Navajoland Part 4, Four Trading Posts in One Day

Day four took us on another field trip to visit numerous trading posts in the region.  Our first stop was up in the mountains at the now abandoned Crystal trading post.  It has long been abandoned but the building is still standing.  We went there because of the significant role this trading post played in the development of Navajo rug designs due to the vision and foresight of the trader, JB Moore.

I caught Jennie, still weaving in the car on her CCactus flower Maxi loom.  Have loom will travel!!!  Mine fit nicely into my suitcase for the voyage back to Kalgoorlie.

Ana and I standing next to the faded sign.

Ana and Jennie chatting with lovely view behind.

After Crystal we drove higher and higher into the mountains until we came over the crest.  Looking east and below lay the endless flat desert plane.  We could see the Bisti Badlands and farther north stood Shiprock.

I snapped this shot as we zoomed past the small community of Newcomb.  Mary thought the abandoned building behind the white truck might have been Newcomb trading post.  Another important trading post in its day.  One of my rugs is purported to come from this area.  It is still in the region of the Two Grey Hills style of weaving so I am not at all sure one can determine that a rug came from Newcomb unless they knew who wove it.  But I am not an expert and perhaps one day I will have Mary clean my rug and tell me what she knows about it.

Shiprock in all its glory!  It was created by volcanic activity.

We drove past Two Grey Hills and climbed back up the side of the mountains and found Toadlena Trading Post.  This trading post is run by Mark Winter and his family.  He has an incredible museum in the trading post with unbelievable rugs and he is also attributed with restimulating rug weaving in the area.  Two Grey Hills style is characterised by handspun yarns and patterns done in natural colored wool.  Mark has done a lot of historical geneological study of the weavers in this area.  We had an incredible visit here!  It started with Mark giving us a tour of the museum, letting us paw through the stacks of rugs new and old for sale, asking and answering our many questions, a fashion shoot of him and Mary wearing some of the Chief's blankets in his collection, and one of our group buying a rug that a weaver brought in while we were there.  The highlight was sitting outside on the benches enjoying the view when the weaver who spoke no english came out with a truck load of groceries and shook hands with each one of us before she departed.  It was a head spin.

Mark Winter in his museum.

Tapestry quality of weaving something in the order of 80 wefts per inch!

Just as I was thinking that you couldn't possibly decide which rug to buy, I turned the corner and spied this runner by Rose Blueyes.  It sure spoke to me, unfortunately the bank account couldn't handle such a purchase.  My picture doesn't do it justice.  The medium shade of grey almost looks blue.

I found this old huge rug folded up on the floor of the office. The space was too small to spread it out but when Mark passed by he pointed out that the central pattern was a stylised Horned toad.  Horned toads are a symbol of protection.

I thought Phil would have loved all the rusty metal bits assembled around the outside of the trading post.

View from the benches out front of the trading post, looking down into the valley.  You can see the two grey hills that give the region  and the weaving style its name.

The approach to Two Grey Hills.

When we pulled up to the Two Grey Hills Trading Post I had a huge sense of Deja Vu.  I am wondering if I came here at age 15 with Kim Keller and her parents the summer I went to California with them.  I remember we turned north off the highway after we had passed through Albuquerque and we drove a long time through a flat and dusty area before we came to a trading post.  It was hot then and we were annoyed by a drunk navajo teenager who followed us around until the trader came out and spoke kindly to him telling him he was scaring us.  Times have really changed since the 70's on the reservation.  There is no alcohol allowed now and I didn't see anyone at all that looked under the influence.  We were dissappointed not to find the trader home but the young navajo woman that was working took us to see the girls ceremonial dress that she was weaving.  We bought some really nice weaving tools here and I saw some cradle boards made of cedar that I would have loved to purchase!  But how to get one home?

Driving back to Window Rock through the valley.  How green and beautiful everything was.

A Green Hill composed of Serpentine stood out in contrast to the neighboring cliffs in the afternoon sun.

Back at the weaving room we had a lovely visit by Herman and Lula.  This Navajo couple specialize in weaving miniatures.  You can see how small this loom is.  Lula demonstrated how she uses a small metal crochet hook to pull the weft through the shed threads.  The finished product looks like a coaster.  But you wouldn't dare use it as a coaster!!!!  Because of the work involved these miniatures are not cheap.  I suspect it takes an entire day to weave one.  Some people collect them.  Herman told me that there is a poster of a map of the reservation that you can get and frame with small miniatures placed all around it to represent each of the weaving areas.  I came home with a double diamond Ganado miniature. The one shown above is a wide ruins style.

A raised outline miniature in progress.

Navajoland Part 3- Canyon de Chelley

On our third day in Navajoland we drove to Thunderbird Lodge in Chinle which is at the mouth of the Canyon de Chelley (pronounced Shay)  This canyon is a very special place to the Navajos.  You can only go in with a Navajo guide.  It is the sacred place of Spider Woman who lives on top of Spider Rock.  She is the mythical creature who taught the Navajos how to weave.

Unfortunately we didn't actually get to see Spider Rock on our visit.  We did the half day tour and if you want to see Spider Rock you have to go in on the whole day tour.  But it didn't matter really because all of the canyon is magnificent.  I have only posted a fraction of the photos taken here.  I think Ana and I went a little bit crazy but honestly every which way you looked it was breathtaking.

Thunderbird Lodge is a completely Navajo owned and run enterprise.  They have a wonderful gift shop and cafeteria there.  The half day tour was $50 dollars and it was worth every penny.  It had rained a lot the day before we went in and we were not sure we were going to be able to go into the canyon.  They told us that there was a vehicle that had gotten caught in the gulley wash and was buried up to its windows in mud.  Later we saw the vehicle.  It cut our tour a bit short as it made the way impassable.  There were two backhoes and lots of guys with shovels headed up to get it out and they pulled the tour vehicles out a couple of times.  It was a very exciting ride and we marveled at our driver, BJ's skills as he got us through some pretty muddy spots.  This all added to the drama of the canyon.

Most of the drive is right up the middle of the waterway.

The tour vehicles are old military supply trucks left over from WWII.  The backs are open and they have installed bench seating so that you can see all around you.   This is a picture of our driver from the back.

We saw many four wheel drives going in with small groups of tourists.  And we also came upon a horseback riding tour.  One of our classmates who is a tour guide in Flagstaff told us that once she did a two day horse trek into the canyon where they camped out overnight and she said it was great.

BJ points out the first ancient pueblo ruins that we came upon.  This one was called White House Pueblo.  Only one building in the collection still had the white stucco on the wall which gave the place its name.  He said that the walls at one time had been obliterated with graffitti.  I think it is a good thing that the Navajos control who can go into the canyon now.  The people that lived in these pueblos used to be called Anasazi but now the correct term is "ancient puebloans".  They are the ancestors of the Hopi and Zuni.  And they are probably the people who taught the Navajo how to weave.

In Hopi culture it is the men who weave and they traditionally wove cotton.  In Navajo culture it is most often the women who weave and they used wool after the Spanish introduced sheep to the area.

You sure wouldn't want to be driving through here when the water comes rushing down!!

We got held up here because a Jeep got stuck in the mud.  They soon got it out and we were able to continue on our way.  This hill was steep and thick mud and we had trouble getting up and over it on the way back.

Here you can get a good look at the trucks used for the tours.  This was our first rest stop.  This was called Antelope House Pueblo because of the petroglyphs on the cliff face.  They had toilets and a small snack bar concession here and a few Navajos with their blankets and trinkets spread out for us to purchase.  The prices were good and even if we are out in the middle of nowhere most of these traders take credit cards!  Isn't that the American way.  Ana bought a nice turquoise nugget necklace here for $15.  One of our classmates bought a lovely small weaving done in the Chinle style.  The trader said that his 84 year old grandmother had woven it.

We got stopped here by the vehicle that had gotten stuck in the gulley wash of the previous day.  There was no way around it so the tour trucks all had to turn around and go back.  The backhoes soon got there and I imagine it wouldn't have taken long to get the thing out.  Nevertheless we retraced our steps and turned east up a branch of the canyon to another rest stop that had Navajo craftmen gallor.  They had their tables set up in the shade of the cottonwoods and we were so facinated looking at their handycrafts that I forgot to take a photo of the pageant.  A couple of the silversmiths have websites and are on facebook.  The Navajo are really working hard to market directly so that they do not have to split their profits with a middle man.  More power to them.

All in all it was a great day in the Canyon.  Mary told us at lunch time of her plan in October 2011 of running a weaving class in the canyon.  She calls it The Spider Rock Girls Boarding School.  I think the plan is to weave a couple of days at the Lodge and then go up to the Spider Rock to camp and finish weaving.  The instructors will include the Spider Rock Girls. They are the Blake and Malone girls.  They represent three generations of weavers who specialize in the Burntwater Style of weaving which uses all natural vegetable dyes.  If you are interested in weaving and taking a class, check out Mary's informative website at:  www. weavinginbeauty.com

The Spider Rock Girls!  Here is Ana posing with three generations.  Emily and three of her four daughters and the littlest one who if he joins them in weaving will be the fourth generation.  The grandmother did not make the long trip into Window Rock to visit us.  We were sorry not to get to meet her.  Emily's twelve year old is working on her second rug.  We had a lovely visit with them.  Laramie and Ana really bonded.  Laramie just finished High School and like her oldest sister hopes to help finance her higher education by weaving.  Her oldest sister just completed a nursing degree and Laramie is hoping to do a business degree.

Here is Jennie Slick, our wonderful teacher.  She was so patient with all of us.  I watched her weave a bit.  She has this neat way of grabbing the yarn with her indexe finger and pulling it through the shed with one fast movement.  I coined it the Slick Finger Flick!

We were all torn between "visiting" and "weaving".  We were having a wonderful time.

Navajoland Part 2- Natural dyeing

On our second day at Window Rock we drove west and picked up a Navajo Weaver named Rose Dedman at her house and then proceeded up the escarpment to the Defiance Plateau where we collected a variety of natural dye stuffs.

Here is the view across the plateau.  It looks just like sage brush but there is actually a lot of other stuff growing there if you look carefully.  We had one team collecting sage brush.  Another team collecting Rabbit brush which is bright green with yellow flowers.  My team was collecting a lichen that grows on the top of the soil.

On the way back to Rose's house we stopped at the edgle of the plateau to admire the view of the valley below.  Then onward to get to the dyeing!

We set up five dye vats.  We had four gas burners to use.  The first pot had Wild carrot root in it that Mary had collected previously.  Wild carrot is related to Dock (Rumex) and makes a beautiful rich gold color.  We did a pot of Navajo tea which made a light green color.  The Rabbit Brush made an outrageously bright green.  And the Lichen came out light yellow.  We rinsed the skeins and then hung them to dry on the fence line.  I don't know why I didn't take a picture of the fence with all the dyed skeins draped over it because it was a lovely sight.

Rose's grandchildren showing off the rugs that they wove.

Chasing rain clouds on the way back to the Hotel. Another evening spent working on our own rugs.