She Now Immerses The Wool And Allows It To Remain In The Dye For
Half An Hour Or An Hour.
Whence come the designs incorporated by these simple weavers into their
blankets, sashes and dresses?
In this as in basketry and pottery, the
answer is found in nature. Many of their textile designs suggest a
derivation from basketry ornamentation, which originally came from nature.
The angular, curveless figures of interlying plaits predominate and the
principal subjects are the same - conventional devices representing clouds,
stars, lightning, the rainbow, and emblems of the deities. These simple
forms are produced in endless combination and often in brilliant,
kaleidoscopic grouping, sometimes representing broad effects of scarlet,
black, green, yellow, and blue upon scarlet, and the wide ranges of color
skilfully blended upon a ground of white. The centre of the fabric is
frequently occupied with tessellated or lozenge patterns of multicolored
sides; or divided into panels of contrasting colors, in which different
designs appear. Some display symmetric zigzags, converging and spreading
throughout their length. In others bands of high color are defined by zones
of neutral tints, or parted by thin, bright lines into a checkered mosaic.
In many only the most subdued shades appear. Fine effects are obtained by
using a short gray wool in its natural state, to form the body of the
fabric in solid color, upon which figures in black, white and red are
introduced. Sometimes blankets are woven in narrow stripes of black and
deep blue with borders relieved in tinted meanders along the sides and
ends, or a central figure in the dark body with the design repeated in a
diagonal panel at each corner.
The greatest charm of these primitive fabrics is the unrestrained freedom
of the weaver in her treatment of primitive conventions. To the checkered
emblem of the rainbow she adds sweeping rays of color, typifying sunbeams.
Below the many angled cloud group she inserts random pencil lines of rain;
or she often softens the rigid lines signifying lightning, with graceful
interlacing and shaded tints. Not confining herself alone to these
traditional devices, she often creates realistic figures of common objects
such as her grass brush, wooden weaving fork, a stalk of corn, a bow, an
arrow or a plume of feathers from a dancer's mask. Although the same
characteristic styles of weaving and decoration are general, none of the
larger designs are ever reproduced with exactness. Every fabric
carries some distinct variation or suggestion of the occasion of its
making.
Among the Navahos the women invariably do the weaving though in the past a
few men were experts in the art. Among the Pueblo Indians the men perform
this work. The products of the Pueblo looms are readily distinguishable
from those of the Navahos, the latter having far out-distanced the Pueblos
in the excellence of their work. Only among the Hopi, are blankets made
that in any way resemble the work of the Navahos. Generally a Hopi man
weaver can be found at work in the Hopi House, as well as Navaho women
weavers.
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