Navajo Chief's Blankets: Exceptionally tight, well woven, wide striped blankets in a dimension wider than long; used as wearing apparel and high value trade items from 1800-1885, favored by the Utes and Plains Indians. The blankets were not specifically woven for “Chiefs,” but were given that designation because they were expensive and considered a status item among Native people. Textile scholars generally concur that there were four phases in the manufacture of Navajo Chief's blankets.

First Phase: 1800-1850

This was the initial period in which Navajo weavers wove natural, churro wool blankets patterned in wide cream and dark brown stripes. The border bands sometimes included pairs of narrow indigo blue stripes and the indigo stripes were occasionally bordered by narrow lines of raveled red. (Kent:1985)

Second Phase: Early 1800s-1870

“Small red bars or rectangles of red were woven into the ends and centers of the blue stripes in this type of blanket, thus creating twelve spots of color.” (Kent:1985)

Third Phase: 1860-1880

In this phase the Chief’s blanket is characterized by a shift from twelve red bars or rectangles to “...a nine-position layout of a central diamond, half diamonds along the four edges, and quarter diamonds in the corners.” (Blomberg:1988) The diamonds were usually terraced-edge or serrate and weavers often placed design elements within them, such as “zigzags, crosses, thin lines, stacked elements and triangles.” (Campbell:2007)

Fourth Phase: 1870-1885

In this last phase the diamond motif eventually became so large that it overshadowed the background stripes.

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$760

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