Navajo Collage Basket - Alicia Nelson (#148)

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"I like this Alicia Nelson basket, she puts in alot of detailed images of legend and stories told from our elders. For she weaves really fine tight small coils. Like in the video she explains why she weaves small. It give the images on her basket a message to those who want to learn more." -Tarrlene Mustache

About the artist:

Young and vulnerable to other's opinions, Alicia Nelson has nonetheless learned to trust her own instincts, and this has served her well as she has gone from being an apprentice basket weaver to an artist in her own right. Alicia trained under her mother-in-law, the famous Mary Holiday Black, recipient of the National Endowments 1995 Arts Heritage Award and fellowship. Alicia is one of only an estimated two dozen Navajo weavers who incorporate pictorial images into their baskets. See full biography | See all items by Alicia Nelson

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Related legends:

Butterfly
Butterfly: Due to the natural beauty of its wings, Butterfly is often considered vain. Yet, in Navajo mythology, Butterfly brings the sacred flint to the hooves of the horse. In the legend of the diety, Butterfly Boy was cured of his vanity by being lightning struck with the axe of Rain Boy. After that, his head opened up and out of it came the butterflies of the world. The perishable dust of Butterfly's wings is sometimes thought to prove that such beauty is usually not durable. More about this legend

Dog
Sending of the dog to Acoma as a messenger of the ceremonies; in a coyote like trick he undertakes a test of eating thirty-two kinds of food and runs off with the presents given in reward for his success. More about this legend

Horse
Johano-ai starts each day from his hogan, in the east, and rides across the skies to his hogan in the west, carrying the shining golden disk, the sun. He has five horses a horse of turquoise, a horse of white shell, a horse of pearl shell, a horse of red shell, and a horse of coal? More about this legend

Corn Spirits
Then it was that they moved upward, leaving the dark world behind. They climbed on top of the Four Mountains, which grew upward with them, and they all moved up onto a lighter world. The Wind People brought seeds into the new world, and they planted them:? More about this legend

First Pair
First Man ('atse' xasti'n) and First Woman ('atse' esdza') (U) were transformed from two primordial ears of corn. The gods decreed marriage for them and four days later hermaphrodite twins were born to them. After four more days a normal boy and girl were born, and later other twins until they had five pairs. The first boy and girl mated with each other, as did the members of each succeeding pair; the hermaphrodites alone were barren. More about this legend

Yeis
Every creature, every aspect of nature has its holy people . . . . even the stinkbug. Sometimes you can see them, if only for an instant. They are represented, some of them, by colors: the blue sky, the evening dusk, the night these are holy people and one prays to them. There are iron people, crystal people, then the other rocks " and such people." There are dawn people, twilight people, air, thunder, and cloud people. One does not talk about such things in nature when they and their holy people are present. More about this legend

Coyote, First Man and Placing the Stars
After four nights had come and gone First Woman and First Man saw that the sky was too dark. More lights were needed up there for those who wished to travel by night, expecially when the moon did not shine? More about this legend

Corn
The Supernaturals also warn him of taboos connected with the use of corn. It should not be cooked until it is ripe nor eaten before it is fully cooked, or frost and floods will damage the crop. In the "vigil of the corn" ceremony the corn is fed with dried meat; if it were to be fed with corn it would thus consume itself, just as feeding meat to the masks would cause men to eat each other. When giving this warning Talking God refers to the time that ugly woman fed corn to the corn with result that " the people starved and men ate the flesh of other men."? More about this legend

Dine Emergence/Creation
This is a story told by the Navajo people by word of mouth to the young and old. The Navajo believe there are Five Worlds. We are presently in the fifth world. The first world was a small, dark and water filled world. It was known as the Red World where the flying insects were the first and only people. The second world was blue with the air. The spirit people here were swallows? More about this legend

Rain/Moisture
Changing Woman's gift to earth people from her home in the west are cloud, rain, pollen, and dew? More about this legend

Basketry
Basketry is a woman's industry, which is also pursued by the nadle (he changes), hermaphrodites, or men skilled in the arts and industries of both men and women. Basketry, however, is not classified with textile fabrics (yistl'o), but with sewing (nalkhad). It is of interest also that, while the basket is in progress, the sewer is untouched and avoided by the members of her family? More about this legend

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