Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 79, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1906 — HOPI INDIAN WEAVERS. [ARTICLE]

HOPI INDIAN WEAVERS.

‘ They Taught the Act to the Nava joe of the Southwest, The Hop! were the original weavers of the southwest and taught the Navajo the craft that has made him famous —“her”, rather, for It’s the Navajo women who do their weaving, the men devoting their time and energies toward the business end, disposing of the women’s products at the trading posts, says the Craftsman. Vfery few speclmens of the Hopi’s exquisite work roach civilization, for nearly everything they make is for their own use. The women of the tribe are most conservative Trnd adhere to the native dress woven in one piece, folded, laced together with Colored yarns -and belted in with a ten-inch sash of bright hue. It is black, a diagonal weave, with diamond pattern. This Is caught over the right shoulder, leaving the left bare, and they generally wear a mantle of a smaller blanket, or of calico, caught over the left shoulder and flowing free behind. With this arrangement of costume and their own odd method of hairdressing it would be a long trip to find anything more picturesque than a group of women and girls gathered for their daily tracting bee and “mothers’ meeting” on a kiva roof, or on a bouse terrace, weaving their bright-colored trays, and lunching, or particularly on the housetops, viewing a “dance” in the plaza, when each one wears her best. At such times the unmarried girls are supposed to retire modestly to their homes before the close of the ceremony that they may not have to mingle with the dispersing crowd.