5 minute read
West by Southwest Ernie Bulow
TOADLENA-TWO GRAY HILLS HAS WEIRD SHEEP HOW MANY COLORS IN YOUR FLOCK?
In the early years of the last century, there was something almost magical about the Navajo weaving designs along the eastern edge of the Arizona/New Mexico border, along the Chuska Mountains or from Crystal to Teec-Nos-Pos. Among the many trading posts, several had their own specific designs. The common practice of the Navajo was to spend summers on the mountain for grazing and winter on the less fertile land below to the east.
In 1910 the trader at Crystal, New Mexico, J. B Moore, published a mail order catalog that still amazes students of Navajo weaving. It included 15 plates in color picturing rugs now known as the Crystal Design. These have a complex borders, dominant central elements, and usually some sort of embellished diamond with hooks, fancy triangles, crosses, and lightning bolts. They were distinctive, attractive, and unusual.
Plate No. XXIII has a central diamond figure that was used all up and down the Crystal/Teec-NosPos corridor, making it and the complete border the identifying elements. Some of these weavings featured natural colors, although Moore fancied commercial red, also used by Hubbell in Arizona at that time. Moore also sent his wool off to be processed, which cut out some of the time-consuming hand-work.
It’s hard to believe there was a meeting of traders to decide to promote these particular designs. Likewise, the weavers didn’t discuss the design issue amongst themselves; though they did get to see each others’ work. The designs themselves proved attractive and salable. It has been suggested that the Navajos copied Oriental rugs as the basis for their designs— but there were various influences. The similarity that was noted at the time starts and ends simply with the complexity of the designs.
At this moment, the Toadlena/Two Grey Hills area is the only place where natural wools are mostly used exclusively. Also, it’s the only area where the weaver still does much of the hand-work of carding and spinning. However, these days, a few of the weavers have gone to the practice of sending the wool off to Mora Valley, New Mexico, to be cleaned and carded, as the natural fleeces contain large amounts of lanolin.
Last week Mark Winter, operator of Toadlena
Post, sat me down with one of the great weavers,
Irene Bennally. This lady really knows her history.
First, and most importantly, the Navajo have known about and practiced selective breeding for color and wool quality for a very long time. If the ram and the ewe are the same color, then the lambs will be the same. Of course, there are some interesting exceptions to this rule.
Certain white ewes always throw black lambs.
In Irene’s herd, all the black babies had a white spot on their heads. Irene told me that after a period of time, the white spot would go away.
Also, with each generation, the desired offspring’s colors fade, so the ewes have to be replaced. Irene relates that when she first decided to upgrade the natural colors, she traveled far and wide to find the unusually-colored ewes that she needed in other herds. She picked up some great specimens—as far away as Black Mesa.
Irene has made some unusual additions to the traditional sheep herd. She now has alpacas and llamas with her sheep. These animals are more aggressive toward predators so coyotes tend to steer clear. They also have great wool, but they can only be sheared every other year.
She knows another lady in the Toadlena area who feeds her sheep a special tea, ingredients unknown, to produce special coloration(s). But to get the sheep to drink it, she adds apple cider vinegar.
A desert bighorn joined a flock in Navajo Canyon, but it didn’t work out. He became too aggressive. Rather curiously, when Navajos apply for their grazing permits, sheep are listed as “wild” animals. The BIA never ceases to amaze. The lore of the colored sheep is fascinating. Irene has, largely by diligence, created one of the most distinctive flocks to be found anywhere on the Navajo reservation, but it demands constant vigilance and creativity—and the process never ends.
Mark Winter, rug dealer par excellence, has studied the issue of wool colors for many years. His giant COLORED PLATE FROM THE J. B. MOORE CATALOG
Ernie Bulow
West by Southwest
by Ernie Bulow
THESE WOOLS COME DIRECTLY FROM THE SHEEP-THEY HAVE NOT BEEN DYED.
book The Master Weavers: Celebrating One Hundred Years of Navajo Textile Artists from the Toadlena /Two Grey Hills Weaving Region covers every aspect of that area’s weaving completely and in depth. One of his favorite topics is the handspun wool used by the weavers.
In my big old Spanish Dictionary (1852), there is a single meaning for Churro—“Applied to sheep that have coarse wool, and their wool.” In fact, these descendants of the sheep Coronado brought into the Southwest were intended for eating only. At the time Columbus sailed, later followed by the conquistadors, it was a crime, punishable by death, to take Merinos—which were considered to have the finest wool—out of Spain. Such sheep only came into the area many, many years later.
Having challenged the problem of the name, why are early Navajo blankets so fine? Question already answered. The Navajos understood perfectly well what selective breeding was and how to do it. Just keep breeding the best wool producers to get the best wool.
Mark Winter has an additional theory: the wool changed when sheep came to a higher altitude and changed their diet. When the Navajos finally got the Merino wool, they didn’t like it. It was very greasy and hard to clean. They had already developed a product they liked, but Kit Carson decimated their flocks at the time of the Long Walk in the 1860s.
Four-horned rams are part of the story, but Irene had only a few when I visited.
The fact is, Churro was more an idea than an actual breed, one created by the Navajos themselves.
MARK WINTER AND MASTER WEAVER IRENE BENNALLY DEMONSTRATE THE UNUSUAL UPSIDE DOWN SPINNING SYMBOL
-ernie@buffalomedicine.com
