NAVAJO DYE STUFFS.* 
By Dr. WASHINGTON MaTTrHEws, U.S. Army. 
The art of weaving among the Navajo Indians of New Mexico and 
Arizona is of aboriginal origin. They probably learned the art from 
the ancient Pueblo Indians. No native tribe has carried it to such per- 
fection nor in any has European influence had less effect. 
Material for fabrics.—Cotton which grows well in New Mexico and 
Arizona, the tough fibers of yucca leaves and the fibers of other plants, 
the hair of different quadrupeds, and the down of birds furnished in 
prehistoric days the materials of textile fabries in this country. While 
some of the Pueblos still weave their native cotton to a slight extent, 
the Navajos grow no cotton and spin nothing but the wool of the 
domestic sheep, of Spanish introduction, and of which the Navajos 
have vast herds. The wool. is not washed until itis sheared. It is 
combed with hand combs purchased from the Americans. In spin- 
ning, the simplest form of the spindle, a-slender stick thrust through 
the center of a round wooden disk, is used. The Mexicans on the Rio 
Grande use spinning. wheels, and although the Navajos have some of 
their own, and have abundant opportunities for buying or stealing 
them, and possess, I think, sufficient ingenuity to make them, they 
have never abandoned the rude implement of their ancestors. The 
Navajo method of handling the spindle is different from that of the 
people of Zuni. 
The Navajos still employ, to a great extent, their native dyes; of 
yellow, reddish, and black. There is good evidence that they formerly 
had a blue dye; but indigo, originally introduced, I think, by the 
Mexicans, has superseded this. 
Specimen No. 1, Catalogue No. 153348, is wool dyed blue with indigo, 
the mordant being urine. If they in former days had a native blue 
and a native yellow, they must also, of course, have had a green, and 
they now make green of their native yellow and indigo, the latter be- 
ing the only imported dye-stuff [ have ever seen in use among them. 
Besides the hues above indicated, the people have had, ever since the 
introduction of sheep, wool of three natural colors—white, rusty black, 
* “Navajo Weavers:” Third Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82, p. 375. 
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