Navajo rug seller shows his wares to what I can only suspect is a tenderfoot. I have written the story of the "Drugstore Cowboy" before on his blog...I am going to guess Jasper here traveled from out east to see the desert, and I am going to also guess his feet hurt from his stiff new boots. His crisp new Stetson makes the mountain look small. I don't blame him, it's still a wonderful and magical trip. A few nights in Santa Fe and environs will change your life.
Do those chaps even fit in the touring car? "Put the front seat down, dear...my chaps won't bend at the knee" Jasper seems to be interested in pawn jewelry too.
Navajo rugs are among the most beautiful objects of art ever produced. While they may have taken a woman months to make, the return was small. Still, it provided a meager living.
Original snapshot (detail) circa 1930s Collection Jim Linderman
Thanks to Curley's Antiques
If I had worked two months or so on a blanket to sell at this shop, it would certainly be disheartening to drop it off for my puny commission. Although it did literally take from 2 months to a year for a Navajo rug to be produced, or created rather...as that seems far more appropriate...the going "rate" around 1850 was fifty dollars. Today, a well-made rug may be worth $400 or more. Still, way too cheap. The examples here, if you can get past the visitors and their insulting big friends, look like nice ones to me.
Anonymous snapshot (Roadside "Native American" Sculptures at Trading Post) circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman
Many a young girl received a doll today, Merry Christmas, by the way. They may teach, but they aren't spirits.
Hopi and Zuni dolls are and were used to allow young women from the tribe to participate in sacred dances performed by the men. A rich, complicated cultural ritual I am not qualified to discuss, and I am not really sure anyone of European origin can, to tell the truth. We can "own" kachina dolls, but can we understand them? I guess as interlopers. There are some 400 identified, each with distinctive features represented by adornment and design.
Once you have an appreciation for cottonwood carvings from 1900 and before with flaking natural pigments, you may desire to own them as well. Not easy today, as the early ones, or what could be called "real" ones are for the most part tucked away. There are different levels for collectors...19th century, of which I have cribbed a few here from the catalog of an exhibition at the Galerie Flak in Paris from ten years ago (link here to the catalog) those from 1900 to before World War two, and those since. The later ones are purely decorative and produced for tourists, and although fine carvings are still produced by Native American artists they are far more elaborate in design and far less transcendent than the early ones.
The earliest kachinas were flat, simple, rudimentary wooden objects with sparse adornment but great magical power. The later ones can be beautiful but are more decorative, and it is quite common for dealers to date them earlier than they really are. There are literally hundreds of identified and collected kachina carvers working today, and there are festivals and such to display their work. You can even take a bus tour right to the carvers, they don't have to set up outside train stations any more to sell to Paleface. (I am sorry to use what is now a derogatory, and likely Hollywood invented term, but after what we did to those who took care of our land before we got here, and what we have done to it since, let's face it...some of us have earned names worse.)The photograph above is dated 1944 on the reverse. It is, of course, a Southwestern trading post with a symbolic gigantic Kachina out front. (A "Cigar Store Indian" as it were...another large sculptural object with racial and cultural baggage!) The rugs would indicate this is a shop of Navajo goods...I hope the women asked if they had any old Hopi or Zuni ones behind the counter, as the Navajo didn't make them then, but they do today. I understand now you can even find Kachinas carved in Korea. Ugh.Snapshot 1944 Collection Jim LindermanDull Tool Dim Bulb Books
Said to be a snapshot of La Push, Washington, which would indicate the pieces may have been carved by members of the Quileute Native American tribe. If so, I would love to hear from anyone who can identify the location or provide information on the carvings. The tribe has a fascinating history, which includes the breeding of special woolly-haired dogs in order to make blankets of their coats(!) I would also like the sculptures moved to my front yard, but that seems unlikely.
Untitled Snapshot, circa 1950? Collection Jim Linderman
