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Weaving plays a role in the creation myth of Navajo cosmology, which articulates social relationships and continues to play a role in Navajo culture. According to one aspect of this tradition, a spiritual being called "Spider Woman" instructed the women of the Navajo how to build the first loom from exotic materials including sky, earth ...
Navajo rugs are woven by Navajo women today from Navajo-Churro sheep, other breeds of sheep, or commercial wool. Designs can be pictorial or abstract, based on historic Navajo, Spanish, Asian, or Persian designs. 20th century Navajo weavers include Clara Sherman and Hosteen Klah, who co-founded the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian.
In general, weaving involves using a loom to interlace two sets of threads at right angles to each other: the warp which runs longitudinally and the weft (older woof) that crosses it. (Weft is an Old English word meaning "that which is woven"; compare leave and left. [a]) One warp thread is called an end and one weft thread is called a pick.
Toward the end of the 19th century, weavers began to make rugs for tourism and export. Typical Navajo textiles have strong geometric patterns. They are a flat tapestry-woven textile produced in a fashion similar to kilims of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, but the warp is one continuous length of yarn and does not extend beyond the weaving as ...
This style is a traditional Navajo style of weaving that was created during a time of oppression, the Navajo Long Walk, that used wool from government issued wool blankets. Curators Besaw et al. explain that this style is known for its, "vibrant hues, diamond patterns, geometric forms and overlapping lines". [1]
Begay is a fifth-generation weaver [3] [4] who grew up surrounded by women weavers. [5] From them she learned sheep herding and shearing, and how to work with wool. She learned to spin and card wool, and traditional Navajo weaving techniques. [5]
A weaving based on a Whirling Log ceremony sand painting by Klah, circa 1925. Hosteen Klah (Navajo: Hastiin Tłʼa, 1867– February 27, 1937) [1] was a Navajo artist and medicine man. He documented aspects of Navajo religion and related ceremonial practices. As a traditional nádleehi person, he was both a ceremonial singer and master weaver.
A 19th-century hogan Navajo spinning and weaving on vertical loom. The Navajo are speakers of a Na-Dené Southern Athabaskan language which they call Diné bizaad (lit. 'People's language'). The term Navajo comes from Spanish missionaries and historians who referred to the Pueblo Indians through this term, although they referred to themselves ...