Storm Pattern Style
Storm Pattern Rugs
The Navajo Storm Pattern rugs is the regional design traditionally woven in the Cameron area on the Western Navajo reservation and also on the Eastern Reservation region of Crystal, NM. This specific design can be traced directly back to J.B. Moore, the trader at Crystal trading post who produced a catalogue of Navajo rugs to open the Eastern market for Navajo weaving in his attempt to reverse the decline in Navajo weaving, an attempt that ultimately proved successful. In his catalogue (Plates IX and XXVIII) he specifically attributes this design to one clan and specifically to the family of one weaver named “Dug-gau-eth-lun bi Dazhie”
J.B. Moore states in the description that the Storm Pattern rugs design was rooted in Navajo mythology and that for superstitious reasons this woman and her clan family were the only people who would weave the design. He was attempting to encourage more weavers to make this design for him and I don’t know if a part of this weaver’s family or another weaver brought the design to the Cameron area. Jean Mann, a master rug weaver that used to weave at the Cameron Trading Post before she got older explained the design to me. She told me that the center of the rug, in the square part, was the weaver’s home or the weaver’s Hogan. Lightning connects the weaver to the four sacred mountains that form the border of Dinetah, or Navajoland.
These mountains are the squares in each corner of the rug. The rain is the warp of the rug. Centipedes flank the Hogan on each side. Above and below there is the whirling water (swastika) or Cloud motif. As the swastika became identified with the Nazis in the 1940s it was changed to look like another centipede or cloud. In the J.B. Moore plates of 1904 and 1911 it is still represented by a swastika. Near the center element is the multi-legged water bug. The whole rug symbolizes a storm and also portrays the storm as a sacred occurrence. Like most Navajo symbols, there are many layers of interpretation of motif. This is just one. The traditional colors of the Navajo storm pattern rug are black, white, grey, and red, but one will find many interesting variations on this theme.
The Navajo Storm Pattern rugs is the regional design traditionally woven in the Cameron area on the Western Navajo reservation and also on the Eastern Reservation region of Crystal, NM. This specific design can be traced directly back to J.B. Moore, the trader at Crystal trading post who produced a catalogue of Navajo rugs to open the Eastern market for Navajo weaving in his attempt to reverse the decline in Navajo weaving, an attempt that ultimately proved successful. In his catalogue (Plates IX and XXVIII) he specifically attributes this design to one clan and specifically to the family of one weaver named “Dug-gau-eth-lun bi Dazhie”
J.B. Moore states in the description that the Storm Pattern rugs design was rooted in Navajo mythology and that for superstitious reasons this woman and her clan family were the only people who would weave the design. He was attempting to encourage more weavers to make this design for him and I don’t know if a part of this weaver’s family or another weaver brought the design to the Cameron area. Jean Mann, a master rug weaver that used to weave at the Cameron Trading Post before she got older explained the design to me. She told me that the center of the rug, in the square part, was the weaver’s home or the weaver’s Hogan. Lightning connects the weaver to the four sacred mountains that form the border of Dinetah, or Navajoland.
These mountains are the squares in each corner of the rug. The rain is the warp of the rug. Centipedes flank the Hogan on each side. Above and below there is the whirling water (swastika) or Cloud motif. As the swastika became identified with the Nazis in the 1940s it was changed to look like another centipede or cloud. In the J.B. Moore plates of 1904 and 1911 it is still represented by a swastika. Near the center element is the multi-legged water bug. The whole rug symbolizes a storm and also portrays the storm as a sacred occurrence. Like most Navajo symbols, there are many layers of interpretation of motif. This is just one. The traditional colors of the Navajo storm pattern rug are black, white, grey, and red, but one will find many interesting variations on this theme.
The older designs have the swastika "Whirling Logs" which comes from the Navajo Medicine Mans Sand Painting tradition. We see these mostly in Pre 1940 rugs from the Crystal NM region.