What are Navajo rugs?

Answer 1

Navajo rugs are those which are woven by the Navajo people in the American Southwest. These rugs are always kelims or flatweave rugs which do not have a pile. They are woven of wool on upright looms. As the rug is completed it is rolled up at the bottom. The weaver sits on the ground in front of the loom.

They are almost exclusively woven by women. Usually the patterns were never exactly repeated nor did they draw out a plan ahead of time. Often there is a single thread of a different color that goes in one place through the border to the edge. This is called the spirit line. It is so the woman will not obsesses on and repeat that design, not get mentally "trapped" in the rug. Just as speech is seen as the outer form of thought the rug is seen as the outer form of the idea in the woman who made it. One should therefor care for and respect the rug. Never put bones or dead things or lightening struck wood on it.

Traditionally, they used a particular sheep wool, the Navajo Churro sheep. The oldest ones are dyed with natural plant dyes. Then they used commercial dyes and sometimes unraveled woolen goods. They never have tassel or fringe at the ends. They were usually a abstract design with four-fold (quadrilateral) symmetry. The patterns are traditionally different in different areas. The symbols and colors have and had traditional symbolic and philosophical meaning. In the 20th century some pictorial and non symmetrical patterns were developed.

Sometimes the term "Navajo" is used as a generic term to refer to a geometric pattern in earthy color scheme in a flatweave rug.