45″ x 75″

Date of completion August 14, 2004

Navajo Weaver Evelyn Poyer, Red Mesa, AZ
Winner: Best of Show – Gallup Intertribal Ceremonials, 1996

This Teec Nos Pos Navajo Corn Yei pictorial rug was woven with 100% Churro (Navajo sheep) single ply handspun wool yarns. It is the second rug woven by Evelyn using a single ply Navajo yarn instead of commercial 4-ply yarn.

The red is Cochineal red dye. All greens are indigo dyed over yellows. The blues are indigo, including the hard-to-see indigo house in the black border. The black is a very pure, natural, undyed black churro yarn.

Evelyn applied her creativity in many ways: each Corn Yei has a different kind of headdress; animals in the cornfield are the rabbit, crow and ant, and a white pecking dove; a turtle in the border; bows and arrows, Yei face feathers; crow’s feet in the red field as well as a flying bird if viewed sideways; each corn cob is woven differently and these include the ceremonial blue (indigo) corn cob; and weaving combs and battens at each end.

The crow was requested, all other animals are the weaver’s idea. Evelyn said that after she wove the crow, her mother said we don’t weave crows into rugs! I guess that’s because they rob fields of the corn seeds. By then it was too late and we laughed…