Unknown Diné (Navajo)

Native American

Saddle Blanket
1945

Wool and cotton
50.5 x 35.125 in. (128.27 x 89.218 cm)
Museum Permanent Collection
1984.1336

• Navajo - The style and culture of a populous North American Indian group who live primarily in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, speaking an Apachean language which is classified in the Athabaskan language family. At some point in prehistory, the Navajo and Apache migrated to the Southwest from Canada, where most other Athabaskan-speaking peoples still live; although the exact timing of the relocation is unknown, it is thought to have been between 1100 and 1500 CE. These early Navajo were mobile hunters and gatherers; after moving to the Southwest, however, they adopted many of the practices of the sedentary, farming Pueblo Indians near whom they settled.
• rugs - Heavy woven textiles used for a variety of utilitarian purposes essentially in the form in which they left the loom. In Western societies they are used primarily as floor coverings.
• stripes