Navajo Rugs. The Navajo Indian Reservation covers about eleven thousand square miles, about six hundred and fifty of which are in the northwest corner of New Mexico, and the remainder in the northeast portion of Arizona. The region is well adapted for the raising of sheep, and every family possesses flocks, which are driven from place to place for pasture. The Navajos, however, never go to any great distance for this, but keep generally within a radius of fifty or sixty miles from home. This tribe weaves a rug that is useful, unique, durable, and when at its best, impervious to rain. Among the tribes, and in some Western homes, they are used as blankets, but it has become a fashion in many of the best houses in the Eastern States to use them entirely as rugs, couch coverings, and portières.
NAVAJO RUG
Size, 3.9 × 4.9
The field of this Navajo Rug is in a natural shade of grayish white. Six large diamond forms in black, with reddish edges and white centres, rest on the field. The centres contain a tiny red line, and there are smaller diamonds—seven in number—four having red centres and the remainder black, and at one end are two small figures. The border is in stripes of red, black, and an addition of white. The rug is a fine sample of the American Indian weaving, and its simplicity places it in striking and pleasing contrast to many of the modern productions of the Navajos.
It is believed that the Spaniards, when they arrived in that section of North America inhabited by the Pueblo tribe of Indians, communicated to them the industry of weaving these rugs, and that the Pueblos taught it to the Navajos. Thus it appears that the weaving of the Navajo rug was a result of the Moors' invasion of Europe. The sheep, which are raised by thousands, were also introduced by the Spaniards. The wool is not washed until after the shearing. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Navajos began to use the shears of the white man; previously they procured the wool by cutting it off the body of the animal with a knife, and pulling it from the legs.
The native dyes are red, yellow, and black, and the natural colors of the wool are black, gray, and white. The dyes of the white man are now much used. Formerly there was a beautiful blue, which has given way to the indigo. A scarlet cloth called Bayeta was once much used in the weaving of these rugs, but Germantown yarn and other inventions of the white man have largely superseded the old-time materials and methods.
The spindle is of the crudest form, and sometimes the wool is simply picked out from the mass, and rolled into the yarn or thread on the hand.
The looms are fashioned after the most primitive ones of the Orient, and the weaver sits on the ground and weaves upward. Women do most of the weaving, but occasionally a dusky-faced man may be seen at the loom. It takes about a month to weave a rug six feet ten inches by five feet seven inches.