2008
Norman, OK: University of Okalahoma Press
Teresa J. Wilkins is an anthropologist who has developed a deep knowledge of the Navajo language, Navajo weavers and the trading post system. She is currently serving as Professor of Anthropologist in the
University of New Mexico at Gallup. Her book has grown from her dissertation for her Ph. D. degree in anthropology, which she entitled
Producing Culture across the Colonial Divide: Navajo Reservation Trading Posts and Weaving (University of Colorado in 1999).
Interest in Navajo weavers began for Wilkins in the late 1980s when she was working at the
University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. She began weaving as an undergraduate art student. Information from some of her earlier studies was published in
Beyond the Loom: Keys to Understanding Early Southwestern Weaving, by Ann Lane, Diana Leonard and Teresa Wilkins in 1990. In addition Patterns has benefited from the many things she learned from the late Dr. Joe Ben Wheat.
Wilkins grew up in western North Carolina and attributes her childhood experiences of family story telling as an informative influence upon her methodology. As an anthropologist she has sought to gather the stories of the Navajo weavers and trading post personnel or their descendents. A large portion of her field work has been to record these stories which are also part of the Navajo way. Her field work was conducted under several authorized Navajo Nation Cultural Resources Investigation Permits.
Interviews with Navajo weavers and her own experiences as a weaver have been incorporated into the book. She has also carefully examined trading post archives such as the records at the Hubble Trading Post Museum. The collection is housed in the
Hubble Trading Post National Historic Site which is operated by the National Park Service.
A brief history of Navajo weaving begins the book. Also included is the Navajo story of the Spider Woman who taught Navajo women to weave. The story of weaving in the Southwest antedates the Navajo with the Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) people who wove cotton textile. It was the belief of the late Joe Wheat the book reports that the Navajo probably learned the skill from the Pueblo Indians. Navajo trading had a history of exchanging many products prior to the 1860s. The fiber spun by the Navajos after the arrival of the Spanish was wool. It was an important trade item before the Navajos were forced on their “long walk” that ended with the tribe’s permanent settlement on the Navajo Reservation.
The trading posts established to serve the Navajos were operated by Euro-Americans under the authority of licenses or the annuity system that was used to supply the Navajos after their enforced settlement. Extra wool would be traded for supplies.
The “long walk” had been a time when many of the Navajos’
Churro breed of sheep were lost. The
Churro breed produces a fine and very strong fiber that is greaseless unlike the lanolin rich wool of some other breeds. The fine, greaseless character of the wool makes it exceptionally useful for dyeing, hand spinning and for weaving. For some decades other breeds were used, but in recent decades the breed has returned to be the weavers’ main fiber.
The Hubbell Trading Post was the subject of many points of discussion in the book. Other trading posts are also described at length in the book. The system was also considered from its inception. Among the interesting points in
Patterns of Exchange
are the personal relations of the Navajos and the operators of the trading posts. Because Navajo blankets and rugs or other items were purchased by Euro-Americans as home decorations they usually purchased in prosperous times. The income of the weavers was also a source of prosperity for the operators of the trading posts. Both prospered during good times and suffered with the low prices and low sales during bad times.
Wilkins in discussing the relationships of the Navajos and the traders explains the Navajo cultural practice of “helping.” Trading was from the Navajo perspective a form of mutual helping. Among the many relationships thus established were those that enabled Wilkins to refute claims of exploitation or misinterpretations of the trader-weaver relationship asserted by Marxist writers.
Extensive discussions of personal relations between the traders, including intermarriages, are interwoven with stories in
Patterns of Exchange. The stories were gathered from the memories of the weavers. The personal character of these stories is very much in keeping with the anthropological approach. Wilkins also describes how the arrival of money from social security checks, off reservation jobs and the development of big box stores in towns such as Gallup which are easily reached by motor vehicles have put many trading posts out of business.
The trading posts operated by the Hubbell family used small paintings of Navajo blankets or rugs as samples in catalogs and specialty magazines. These were used to expand the market. Many of these paintings have been preserved to show Navajo styles. Of significant interest is the discussion of traders who encouraged the adoption of styles that originated in the Middle East or South Asia. It takes the reader by surprise to see pictures of Navajo blankets from the early 1900s with Swastikas woven in them.
The story telling method of the book dominates. Personal stories and relationships are its main strength. It discusses some of the weavers making of their own looms, and their artistic ideas that are in keeping with Navajo beliefs that the rug or blanket grows from the weaver into something that has its own character.
This is a very useful addition to the story of trading posts in American history, of the development of Navajo weaving from a craft used to barter into art objects sold on national and international markets. It will be of interest to anthropologists, students of Navajo culture, to weavers, economists and Native American historians.
Reviewed by Andrew J. Waskey; Dalton State College
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