A chapter works to keep weaving alive

Posted by Terry Bowman | Jul 14, 2016 | Culture |

BREADSPRINGS, N.M.

With traditional Navajo weaving steadily declining among many communities on the Navajo Nation, one chapter fights to keep that tradition alive.

Bááháálí Chapter House is located eight miles from New Mexico State Route 602, in the hills of Breadsprings that sit high in the New Mexico landscape, and 20 miles south of Gallup in the dubious checkerboard region of the Navajo Nation.

The Bááháálí Chapter House hosts the annual Summer Youth Weaving Project for high school and college students to come together during the summer months for six weeks to get hands-on-training in traditional Diné weaving. Students create their own rugs and purses and earn a paycheck while enrolled in the project.

‘’Our goal is to encourage people to pass it on to the next generation,’’ said Elouise Washburn, weaving supervisor for the Summer Youth Weaving Project.

With around eight students filling the chapter house, looms with nearly finished rugs in hand, each student is hard at work and lost in concentration. After each purse is finished, each is lined and silver-sterling buttons are placed on each purse to complete the finished product.

Then each product is placed on the chapter’s website or hung on the walls of the chapter house for display and purchase.

‘’I encourage other chapters to pass this on. This is the next generation of weavers,’’ said Washburn.