Several Teec Nos Pos Style and Burntwater rugs currently in our inventory

Please click on any picture for a closer view.

Thanks so much for the kind responses to the article in the June issue of Arizona Highways!   Many of you wanted to see more rugs in the styles that are behind Bruce in the picture at the start of the story.    The two styles represented are Teec Nos Pos and Burntwater with one of the rugs actually bridging the two.  The Teec style originated about 175 miles from our trading post in Teec Nos Pos, AZ.  The name is pronounced  like ” teas nause pause” in English.  In Navajo, it’s T’iis Nazbas or cottonwoods in a circle.  The rug style is characterized by complex, often multiple borders and dense design panels featuring elements which have relatively the same graphic value.  With a Teec Nos Pos rug, your eye is drawn to the whole rug rather than to a specific design element.   Although many people see similarities between Teec designs and Oriental rugs, they often incorporate designs from Navajo culture like prayer feathers and stylized Ye’i symbols.

Burnwater (top row and lower right two) contrast with a Teec design at lower left

Several of the Teec Nos Pos designs at right also incorporate vegetally dyed yarns, which also allows them to share the design classification of Burntwater, a settlement near our trading post in Sanders.  The story goes that the superstructure of the local well burned and the ashes that fell in made the water taste burnt.  One of our specialties at Burnham’s is maintaining a large stock of these specially dyed yarns for weavers to use.  The recipes for some of the dyes are as closely guarded by the dye artists as a trade secret and aren’t disclosed to anyone.

In the grouping at left,  all but two of the rugs fall firmly into the Burntwater class.   The two at the lower left have Teec Nos Pos elements, and the one at the lower left is firmly in the Teec Nos Pos class.  Most of the rugs in the two pictures above were produced by the Yazze-Malone-Blake family of Chinle, Arizona.  Matriarch Rose Yazzie is in her late 60’s and her daughters Emily Malone and Cara Gorman and  are master weavers.  Her granddaughters LaVera Blake, Larissa Blake, Laramie Blake and Harriet Whitney are quickly appraching master weaver status.   They are collectively known as the Spider Rock Girls and a pciture of many of them appears below.   All of them have been weavers since they were small girls.

The Spider Rock Girls, from left Larissa Blake, Rose Yazze, LaVera Blake, Alyssa Malone, Kara Whitney, Emily Malone, Laramie Blake and Cara Gorman

Pricing on most of these rugs is in the $150 to $200 per square foot range.   Please contact us by email or by phone at 928-688-2777 on any specific rug or with other questions.