My Father loved Navajo pictorial rugs. Of course, he loved almost any Navajo rug, but the pictorials held a special place in his heart.

In 1936, Sallie Wagner Lippincott and her husband Bill moved to the Navajo Reservation as National Park Service employees at Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. 

One of the first people they met was Leon Hugh (Cozy) McSparron who was the Indian Trader at the Thunderbird Ranch (which is now the Thunderbird Lodge and is owned by the Navajo Tribe) at the mouth of the Canyon.

“From Debutante to Indian Trader,” is the story of a woman born into a privileged life in Wheeling, West Virginia who ended up buying the Wide Ruins Trading Post in 1938, at the age of 32, and transformed the art of Navajo weaving.

North of Flagstaff, Arizona 85 miles and 45 miles south of Page on Highway 89 you will find “The Gap” Trading Post. It is situated deep into the Navajo Reservation and lies on a paved highway linking Northern Arizona and Lake Powell. 

It wasn’t always that accessible. 

We are headed to the beautiful Natural History Museum of Utah this coming weekend for our annual Navajo Weaving Silent Auction and Sale and Trunk Show of Native American Jewelry!

There are a few Navajo weavers who make round rugs. These weavings are not common as there are some challenges to creating one. Over the years, we have worked with several women who made them, but they have all passed on.

It used to be that the phone would ring four times a year. Rosita Lee would be calling from Crownpoint, NM to say that, “Mom has some rugs she wants to bring up Tuesday.”

On November 3 in Denver, we will be holding the 33rd Annual Benefit Silent Auction and Sale of Navajo Weavings (and we have now added Indian Jewelry) to benefit the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.

The Chief Blanket, woven by the Navajo Women of the 1800s, was one of the most prestigious possessions a Southwest American Indian could possess. The blankets were simple and elegant in their design, beautifully woven and accented the body of the weaver. 

After 13 years Sallie Wagner Lippincott and her husband Bill left the Wide Ruins Trading Post, which they purchased in 1938. They were art collectors and their trips took them to diverse parts of the world, from post-war Japan to Santa Fe.

We recently came across a very nice example of the type of Navajo rug that was woven in the 1903-1920’s era on the Navajo reservation at the Crystal Trading Post. The post was owned, in fact it was built, by a man named John B. Moore who had traveled much of the west before settling in the beautiful mountain area near the New Mexico and Arizona border. 

Navajo Yeibichai weavings have been made since the early part of the 1900’s. They depict dancers in a healing or blessing ceremony that is performed after the first frost in the fall. The Yeibichai dancers represent the Yeis, Navajo deities, and are an essential part of the ceremony, which also includes a Navajo medicine man creating sand paintings. 

Weavings depicting the Yei figures first appeared in the Shiprock area of the Navajo reservation. They were encouraged by traders in the area and became a traditional Navajo weaving pattern. The Yeibichai weavings were a natural evolution of the Yei patterns.