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Behind Back to Why did the Navajo Leave? Click any item to see an enlargement By the mid-1600s, the Navajo had built up small herds of horses and burros for riding and trade. The horse gear of the 1600s and 1700s was an interesting mixture of traditional manufacture, borrowing, and invention. Bridle bits, spurs and spur rowels, and other metal goods were brought to the Gobernador through trade, raids, and gifts. Ropes, saddles, and blankets were made at home, using old techniques adapted to new needs. Once mounted, the Navajo were able to move much more quickly between the Dinétah, the expanding Navajo country to the south and west, and their trade partners at the western Pueblos, the eastern Pueblos, and the Spanish and Mexican settlements along the Rio Grande. Tied to their sheep herds, their farm fields, and their families, the Navajo were never as free to raid and run as their Athapaskan relatives, the Apaches, or the Ute and Comanche hunter-gatherers to their north and east. Over the centuries, they were sometimes allied with various Pueblos, with the Utes, and Comanches, and sometimes with the Spanish in an uneasy peace along the frontier. |
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 Rope Navajo, ca. 1800 San Juan drainage, New Mexico Gift of Elsa Palmer 43398/11 |
This neatly tied rope is braided "lanyard-style" out of yucca string, or cordage. The cordage is made from six strands of 2-ply yucca string worked into a heavy rope. Now a fast-vanishing sailor's technique for making short rope grips, "lanyard" braiding is often learned today at summer camps as children make key chains, and decorative braid finishes from rawhide and plastic cord. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Bridle bit Spanish Colonial, ca. 1700-1740 Three Corn Pueblito, LA 1871 Morris excavations, 1915, #372 University of Colorado Museum, Boulder |
This bridle bit was placed in one of the graves found by Earl Morris during his excavations at Three Corn Pueblo. Also in this grave were a hand-made copper bridle buckle of Spanish origin, with a stamped design around the edge which foreshadows later Navajo silverwork, and sixty shell beads of Olivella dama Gray. This site, which is mentioned in Navajo oral history as a "hospital" for the sick, had a large number of burials. Other grave goods included many glass trade beads, potmetal crosses, copper bells, brass dangles originally used as bridle decorations, and copper buttons. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Saddle and stirrup Navajo, ca. 1650-1750 Gobernador Courtesy of the Jicarilla Ranger Station, Carson National Forest |
This wooden saddle frame and stirrup were found by Carson National Forest archaeologists. Carefully covered by juniper boughs and sheltered from the elements, the saddle survived in remarkable condition. It may have been left to be finished later; in use, the frame would have been padded with a fleece, hides, or blankets. Excavations in the Gobernador show that burros were probably as common as horses; this frame appears to be burro-sized. The Navajo began to use horses and burros in the early 1600s, and to build up herds by the mid-1600s. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Spur rowel Spanish Colonial Quarai monastery, LA 95 Museum excavations, 1934 27054/11
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| Navajo
History | Early Archaeology
| Pueblito Architecture | Clothing
& Tools New Spain (1600-1700) | Modern Archaeology | Timeline | Acknowledgements Exhibition Schedule |
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