Navaho Trading Days by Elizabeth Compton Hegemann

Blankets for their own use were no longer made instead the softer wool blankets from Pendleton, Oregon, were bought at trading posts.Īfter the Spanish, who changed Navajo life with horses, sheep, and silver works, the next contacts with white men were the Englishspeaking Bilagdana ('white man'). The market for Navajo rugs never waned, and weavers gave all their time to this source of income, always steady while drought and floods regularly ruined their crops. Navajo weavers were given pictures to reproduce and in their experimentation with the analine dyes and their hurry to sell more of their work, a period of poor-quality rugs came off the looms.

The predilection for red of traders, like Don Lorenzo Hubbell, and tourists coming into the land of the Dine' on Fred Harvey buses, together with new analine dyes in bright colors, threatened the craft for a while. Mastering wool dyeing by using native roots, berries, and bark, the Navajos are credited with creating the first native tapestries in the United States. Later when the Spanish drove sheep north into Arizona and New Mexico in 1540, wool was used. 6 Weaving with cotton was learned from the agricultural Pueblo Indians. In both silversmithing-using bold, simple designs often with embedded turquoise-and in weaving, the Navajos became superb craftsmen.

This was good for him because this was his native land. He knew that wood, stones, and flints were located within the territory of his enemies, and therefore certain wood and stones were considered sacred by him. He had to know what part of the country would contain certain woods, flints, paints, and other useful items. The flint stone he knew would be good for knives, scrapers, spears, and arrowheads because of its keen edge and hardness. He had to find the right kind of wood, bone, and clay to make his cooking and eating utensils the right kind of stone to make into grinding stone, ax, hammer, or battle ax. He made tools for the women to use at home and around the encampment, and he had to have the knowledge to get the right kind of materials to make them work for his purposes. He developed many kinds of weapons and tools to make his life easier. In order to make use of the things and creatures created for him, he had to come up with his own idea of producing crude weapons and the apparatus needed to harvest his own needs and those of his fellow tribesmen.

Navaho Trading Days by Elizabeth Compton Hegemann