Weaving Across Cultures, Part One: Alaskan Native Chilkat & Ravenstail weavers find weaving connection with Navajo weavers
by Clarissa Hudson clarissahudson.com

Read Part One | Read Part Two

I called Mark Winter to see if he was having any Navajo exhibits or events in September.  He said that we Chilkat/ Ravenstail weavers were welcome to come to the Navajo weavers 8th annual “Spinning and Carding Day” held on September 17th.  He invited us to join them for a lunch and if we wanted to demonstrate our weaving and spinning styles, it was welcomed too.  He was excited about having a cross-cultural exchange between the Navajo weavers and the Chilkat weavers.  He even suggested that after the event, instead of driving home for 3 hours, we spend the night at the Toadlena Trading Post out under the stars.  We took him up on his offer!

The following are from my two weaving apprentices regarding their experiences and thoughts at this weavers’ gathering.

Apprentice Julia Sai wrote:

My first impressions when we drove up to the Navajo land then we saw this red earth and nothing else around us……I could only hear the sound of winds….I felt so weird because I  have never been in such a place like this, but that’s how it’s supposed to be everywhere in the world:  no cars, no exhausts, no TVs……and I really like that….I felt so free.

The things that moved me were when I saw those old Navajo women sitting and talking their own language…..and they can still spin the wool faster than me!  When they told me that they don’t have any pattern for weaving design, that it’s all in their head, I couldn’t believe that!

I would want to meet these women again, yes I do.  They were so cute and very nice to me.  This Navajo lady gave me a bag full of wool and I felt so happy.  I forgot her name, but I gave her my (business) card.  I hope she still remembers that.  By the way, I like the way they dress; it is so cute!

The weavers they were so nice people, I think.  Some lady couldn’t speak English but she was still trying to communicate with me and I thought it was nice.  They were very interested in our weavings and they think our weavings are more complicated than Navajos'.

Chloe French wrote this memory of the gathering:

Meeting the weavers of Two Gray Hills was a life-enhancing event. Not many of us have this opportunity.  Navajo women are a quiet people and it usually takes a very long of time to be accepted.  (Continued...)

Not even the women who weave at the trading posts, so tourists may see them work, often speak to the visitors.  We, on the other hand, walked into a gathering of Two Gray Hills weavers at Toadlina Trading Post.  They knew we were coming and were anxious to meet us.

I was struck to tears.  As we walked out on the patio behind the trading post my hand was grabbed by one of the weavers.  I turned to her and was looking into the eyes of my grandmother and my mother. I was looking at a woman who was showing me what I would look in a few years.  This was a delicious connection.  I felt at home.

The women had gathered for a day of spinning on their long drop spindles.  Clarissa gave a small talk about our Chilkat weaving style and the weavers were very curious. We had our table and traveling looms with the small pieces on them.  They had not seen weaving like ours before.  They had not seen cedar bark spun into the wool to make a warp. They had never spun on their thighs.  We showed each other our spinning techniques, each practicing the others and laughing at how inept we were.  Many of the women don’t speak English so there was much translation. Fortunately, spinning is a visual activity and we could communicate with our hands.  There were smiles, laughter, and a wonderful peace.  I felt as one with these women.  More importantly, I felt a part of all weavers, past, present and future. (Continued...)

One of the women, Donna, stayed after everyone had gone home to spend the early evening spinning with us.  She figured out how to spin cedar and wool on her drop spindle. We carded wool and spun, Navajo style, as the sunset and the air began to cool. We took Donna home to her family land.  Her parents live in a new hogan and she in a hundred year old ten by twenty adobe home very near by.  Her weaving is wonderful and she let us take photos of the rug she is working on.

It is important to note that Mark, the owner of Toadlena, pays the women outright for their work.  He does not take their weavings on consignment, but pays them up front. Many provide for their families with the income they make from their weaving, so this is a generous way of doing business.  (Most artwork goes into galleries on consignment and the artist is out the expense until the item is sold.  The gallery adds a mark-up of up to one hundred percent.  The artist doesn’t receive payment until it is time for the gallery to pay its artists.)

Clarissa Hudson continues:

I am aware of my shyness when I go into a “foreign” land.  I am well aware of my hesitations and insecurities because I do not know the “language of the land and its people.”  Nevertheless, I am inquisitive.  I want to see and experience new perspectives, gain new insights, or have life-long beliefs and ways of doing things validated or challenged by ways of another culture.  I was on a “road” not knowing where it would lead.  I knew that I was going to meet up with Navajo weavers, Mark Winter, Pam and Kathryn.   I did not know what experiences I would have; who I would meet, and would I obtain the information I had intended to gain, and where would this experience and information lead me?

Although I may appear as if I am cool, calm and collected, I was nervous as I led my apprentices into the gathering of Navajo weavers and their families on the back patio of Toadlena Trading Post.  I relaxed a little when greeted by Mark Winter and his assistants.  They invited us to share the meal and then later, do a presentation of our method of weaving. 

What!?.....I did not imagine this!  I was not ready to do a semi-formal introduction to our weaving---!   I imagined that when we sat down next to some of the Navajo weavers and ate a little, in due time, we would nonchalantly pull out our stuff and in a round-about-way show some of the Navajo weavers what we do.

Yet, on the spot, I was asked to give an introduction with all eyes on us, egads!   The center of attention in a foreign land, I wanted to run and hide or at least have one of the apprentices do the job.  Yet since I was the “boss”, I was selected to introduce myself and my apprentices and explain what kind of weaving we do.

I walked into the center of the patio.  There must have been about 50-60 people, all gathered around the various picnic tables and chairs lining the rock walls.  When I stood up, the crowd automatically grew quiet, I didn’t even say a word yet and we had everyone’s attention!  I looked about me at an elderly group of Navajo women sitting in a row, a gathering of an age I had not seen in many, many years.  Suddenly, I flashed back to a time in my life when it was normal for me to be among my own elderly Native people, sitting around eating a meal, as we took a break from our artwork, telling stories and joking with one another. 

Now I no longer have this in my life and I realized this in that instant, when I saw the line-up of elderly Navajo weavers staring at me, waiting for me to speak…….a deep grief and longing purged up from my gut and choked me for a moment, and I almost burst into tears.  (Continued...)

I quickly contained myself, gathering up the years of absence of our own elders in a space as powerful as this center, and I breathed in this scene, and breathed out an introduction of our techniques and our traditional knowledge as graceful as my weaving teacher taught.

We are weavers of ancient histories and techniques, guided by unseen hands at a threshold in time when most of us have reached out to a grasp that has led us in a direction we no longer recognize. Many of the Navajo weavers were between the ages of 50-90.  Not until after the gathering, I realized the distinction in age between our Chilkat weavers and they.  As far as I know, we have one Chilkat weaver in her 70s, a couple of weavers who just turned 60, and the rest of us pushing 50, with a few in their early 30s.  We no longer have a group of our elderly Chilkat weavers; they have all passed.  We lack the Chilkat weavers in the 55+ age group because these generations had been conditioned into giving up their cultural traditions, modifying their lives to the Western world.  Balancing the western and Native ways of life is challenging.  It is easy to “get lost” and lose contact with self; who you are, where you come from.  It is not an easy path. (Continued...)

The Navajo weavers shared their spinning techniques with us, a technique that we lost a couple of generations ago.  We were thrilled, delighted and brought to our knees, knowing fully well the responsibility that lay ahead.  We were honored to be guests with Mark Winter and all of the Navajo weavers at Toadlena.  Our paths intertwined, speaking a familiar language, a weaver’s language.  A language born of the landscape, where the recognition between Navajo weavers, Chilkat weavers and all of their supporters, is acknowledged in the motion of a hand, with the intention of spirit guided by our generations of the past, present and future.  

Read Part One | Read Part Two

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