THE CHIMAYO
Chimayo is a term used to describe weaving from the present day New Mexico region of the United States. Chimayo blankets are woven by Spanish speaking Native Americans in New Mexico. Modern-day Chimayo weavers attribute the history of Chimayo weaving to the wool of the Churro sheep before this sheep population died out due to drought towards the end of the nineteenth century. Historically, it is recorded that five thousand Churro sheep came to the New Mexico region in the sixteenth century with Coronado’s expedition and they were used as food. The sheep flourished in New Mexico and wool became an integral part of the colony’s economy. Since raw wool and sheep were difficult to transport, woven blankets became a way of trading wool. By the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of blankets were traded out of New Mexico. (For more information about the Churro Sheep, see Strawn and Littrell 2007: 300–319.)
Featured Textile: 1074-108
This blanket is woven of natural wool in Rio Grande style, which is influenced by the Spanish defined by the striped pattern and possibly woven on a European loom. There are five wide bands of alternating cream and yellow colors the background color of this blanket is indigo blue and there are smaller pink, yellow and cream colored stripes alternating across the blanket.
In this case, the DASe entry and the original documentation almost correspond in their classification. DASe classifies this blanket as “Chimayo, Southwestern Native American Styles,” while the original documentation classifies the period/style/culture as “probably Chimayo.” We have chosen to classify this as Chimayo because of the Rio Grande style stripes of this textile.
Keywords
Wool, blanket, four-ply, banded, warp fringe, unbound edge, Rio Grande, indigo, white, rose, deep yellow
Featured Textile: 1074-104
This blanket is made of two long textiles pieces woven with indigo dyed thread and sewn together down the middle. There are seven bands of stripes separated by cream stripes. The bands are comprised of alternating blue and brown lines. The three central bands have blue, brown and cream chevron patterns. Because of the striped pattern, this blanket is most likely woven in the Rio Grande Style as well.
The DASe entry classifies this textile as “Chimayo, Southwestern Native American Studies,” while the original documentation classifies this as belonging to the “Rio Grande” tribe. This classification is probably a reference to the Rio Grande Blanket Style that modern-day Chimayo weavers use to describe blankets woven with stripes that follow weaving traditions from the New Mexico region, originally influenced by the Spanish.
Keywords
Servant blanket/ blanket, brown, white, blue, indigo, fringe, banded, chevron pattern
