Classic to Early Classic Rio Grande Blanket, Moki Style

Spanish Colonial New Mexico

1865 or earlier | Wool | Item 2059

This exceptional blanket has a moki design where thin brown bands alternate with thin indigo blue bands. The blanket is divided into 7 sections. The middle section is the most narrow, creating an elegant center. Outward from the center are 3 groupings of banding systems separated by white bands boarded with ticking. Each of these 6 broad bands are further broken into two equal parts separated in four places by an indigo band with white ticking, and in two places by 4, fine bands of indigo. These 4, fine bands are copying the system used in the center. Each end shows the warps knotted as a minor fringe.

The early date comes out of three main factors. The wool is the soft, churro wool from sheep originally brought to North America by the Spanish. This fine, naturally worsted wool takes the dye exceptionally well, as seen here with the pure saturation of indigo. Secondly, the proportions of this blanket, long but more narrow than typical, is often found in earlier blankets. Here the loom is more narrow than used later. In this case, the loom was about 21.5″ wide. The entire blanket was woven as one piece and all accomplished on this narrow loom. The only way to do this would be to double up the warps into two layers, keeping the under half of the blanket out of sight as it was being woven. This is why you see a hint of the center where the warps are grouped more tightly together. The very center warp may also be doubled up making it more prominent. Thirdly, the low count of warps per inch, that being 6 warps per inch on this blanket, suggests an earlier loom that used wood reeds as the spacers for the warps. Later looms used steel spacers which allowed a tighter warp count. I would say that this blanket is at or before 1865, but it could be as early as the first half of the 19th century.