5 x 7 Antique Yeibichai Navajo Rug 78502

78502 Antique Yeibichai Navajo Rug, 05'03 x 07'03.

Woven with ceremonial reverence and ancestral knowledge, this handwoven wool antique Yeibichai Navajo rug presents a vision steeped in spiritual tradition and tribal identity. The Yeibichai rug features a stunning procession of Yei figures—Holy People—rendered in vertical symmetry across a luminous ivory field. Each figure, elongated and composed with quiet dignity, carries the bearing of divine messengers from the Navajo Nightway ceremony, a sacred healing ritual invoking balance, harmony, and spiritual renewal. Clad in robes of deep crimson, ebony, and sun-washed gold, with turquoise lines trailing like sacred breath from mouth to earth, the figures stand unified—yet each distinct, each a guardian in the sacred chant-way of Navajo cosmology.

The refined precision of this weaving speaks to a period when the loom was both altar and archive. Handcrafted in the Early 20th Century, the Yeibichai rug exhibits a masterful use of commercial dyes—reds and turquoise that glow with ceremonial intent—woven into natural wool backgrounds in creamy beige. The strong contrast underscores the spiritual liminality of the Yeibichai dancers, whose bodies span the space between physical and mythic realms. Surrounding them, stylized lightning bolts crackle across the borders in red, a protective motif representing rain, fertility, and the divine voice of the storm. These angular guardians frame the composition like a prayer held in thunder.

At the dancers’ feet are geometric elements rendered in bold black and saturated primary tones, resembling ceremonial sashes or kilts, echoing the sacred regalia worn during winter Nightway ceremonies. These adornments are not merely decorative—they are ancestral references, mapping lineage, identity, and the symbiosis of ritual and everyday life. Alongside each figure, prayer sticks or gourd rattles are abstracted into rhythmic verticals, emphasizing the connection between song, movement, and spirit. The finely delineated features and upright posture of the figures reflect the cultural fluency of the weaver, whose hands translated chants and stories into form, echoing not only beauty but power.

This Yeibichai rug is more than a textile—it is a ceremonial landscape woven in wool. It sings of healing and transformation, its harmony of line and color echoing the chants of the hataali, the Navajo medicine person. In this woven procession of Holy People, the viewer is invited into a sacred geometry of balance—between earth and sky, the seen and unseen, tradition and adaptation. Though crafted in the early 20th century, its voice remains timeless: a call to stillness, respect, and renewal in the spirit of hozho, the Navajo way of harmony and beauty.

• Abrash.
• Handwoven wool.
• Made in America.
• Measures: 05'03 x 07'03.
• Date: 1920s. Early 20th Century.