Southwest Crossroads— Footpath: Navajo Weaving: Culture and Change

Part 2: Selections

	Title(s): The Churro Author(s): Southwest Crossroads Spotlight Description: The introduction of churro sheep by the Spanish and their resulting importance to Navajo culture. Excerpt: During the sixteenth century, the Spanish brought flocks of churro sheep to the Americas. The churro was an old and hardy breed originating in Spain. It could survive in rugged, dry terrain. Early Spanish, Pueblo, and Navajo weavers prized the long, silky...
	Title(s): Navajo Weaving: A Study in Cultural Change and Adaptability Author(s): Southwest Crossroads Spotlight Description: The development of Navajo weaving for individual use and for trade. Excerpt: Navajos say Spider Woman taught them to weave with directions from Spider Man. Spider Woman’s woven cross still appears in Navajo weaving today. The early Navajos were a nomadic hunting and gathering people. Navajo weaving tells a story of their enco...
	Title(s): Trading Posts in the American Southwest Author(s): Southwest Crossroads Spotlight Description: An overall description of trading posts in the American Southwest. Excerpt: For hundreds of years, people of the American Southwest traded among themselves. They used a system of barter to exchange everything from furs, bison hides, foods, woven material, and clothing to pottery, beads, feathers, and turquoise. The establishment ...
	Title(s): Life at Wide Ruins; Wide Ruins Author(s): Sallie R. Wagner (Author) Description: Sallie Wagner writes of her days running a trading post with her husband on the Navajo reservation in the 1930s and 1940s. Excerpt: It took some months for the people to decide that it might be all right to trade with us. The test came when Bent Knee arrived to take a deerskin out of pawn and found that the skin was still in the building. It was the custom, when selling a post, to als...
	Title(s): Rugs for Trade or Cash; Wide Ruins Author(s): Sallie R. Wagner (Author) Description: Sallie Wagner writes of her days running a trading post with her husband on the Navajo reservation in the 1930s and 1940s. Excerpt: When my husband and I bought the trading post, the Navajos in the area were making very poor rugs, the kind that were sold from knocked-together stands along Highway 66. The wool was not well cleaned or well spun. The bordered designs were the kind that h...

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