art of weaving been
carried to greater perfection than among the Navajos, while with none
in the entire continent is it less Europeanized. As in language, habits,
and opinions, so in arts, the Navajos have been less influenced than
their sedentary neighbors of the pueblos by the civilization of the Old
World.
The superiority of the Navajo to the Pueblo work results not only from
a constant advance of the weaver's art among the former, but from a
constant deterioration of it among the latter. The chief cause of this
deterioration is that the Pueblos find it more remunerative to buy, at
least the finer serapes, from the Navajos, and give their time to other
pursuits, than to manufacture for themselves; they are nearer the white
settlements and can get better prices for their produce; they give more
attention to agriculture; they have within their country, mines of
turquoise which the Navajos prize, and they have no trouble in
procuring whisky, which some of the Navajos prize even more than
gems. Consequently, while the wilder Indian has incentives to improve
his art, the more advanced has many temptations to abandon it
altogether. In some pueblos the skill of the loom has been almost
forgotten. A growing fondness for European clothing has also had its
influence, no doubt.
§ II. Cotton, which grows well in New Mexico and Arizona, the tough
fibers of yucca leaves and the fibers of other plants, the hair of different
quadrupeds, and the down of birds furnished in prehistoric days the
materials of textile fabrics in this country. While some of the Pueblos
still weave their native cotton to a slight extent, the Navajos grow no
cotton and spin nothing but the wool of the domestic sheep, which
animal is, of course, of Spanish introduction, and of which the Navajos

have vast herds.
The wool is not washed until it is sheared. At the present time it is
combed with hand cards purchased from the Americans. In spinning,
the simplest form of the spindle--a slender stick thrust through the
center of a round wooden disk--is used. The Mexicans on the Rio
Grande use spinning-wheels, and