Navajo rug probed on PBS's 'History Detectives'

Of the thousands of Navajo rugs over the world, 14 stirred up questions and controversy because of their forbidden designs and existence.

PBS's "History Detectives" takes a look at one particular rug and tries to unravel its mystery on July 13 at 9 p.m. "Navajo Rug" is the last of three parts in the one-hour show and is about 17 minutes long.

"It's a great story," said Pat Kruis, with Oregon Public Broadcasting. "The rug was a perfect, classic History Detectives story."

 The program picked the rug story because it had mystery and the object has ties to an interesting past, Kruis said. Navajo rug history is something that's not in textbooks and not common among the public, so it was the right material for a spot in the show.

The program interviewed four people for the story including two Navajos, a traditional weaver from Crownpoint and a medicine man from Chinle.

They were asked to take a look at the rug in question and comment about its design and the stories behind the symbolic designs.

The rug is more than 31/2 feet by almost 6 feet long. It has a gray steps-pattern outlining a red background. A humanistic figure stands in the middle holding a pair of lightning bolts and white swastikas.

A black and white repeating pattern of arrows, lightning and feathers adorns the sides of the black figure. The figure has three feathers on its head, three dots for eyes and a mouth, a belt and a heart-shaped necklace.

 "This was something very out of the ordinary," said traditional weaver Bonnie Yazzie from Crownpoint. "It's the first time I saw one of the Navajo holy deities woven in."

The figure is not a yé'ii or yé'ii bicheii - which is common among Navajo rugs and art - because it doesn't have the dancing kilt.

She believes it's Black God, a deity of protection from the north who is often represented in the Night Way ceremony. The surrounding objects, including the bow on top of the figure's head, are objects of protection.

The swastikas, used before the Nazis made it infamous, represent the Whirling Log or the Wind Way ceremony.

Even the color red is for protection and is "a very powerful color," Yazzie said.

Yah-Nah-Pah was the young Navajo woman who wove the rug and three others with a similar pictorial design. She died at age 23 - many believe it was because of the forbidden designs.

She lived in Gallegos Canyon, N.M., not far from Farmington, with her husband who was a trader and owned Gallegos Canyon Trading Post. Her older sister, Gle-Nuh-Puh wove similar designs and made 10 other rugs - most of which are in museums.

"She had her own style," Yazzie said of Yah-Nah-Pah's work. "You would not have woven-in some of the stuff she wove in there."

In the Navajo way, the lone deity is too holy a character that it's not supposed to be expressed permanently, Yazzie said.

Red is rarely used in weaving and lightning is not supposed to be depicted. Yah-Nah-Pah was probably straying from Navajo culture and wove her rugs out of defiance or to meet her husband's demands.

Most of the symbols and colors in the rug are only supposed to be drawn in sand paintings, which are done by medicine men for a ceremonial purpose, said Johnson Dennison, a medicine man from Chinle.

The sand paintings are always destroyed before the sun comes up.

"To me, the power is to destroy," Dennison said about the rugs' design, "to destroy the enemies."

He believes that Yah-Nah-Pah's rug design was specifically woven for protection during World War II. He believes the black figure represents Monster Slayer, one of the holy twins in the Navajo creation stories, he said.

Dennison spoke to "History Detectives" about the healing powers of sand paintings and the spiritual side of the Navajo rug.

Weaving is a gift from Spider Woman that connects the universe and creates clear thoughts - like the clear designs of the rugs, he said.

"I see hidden intellectual thought in this weaving," Dennison said. "Somebody had a very intellectual perspective of either the war or something destructive."

So who would pay for such a taboo rug and so much protection?

Robert Peterson, from California, is the current owner of the mysterious Yah-Nah-Pah rug. He got it from the daughter-in-law of the original owner, who was a Wyoming rancher who spent winters in New Mexico in the early 1900s.

The daughter-in-law ran short of money and started selling things on eBay, including the rug. Peterson, a collector of Native American beaded bags, was interested in the rug and started watching its progress on eBay. It was sold to a couple of people in 2004.

He continued to watch the rug and saw the new owners get increasingly frustrated with not being able to find any authenticity or real origins for the rug. They gave it over to Peterson in 2006.

Since he also wanted to find out the history behind the rug, he e-mailed "History Detectives" saying might have a Yah-Nah-Pah rug. The program immediately responded with interest and requests for pictures, Peterson said.

"I was convinced it was a Navajo rug," Peterson said. "But I wasn't too sure about what I thought it was ... I looked at it just as a work of art and once the 'History Detectives' went through ... it dawned on me that it's more than a work of art."

It was a learning experience for him to find out what the symbols and colors meant in Navajo culture, he said. He now keeps the rug in a walk-in vault in his California home.

"Navajo Rug" will also be available online on July 14 at http://www.pbs.org/video/#. A highlight of the video can be accessed at http://pressroom.pbs.org/programs/history_detectives.

Back to top ^