Esther Etcitty was born in 1944 in a traditional Navajo Hogan near Sanostee, New Mexico, about thirty miles southwest of Shiprock. The major trading posts for Navajo weaving in that area are Two Grey Hills and Toadlena.

Three thousand years ago on a rock panel in the American Southwest, the figure of a flute player with either a humped back or a bag on his back, was carved for the first time in a remote canyon. Over the years, the figure has shown up over a wide area of the Southwest in many different canyons, on the walls of caves and cliff dwellings.