What Is A Navajo Style Rug?

Are you drawn to the prominence and artistry of Navajo rugs and want to bring some authentic Navajo culture into your home? 

The Navajo rug is a cultural textile made by tribes in the Southwestern United States and is one of the most popular types of Native American rugs.

This rug style is the most colorful and best-made textile and has been admired and coveted as a trade item for a century. Likewise, collectors, archivists, and weavers regarded the Navajo rug as an art form.

Here’s a short narration on Navajo weaving that will help you characterize the most common terms and assist you when you set off to purchase this luxurious masterpiece.

A Brief Story About Navajo Weaving

The Navajo are the largest Native American tribes in the United States and among the finest rug makers across the globe.

Early Navajo people were mobile hunters and gatherers; after moving to the Southwest, the Pueblo Indians taught them how to weave using a vertical loom. Then, the Navajo started to herd sheep, and they were able to weave long, soft, and durable fibers to make rugs and blankets. These became the first versions of what is currently known as Navajo textiles.

For the tribe, the process of weaving is a spiritual one – each weaving is gifted with the soul and creative energy of the weaver.

The tradition of Navajo Rug weaving incorporates multiple aspects of their life, belief, and lifestyle into one lasting practice.

Common Navajo Rug Designs

Most of the rug designs got their names from their origin or what influenced them. The following are some of the typical styles of Navajo weavings

Ganado

Ganado is a classic and most widely recognized Navajo rug that originated in the town of Gando. This design is characterized by a red background with a black, white, and gray design based on a central diamond or two. Simple geometric decorations are seen on the edges, and serrated or stair-stepped patterns, crosses, zigzags, and simple geometric shapes surround the central design.

Klagetoh

Klagetoh is among the most sought-after Navajo weavings. It is woven with gray or tan backgrounds, with a large central diamond design, usually in red, black, and white, and simple geometric figures throughout the rug design.

Natural colors are used, except the red and black might contain a tinge of commercial dye. The gray can be brownish or even tan with this rug, depending on the sheep’s fleece used.  

Two Gray Hills

Two Gray Hills is a historic Navajo style in which no colored dyes were used. These are woven from undyed, hand-spun wool from different sheep to create subtle hues of the Two Gray Hills (white, black, and brown). The Navajo women made delicate geometric figures and a spirit line that serves as accents around the plain, dark borders of these rugs.

Teec Nos Pos

Teec Nos Pos (Cottonwoods in a Circle) rugs offer exceptional beauty to your floor.

This rug design features a wide border, along with complex geometric motives. The colors are vibrant in Teec Nos Pos rugs. They have an elaborate center design surrounded by stylized images, enhanced with feathers, arrows, and claw-like hooks extending from the ends of diamonds and triangles. 

There are no color restrictions, except they must complement.  

Storm

The storm rug is defined by its design, not its colors. The design is recognizable by its central rectangle representing the center of the universe, with four smaller rectangles in the corners symbolizing the four sacred mountains of the Navajo world.

The shades of these rugs are often red, black, and white on a gray or red background. They typically have a dark border with geometric teeth on one side, and abstract feathers, clouds, arrows, geometric designs, and animals are everywhere.

Wide Ruins

Most Wide Ruins rugs are distinguished by fine, tightly-spun fleeces and a straight, uniform weave. These rugs will have broad plain color bands, some with geometric designs, and thin strips with complex motifs, combined with narrow, even lines of contrasting colors.

These rugs are recognized for their imposing colors. They feature a vast array of vegetal colors, like olive green, blue, lilac, pink, yellow, beige, deep corals, and various shades of browns and tans.

Crystal Rugs

Early crystal rugs used aniline dyes and were bordered rugs.

The current version does not have a border on it. This distinct natural rug is differentiated by its horizontal streaks of natural wool with vegetal-dyed hues and design elements, including arrows, stars, triangles, and diamonds.

Navajo Rug Characteristics

• No Fringe – Navajo weavers use vertical looms.
• Wool or Cotton Yarn – Most Navajo rugs are made using wool or cotton. Not many authentic Navajo rugs are made of synthetic yarn.
• Selvegas Lines – These lines run along the sides of the rug.
• Lazy Lines – A diagonal line in the fabric’s weave of the fabric

Want To Have Your First Navajo Rug In Your Home?

If you’re searching for a quality Navajo rug for your home, visit our shop. At Southwestern Rugs Depot, all Navajo rugs are woven using traditional procedures and follow the colors, patterns, and craftsmanship that originated many years ago. We’re regarded as the best Navajo rug shop by most interior designers so please check out our rugs.