Vocabulary

Adapt

To change with a new situation.

Aniline

A commercial chemical dye used to color fibers and textiles.

Balance

In art, the organization of design elements to create a sense of stability, or evenness.

Batten

A straight, smooth sword-like wooden tool used to separate warp threads on a loom.

Bayeta

A Spanish term for flannel-like wool cloth ("baize" in English). Historically, Navajo weavers unraveled bayeta fibers and re-wove them into their blankets and rugs.

Carders

A pair of weaving tools with handles and bent wire teeth for brushing ("carding") the wool to clean and straighten it.

Comb

A weaving tool shaped like a fork and used to beat the weft threads tightly into the warp threads.

Cochineal

A scale insect that lives on prickly pear cactus. Female cochineal are full of red carminic acid, so they are collected, dried and crushed to create red dyes that were highly prized by the early European textile industry and still used today.

Dye

A chemical mixture that adds color to fibers, yarns and cloth. Dyes can be made from plants, insects, minerals and chemicals.

Diné

(dee-NEH) Navajos refer to themselves as Diné, which means The People.

Fiber

A long, thin thread of material like wool or cotton.

Germantown

Store-bought, aniline-dyed yarns used in Navajo weaving since the mid-1870s. The name comes from the mill in Germantown, Pennsylvania where it was first manufactured.

Hogan

Traditional Navajo house. Hogans are six or eight-sided homes with a door facing east to greet the rising sun.

Horizontal

Flat and parallel to the ground (the horizon).

Hozho

A Navajo word meaning harmony, balance, and spiritual beauty.

Innovate

To introduce new ideas or practices.

Long Walk, The

(Hweeldi in Navajo) The forced march of the Navajo people in 1864 from their homeland to incarceration at Ft. Sumner (Bosque Redondo) in eastern New Mexico.

Loom

A machine or frame used for weaving cloth. A loom holds the warp threads in place.

Motif

A design element or theme in a work of art.

Pattern

A design or motif that is regularly repeated.

Radiate

To spread out from the center.

Regional

Having to do with a certain geographic area, or region.

Reservation

Land held in trust for Native Americans by the United States government.

Saltillo

A style of weaving with bold, zig-zag designs named after the weaving center of Saltillo in northern Mexico.

Sarape

A wearing blanket worn wrapped around the shoulders.

Serrate or Serrated

A zig-zag design with sharp points.

Shears

Large scissors for clipping the wool from sheep.

Spider Woman

According to Navajo tradition, the holy person who taught the Navajos how to weave.

Spirit trail

(also known as the "weaver's pathway") A path of contrasting yarn sometimes leading from the center of a Navajo weaving to the outside edge as a symbolic release of energy, so the weaver can move on, renewed, to the next weaving.

Spin

To stretch, pull and twist wool into a string of yarn.

Spindle

A long stick with a round weight at one end used to hold and twist wool as it is spun into yarn.

Stepped

A design that looks like steps, in cross-section, going up or down (at right angles).

Tapestry

A weft-faced fabric in which patterns are formed by colored yarns woven in separate areas; in Navajo weaving, a very fine rug that contains more than 80 wefts per inch.

Terraced

See 'Stepped'

Traditional

Customs, beliefs, practices and objects passed down from one generation to the next.

Vertical

Upright, or straight up and down.

Warp

In weaving, the vertical threads held in place on a loom that form the foundation of a fabric.

Weaving

To make cloth on a loom by passing weft threads over and under warp threads

Weft

In weaving, the threads that are passed over and under the foundation warp threads.

Yarn

Fibers such as wool, cotton or silk that have been twisted into long strands.