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Address Reply to
"The Attorney General"
And Refer to
Initials and Number
T - 01908

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Santa Fe, N.M., Nov. 21, 1923.

Mr. George H. Pepper,
Broadway at 155th St.,
New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Pepper:

 received your letter of November 1st and am sorry to say that, outside of the works with which you are undoubtedly familiar, I have found very little relative to the early work of the Navajos in blanket weaving. As you probably know, they were not weavers when the Spaniards came to this section, all of the weaving being done by the Pueblos.

There is a tradition, not substantiated by any documentary proof that I have been able to locate, that the Zunis entered into a contract with the Navajos whereby they taught the Navajos the art of weaving, the consideration being that the Navajos would no longer make war upon the Zunis.  Of course blanket weaving, using wool only, came to the Zunis after the Spaniards had brought sheep into the country, and the Pueblo Indians were weaving cotton at the time of Mexican independence.  See General James' book: " Three Years Among the Mexicans and Indians."

There are references, the exact items not being readily recalled, how in the Eighteenth Century the Navajos bartered and traded with the Mexicans to a limited extent, and blankets were in this way sold by the Navajos to the Mexicans.  In the latter part of the Eighteenth century, the Spanish authorities sent professional weavers to New Mexico to teach the Mexicans how to weave. Personally, I believe that the art as practiced by the weavers at Chimayo in this section has the Pueblo rather than a Navajo origin as the people of Chimayo are very largely of Pueblo Indian descent.

I regret very much that I have been unable to cite you to any specific archive dealing with the subject. The tradition above referred to was mentioned to me in 1883, I believe, by Frank Cushing, who was here in Santa Fe with a lot of Zuni Indians, most of whom were albinos.