"Sitting to My Loom": Weaving Sustainablity Through Navajo Kincentric Wisdom

Abstract

Remembering and re-creating the human-nature tapestry of relationship through Indigenous cultural beliefs, practices, and language help remind the human being that we are intimately dependent upon, and responsible for, the natural world, and may encourage more sustainable ways of knowing and being. The traditional ways of knowing and being of the Navajo people, or the Diné, remember and renew relational balance through physical and spiritual practices that include acts of creative cultural expression, like the woven wool rug. In what ways might the Navajo wool rug be encoded with wisdom for sustainability and even thrivability?

A review of the literature revealed a gap specifically related to Navajo wool rug weaving and how this practice might nurture kinship, adaptability, resilience, sustainability, and thrivability for human beings and the natural world. In accordance with Navajo Nation community research protocols, I followed this line of inquiry. I utilized Indigenous methodologies with narrative methods that encouraged storytelling to interview ten Navajo wool rug weavers: my co-researchers.

The collective words of knowing and being expressed through the traditional Navajo weavers’ worldviews formed a beautiful tapestry that emphasized the human being’s responsibility to creatively weave a more balanced and thriving world for all of life, with conscious awareness and co-creative, physical-spiritual kinship guiding actions and relationships with our shared human-nature ecological community.