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• 1 2024-08-26T18:23:51+00:00 Whirling log Rug (Diné) 9 plain 2026-03-26T15:08:48+00:00
  Maker Once Known, Diné (Navajo) People (Southwestern USA)
  Rug (c. 1900-1930)
  wool
  145.0 x 93.0 cm
  The Greenfield Collection in memory of Myrtle Greenfield (1884-1967) Albuquerque, New Mexico, given by Robert E. and Mary Frances Greenfield
  84-202
  
  This wool rug features two important designs of Diné (Navajo) cosmology, the storm pattern and the whirling log motifs. The storm pattern developed in the early 1900s, with some of the earliest known variations of the pattern appearing in plates of J.B. More's Catalog. While the design varies in its execution (and its interpretation by the weaver...more on that below), in essence a storm pattern can be characterized by a central rectangle connected to the four corners of the textile by zig-zagging or diagonal lines. In a release related to a Fall 2023 Textile exhibition at the Moab Museum, the storm pattern rug design was described as "highly symbolic" with its origins "shrouded by variations in familial, regional, and personal interpretations. The Storm pattern is associated with the seasonal rainstorms that bring about success during the growing season and is recognized as an interpretation of the Navajo creation story." As described in an exhibition on Navajo Weaving at the University of Colorado's Museum of Natural History,

  "Storm pattern design elements are interpreted in many ways. Common explanations describe the center box as the center of the world, a hogan or lake. The four corner boxes are variously known as the four sacred mountains of the Navajo or the four houses of the wind. The zigzag lines extending from the center to the corners are usually described as lighting lines or the whirling logs seen in sandpaintings. The small figures between the lines are referred to as water bugs or piñon beetles."

  The other symbol featured in this pattern is the whirling log. The whirling log is a longstanding symbol in Diné (Navajo) culture which resembles the swastika, but is set flat as a square rather than on point like a diamond. In a recent piece about the whirling log, Sháńdíín Brown and Zach Feuer discuss the meaning of this symbol, "It references the Diné Bahaneʼ or Navajo creation story and is generally understood as a harbinger of good luck, healing, and balance." They point to use of this symbol by communities across the world (the manji in Buddhism, the swastika in Hinduism), discuss the suppression of the whirling log symbol in the wake of the German Nazi party, and highlight the reclamation of this symbol by numerous Diné (Navajo) artists, including weaver Tyrrell Tapaha, in recent years. Sháńdíín and Zach eloquently state that despite efforts to provide context and history for the whirling log by curators and museums exhibiting pieces depicting this symbol,

  "Still, many non-Native museumgoers insist on centering Nazism and their own misinterpretation of an image over the actual content of the artwork, erasing the Diné religious interpretation of the Whirling Log in the process. It is critical to understand the long history of genocide and cultural violence that the Whirling Log has survived, including that Native American religious practices were illegal under United States federal law until the 1978 passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act." -Sháńdíín Brown and Zach Feuer

  They also argue that avoidance of the whirling log because of the perceived Nazi association of the symbol ultimately is a tool of cultural erasure, and no such erasure should ever be acceptable.