Many of our regular readers will remember Mae Morgan. She is a remarkable woman from near Crown Point on the Navajo Reservation. She began weaving at the age of eight and learned from watching her mother.
Mae has been selling weavings to the gallery for about 30 years.
One or both of Mae’s daughters, Rosita or Etta, would bring her to Durango after she had finished anywhere from 10 to 20 weavings. That took some time, but she looked at her rugs as a savings account. When she came, we always took a photo with her and all the rugs she brought up. In all the years that Mae has brought weavings to us, I have never taken a photograph of her smiling! She smiles when we are talking and when someone says something amusing, but her serious look takes over when you bring out a camera. I used to ask her to smile, but she ignored me, so I quit!
My mother always enjoyed long visits with Mae, translated by Rosita, every time she visited town. They would sit on the couch, drinking coffee (Mae loves coffee), and share memories, stories, and their histories.
Mae quit weaving right after the pandemic. Her legs and arthritis just made it too difficult and uncomfortable to sit on the floor in front of her loom, and she didn’t like working from a chair with the loom raised in front of her. It was just too hard. About ten years before she quit, Mae had a stroke, and we thought that might be the end of her weaving, but a great young doctor in the Indian Health Service encouraged her daughters to get her weaving again. Within a year, she had regained her form and was completely recovered.
One of her joys was walking every day with her goats! Unfortunately, she now needs a wheelchair to navigate, so that has been lost to her. However, her mind remains sharp, and she continues to enjoy life. Last week, Rosita called and said Mae wanted to come up and visit, so we set a date.
She used to come to the gallery right before Christmas, and we’d all exchange gifts and have a great visit. Antonia and I decided we’d make this that kind of day, and so did Mae! It was Christmas in May!
I have often found that when people are no longer with us, I wish I had asked them more about their lives and history. That day, I asked Mae if any of her family had been on the Long Walk when the Navajo marched across New Mexico to Fort Sumner in the 1860s.
“My grandmother and great-grandmother were taken,” she said, translated by Rosita. “On the way, they were kidnapped and enslaved by a Mexican family. My grandmother was a young girl. (Mae didn’t know how old, but it seems she was under ten.) “
The family that took them had a baby, and my great-grandmother cared for it. She gave my grandmother a pouch of corn pollen and told her that when the people were not looking, she should run away and try to get back to their home.
“Then she put something like a burr in the back of the baby’s blanket, and the baby started crying. The people were all trying to make the baby stop, and my grandmother ran away. All she had was the corn pollen, and she would mix some of it with water, and that’s all she had.“
When she arrived at their home, she was tired and weak, but no one was there, so she continued into the Chuska Mountains. Many people hid in these mountains, and she ran into her grandfather. He led her back to their camp. He was a medicine man, and after she had eaten, he prepared and performed a ceremony in a hogan to cleanse her of what had happened.“
She never talked about what happened until she was old. When she did, she cried and struggled to talk about it.”
Mae teared up as she told the story as well. Her great-grandmother was never seen again.
"She also talked about how she used to watch her mother weave and how it led her to a skill that became essential to her life. While her kids were all educated, Mae didn’t have that opportunity. Weaving became her source of income. She said she only went to school through the second grade when her parents told her that was all the school there was. She became the daughter who stayed home and cared for her parents as they aged. That was the traditional role of the youngest daughter.
"When we were babies, she cared for us and helped us grow. Now it’s as if she has come full circle in life and needs our help. You become a child again, but you are going the other way. So we are helping her to go to the end.”Interestingly, Etta and Rosita have now taken care of Mae freely.
While Mae is physically weaker, her mind is sharp. She said she wanted us to know how much it meant to her that we had bought her rugs. “I used to listen to the Navajo radio station in Gallup, and they had this show where people having hard times would ask for help. Sometimes, it was because someone was sick or needed help with funeral expenses or other necessities.
“I decided I did not want my children ever to need to do that. I used the money from my rugs for Christmas, graduations, and birthdays, but I always saved some so my children would not need to ask for money.”
Believe it or not, she also got into buying and selling rugs. Her sister, Dorothy Yazzie, who is 90, weaves lovely small rugs similar to the ones Mae wove. About five years ago, Mae started showing up with her rugs and some of Dorothy’s. I always assumed that she just brought them up to sell for Dorothy, but this time, she told me she buys the rugs from her sister and brings them up to sell to us. I kidded her about becoming a trader, saying I would call her “Trader Mae.” Mae understands how money works and ensures her kids get the same lesson.
Her legs are too weak to allow her to cook, but her daughters still prepare her favorite meals, such as cornmeal mush with fry bread and mutton stew. But she asked if I wanted to know her favorite meal, and, of course, I did.
"KFC," she said without an interpreter, and everyone laughed. Rosita said it was absolutely true. “She really likes Kentucky Fried Chicken! She can eat a lot of it!”
Well, it's my favorite, too, so it’s been good that they closed the franchise in Durango; otherwise, I'd be in a lot larger jeans!
It doesn’t seem to affect Mae. She weighs about 90 pounds and hasn’t changed since I met her.
She made one more point as they were getting ready to take off and head back to Crown Point. Rosita translated it with a serious look on her face. “The medicine man told her that she would live to be 106 years old. We hope it’s true!”
When I helped her into the car, she had a little trouble putting her right foot in the back door of the SUV, but once she did, her right arm grabbed the support handle on the front side of the door. Using the muscles built by all of those years of weaving, carding, and spinning, she hoisted herself into the back seat.
She said, "Hagoone" (goodbye in Navajo) with a big hug and a wave. Rosita said, “We will see you next time.” Etta pulled away from the curb and headed to Crown Point.
The opportunity to spend an afternoon with a woman like Mae and her family is a blessing that makes this business so rewarding!
