Traditions & vernacular · 1700–present · North America
Diné (Navajo) Weaving Design
Also known as Navajo weaving, Eyedazzler, Navajo regional rug styles
The tapestry-woven design tradition of Diné (Navajo) weavers, recorded in Spanish sources from the early 18th century. Each design is planned as one symmetrical field and built weft by weft, so every diagonal steps. Striped blankets came first, some with terraced diamonds by 1804. After Bosque Redondo came eyedazzlers, Saltillo-derived serrated diamonds in bright Germantown yarn. Then came bordered trading-post rugs, some modelled on Oriental rugs, in regional codes such as Two Grey Hills and Ganado red. Contemporary tapestry artists such as DY Begay extend it into landscape and abstraction.
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Use it with care
Diné weaving is a living craft, taught within families and tied to the Diné account of Spider Woman, who taught the first weavers to build the loom. It has also been suggested that the Diné learned weaving from Pueblo neighbours, though how far is uncertain; give the Diné account first. Yeibichai and sandpainting designs depict Holy People from healing ceremonies, and weaving them was controversial within the Navajo community even when Hastiin Klah, himself a ceremonial singer, did it. Do not reproduce Yei or sandpainting imagery. Diné weavers may leave a spirit line (Ch'ihónít'i), a deliberate break through a border that gives spiritual elements a way out of the textile; it is their practice, so do not add a spirit line or any 'meaning' to a design as decoration. Do not sell printed or machine-made 'Navajo pattern' as Indian-made: the US Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 prohibits that. The Navajo Nation also holds trademarks in the name 'Navajo', registered since 1943. It sued Urban Outfitters in 2012 over 'Navajo' and 'Navaho' product lines, and the case was settled in 2016 with a supply and licence agreement. Do not label non-Diné products or patterns 'Navajo'; the Nation expects companies to ask its permission before using its name, designs or motifs. Commission, pay and credit Diné weavers by name rather than copying their rugs, for example through the Crownpoint Rug Auction, run since 1968, with breaks, by a community organisation of weavers and volunteers.
01
How it works
- Plan the whole field before weaving and mirror it, bilaterally or four ways, around a central axis or medallion.
- Build every diagonal from small horizontal steps, as the weft does, so diamonds, zigzags and triangles have terraced or serrated edges and nothing curves.
- Lay colour in flat, unshaded areas that meet at hard edges; for an eyedazzler, set saturated hues edge to edge along serrated outlines so the junctions vibrate.
- Commit to one grammar. Use broad horizontal bands for a chief blanket, an all-over field of nested serrated diamonds for an eyedazzler, or a bordered central medallion on a solid ground for a trading-post rug.
- Take the palette from the fleece, the period and the region: undyed white, grey, brown and black for Two Grey Hills, deep red with black, grey and white for Ganado, warm vegetal golds for Wide Ruins, and aniline Germantown reds, oranges, blues, greens and yellows for an eyedazzler.
Diné Bikéyah (Navajoland) in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, around the traditional homeland among the four sacred mountains; the weaving is older than the Navajo Nation reservation set up by the 1868 treaty. Trading posts at Ganado (Hubbell), Crystal (J.B. Moore) and Two Grey Hills shaped the rug era
02
Its design choices
From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.
- Layout & composition
- Space & hierarchy
- Colour
- Form & shape
- Surface & texture
- Ornament
- Imagery
- Medium & production
- Tone & intent
- Avoids
- Biomorphic curves, Whiplash line, Naturalistic depiction, Gradients, Illusion of depth, Dynamic asymmetry, Modular grid, Straight photography
Palette
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Typefaces
Stepped capitals built on the weft grid when a title has to share the woven field, such as Silkscreen or another pixel face drawn on the same square grid
Diné bizaad text with full orthographic support (ą, ł, ʼ, nasal and high-tone marks such as ą́), set in a sturdy sans such as Noto Sans
Known for
First-phase chief blankets, the earliest type with stripes only
e.g. Penn Museum, 1800–1850
'Germantown Eye-Dazzler' rug, Art Institute of Chicago
cotton and wool, dovetailed tapestry weave
Eye-dazzler rugs and runners, Arizona State Museum
c. 1880–1910
Ganado Red rugs from Hubbell Trading Post, Ganado, which John Lorenzo Hubbell bought in 1878
J.B. Moore, Crystal Trading Post rug catalogues
1903 and 1911
Daisy Taugelchee, Two Grey Hills rugs in handspun undyed wool
e.g. Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, c. 1966
Hastiin Klah (1867–1937), Yeibichai weavings from c. 1914 and sandpainting weavings from 1919
Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe
DY Begay (Tsélání), 'Cheyenne Style' (2000, wool and plant dyes), bright colour and geometric design after Diné chief blankets and Plains art, shown in Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of DY Begay, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C. (20 September 2024 – 13 July 2025)
03
Make something in this style
Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Diné (Navajo) Weaving Design’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.
04
Where it comes from, and what it’s close to
Before it
The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.
Nothing earlier is recorded: in the atlas it is a starting point.
After it
The styles that grew out of it.
No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.
Alike in its design choices
Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.
05
Sources
- Arizona State Museum, '19th-Century Navajo Weaving: Eye Dazzlers': https://statemuseum.arizona.edu/online-exhibit/19-century-navajo-weaving-asm/eye-dazzlers
- Art Institute of Chicago, 'Germantown Eye-Dazzler' Rug: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/155968/germantown-eye-dazzler-rug (description via https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/155968)
- Penn Museum, First Phase Chief Blanket: https://collections.penn.museum/collections/object/301176
- Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, Two Grey Hills rug by Daisy Taugelchee: https://maxwellmuseum.unm.edu/node/488
- National Park Service, Hubbell Trading Post NHS, History and Culture: https://www.nps.gov/hutr/learn/historyculture/index.htm
- Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, About (Hastiin Klah and Mary Cabot Wheelwright): https://wheelwright.org/about
- American Indian magazine (NMAI), 'Of the Land: DY Begay's Tapestries': https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/Weaver-DY-Begay-Sublime-Light
- Gochman Collection, Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of DY Begay (NMAI, 20 September 2024 – 13 July 2025): https://gochmancollection.com/exhibitions/sublime-light-tapestry-art-of-dy-begay
- US Indian Arts and Crafts Board, The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990: https://www.doi.gov/iacb/act
- FashionUnited, 'Urban Outfitters settles trademark lawsuit with the Navajo Nation' (November 2016): https://fashionunited.uk/news/business/urban-outfitters-settles-trademark-lawsuit-with-the-navajo-nation/2016112122563
- Keller Rohrback, Navajo Nation and Urban Outfitters settlement announcement (21 November 2016): https://www.kellerrohrback.com/news/navajo-nation-urban-outfitters-inc-announce-settlement-agreement
- Visit Gallup, Crownpoint Rug Auction: https://www.visitgallup.com/blog/crownpoint-rug-auction/
- Wikipedia: Navajo weaving; John Bradford Moore; Hosteen Klah; Long Walk of the Navajo; Navajo Nation (Terminology)
- Kate Peck Kent, Navajo Weaving: Three Centuries of Change (School of American Research Press, 1985)
How Stylogeny researches and checks a style: where the facts come from.