Navajo rugs, blankets and weavings
ZT1004 Zapotec Navajo Rug Replica

Zapotec Mexican rug - Navajo rug replica, 58" x 29.5", $219

This handwoven Zapotec Mexican rug is 100% wool and a finer Zapotec weave, replicating the classic Yei Navajo rug. The traditional Navajo Yei rug customarily incorporates bright, bold hues; a dozen or more colors may be used. Yei are deity and the figures are tall and slender and bearing ceremonial embellishments. Their postures are upright, faces are outward, and expressions are stiff. Additional designs in a Yei Navajo rug may include intervening cornstalks or arrows.


In recent years, Zapotec weavers, indigenous to central Mexico, began reproducing simplified versions of Navajo textiles; that can be sold at a much lower price than a truly authentic Navajo rug or blanket. Zapotec weavers have their own tradition of rug and blanket manufacture that is even older than the Navajo. Most scholars of pre-Columbian and American Southwest history, believe that many of the geometric design elements one finds in the Navajo textile patterns have their origin in link with the Aztec and Zapotec cultures of central and southern Mexico. The southwestern United States and Mexico are not viewed as two culturally distinct regions; but as a heterogeneous yet unified cultural area, in which deep-rooted regional traditions are linked by common beliefs and art.