Perry Null Trading

In the beginning, in the time of creation, Spider Woman taught the Navajo the art of weaving. Spider Man taught them how to make their sacred loom.

High in the Chuska Mountains on a midsummer afternoon, Mary, a Navajo elder, sits under a juniper, carding wool for a Navajo rug and watching her sheep. The meadow grass is high, its verdant green dotted with purple, white and yellow wildflowers. From the time of her mother's mother, Mary's family has moved their flock from the searing heat of the lower valley to the cool pastures in the Chuska range; the bleating sheep winding their way along well trodden paths near the Crystal highway. Up go the sheep in the spring and down in the fall, in a treasured, repeated ritual..

From the beginning of recorded history man has revered trees as sacred symbols of creation, fertility, resurrection and immortality. With roots firmly planted in the earth, sturdy trunks and branches reaching to the sky, trees were believed to connect the three realms of existence: underworld, terrestrial and celestial. Since the days of Mesopotamia trees such as the palm, ash, beech, oak and pine have been viewed as ladders leading from the unconscious to enlightenment, sheltering canopies for all of creation, shamanic routes to knowledge and pillars between heaven and earth. The Tree of Life Navajo Rug, or Cosmic Tree, is associated with the sacred feminine, with springs, vegetation and life giving waters.

The Two Grey Hills Navajo Rug combines two mastered skills of the Navajo, weaving and sheep. This is one of the most prized collectibles, find yours now!

It was late summer, 1942, and Gladys, an elder Navajo weaver, walked across the sun drenched desert gathering native plants for vegetal dyes. It had rained the day before and the land was fresh, with the heady aroma of sage filling the air. Gladys was collecting the yellow flowers of rabbitbrush to dye wool for a Wide Ruins rug. She knelt beside a particularly robust plant, faced the east, made an offering of sacred chips and said prayers.

We heard him coming from the green arbor at the eastern end of the long dance oval. Yeibitsai, Talking God, Maternal Grandfather of the Navajo Holy People, God of dawn, the eastern sky and animals of the chase. Yeibitsai precedes all the masked dancers on the last night of the Night Chant, a nine day healing ceremony that purifies a patient, unites him with the power and presence of the Holy people (Yei), and restores him to the world in a state of wholeness. For this reason many people refer to the entire ceremony as “the Yeibichai.”