Assistant Curator of Anthology Bomberg's task was not an easy one. William Randolph Hearst collected over 200 textiles during a 40-yer period. Captivated by a display advertising the Santa Fe Railroad in 1900, he enlisted the services of the Fred Harvey Company Indian Department to help secure woven fabrics representing Southwestern and Mexican weaving cultures from c. 1800 to 1920. This successful endeavor was initiated by an ambition to secure a gift for his mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst. What began as a mission of good will ended in a four decade passion for amassing a collection that included 18 serapes, 39 chief-style blankets, 42 child's/saddle blankets, and 30 simple striped and banded Navajo blankets. Pueblo garments, Spanish Saltillo serapes and blankets from the Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico round out the Hearst Collection. In a notation by curator Blomberg in her book, Navajo Textiles: The William Randolph Hearst Collection, it is clear Hearst set goals. He actively worked toward establishing a balance which would represent not only the rarest but also the most accomplished phases of loom art. A portion of this legacy which maintains the kinetic energy of both creator and preserver, flows forth from the suspended and mounted textiles and electrifies everyone who enters the Olympics Gallery at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum.
Trains billowing smoke, birds, cows, crosses, Vallero stars, human and holy forms are all part of of the design scenario in these textiles. While such elements are curiousities, there are more typical banded and striped patterns to balance the Navajo harmony. As the aesthetic properties of each textile are scrutinized, it becomes clear that despite a uniquely Navajo orientation, each also shares a tradition with other cultures. Thus, in Navajo weaving one is exposed to a visual panorama of experiences within and beyond their own world. Designs in balankets and rugs document what the weaver observed, and a reaction to either an individual or group experience. Overall, Navajo textiles reflect intracultural innovation as well as cross-cultural influence.
This is particularly evident in one textile that no doubt challenged the imagination and skill of its maker between 1860 and 1870. Identified as a pictorial tapestry, there is a curious mix of Navajo and Hispanic cultural characteristics. More importantly it may be the first Navajo textile to capture an image of one of their holy beings. This is particularly significant because of the cultural taboos aligned with sucg action and because this phenomenon does not occur again in Navajo weaving until about 1896. Traditions dictate that to weave a holy figure into a textile would be no less than giving it away or wearing out its power. In other words, the power is misused and considered dangerous not only to the perpetrator but to the Navajo people who posses its knowledge.
The highly stylized "Yei" figure is positioned midpoint at the top of the fabric. Six other anthropormorphic forms all appearing to represent Euro-Americans (possibly Hispanic) are also featured in the upper portion of this poncho-style textile. A Spanish defined structural layout and the longer serape size further substantiates cross-cultural influence. Eight simple elements, either as single or combined units, help to construct the design. Included are the terraced triangle, the square, the rhomboid, the rectangle, the zigzag and straight lines, the chevron, the diamond and irregular shapes. These are common features found in all Navajo blankets and rugs.
Thick in texture, the textile incorporates native handspun wool with a 3-ply imported Saxony yarn. Dye analysis reveals the use of cochineal (a resin secreted by the cochineal beetle), indigo, and two other untested colorants in yellow and green. The yellow may be a derivative of the rabbit brush shrub commonly used by the Nvajo. The green is probably a mix of the rabbit brush and indigo. Motifs and elements created in thses colorants are enhanced by a whyte ground. This poncho-style serape, then, like so many other collected by William Randolph Hearst provides critical and important information when tracing the history of Navajo weaving and lends substantial credibility to the museum's textile collection.
In addition, the number of chief-style textiles assembled in the exhibition gives testimony to the evolutionary development of a single style. If highly individualized Navajo weavers were united by any one factor, it was by the continued development of the so-called "chief" blanket. Placed side by side in chronological sequence, each fabric on displsy reveals the scope of the commerce it created. In fact, the name "chief" is believed commercial in origin. Merchants conveying these textiles to non-Navajo trading parties, particularly Plains Indian chiefs who coveted them for their wives and daughters, probably provided this label. Neither archaeological nor ethnographic investigation has demonstrated any relationship between the blanket and Navajo social organization or status.
The chief blanket is a type of Man's shoulder garment, the origin of which stems from two traditions: the Pueblo Indian and the Spanish. Divided into three, possibly four stages of development, its wider-than-longer proportion is modeled from the Pueblo woman's shawl. While its basic banded and striped design is also common to these neighbors, the layout is observed on blankets worn by later intrusive Spanish groups. The diffusion of ideas for the chief style into Navajo weaving technology and pattern was gradual. Eventually a design system and the incorporation of imported materials such as baize and saxony created a blanket that became uniquely Navajo.
Navajo exposure to new ideas and new materials during and after the Bosque Redondo experience penetrated the very core of Navajo weaving. Results from this single historical event are vividly portrayed in the loom products on exhibit. Commercially processed pre-dyed woolen gods provided by newly supplanted reservation traders began replacing or at the very least, supplementing native materials. With the Navajo economic situation near the point of desperation, choices had to be made. Navajo weavers made it quite clear that their art would continue. 1870 to 1900 became a period of experimentation and transition. Government issues and a competing market for floor rugs quickly absorbed and eliminated the Navajo wearing blanket. The rugs in the exhibition reflect the styles encouraged by Indian traders, among them J. Lorenzo Hubbell at Ganado, J.B. Moore at Crystal and C. N. Cotton at Gallup.
"Art from the Navajo Loom: The William Randolph Hearst Collection" provides a comprehensive story that is beautifully woven and intertwined with the threads of in-depth research and knowledge. Although Hearst and the Harvey Company ended their association around 1940, an extension of their joint efforts continues. In 1942 Hearst donated this important collection to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Now, for the first time in its 46-year existence, through generous support of the May Company California, a grant from the Chase Manhattan Corporation, and an anonymous gift, a portion of the collection has been on display since March 25. Dramatically presented, the entire exhibition offers itself a cloak where the visiter is wrapped in a mantle of Navajo art and history. Each textile quietly transmits thoughts from the Navajo Beautyway. There is a "beauty above you, beauty below you and beuty all around you." The public now has a rare opportunity to experience and absorb this beauty thay emanates in Art from the Navajo Loom.
