Navajo Sheep Raisers Struggle
To Retain Niche And Heritage

TWO GREY HILLS, N.M. —(AP)— The Churro sheep looked distinctly nervous.

Lying on his side atop an old telephone wire spool, trussed front and rear to a weathered corral fence, he bleated helplessly as Irma Henderson carefully clipped long brown wool away. Henderson's husband Les Wilson stood nearby in case the wether decided it had a mind of its own.

Dozens of onlookers, Navajo and Anglo, crowded into the sheep corral outside Wilson's Two Grey Hills Trading Post. Ranging in age from eight year-olds to great-grandmothers, they focused cameras and camcorders or simply stared in fascination as Henderson, dressed in government-surplus white coveralls, carefully, almost tenderly, separated the sheep from its wool.

Suddenly the sheep, its patience pushed to the breaking point, began to thrash. Henderson whipped the shears away. Wilson and his son Andrew grabbed the sheep and wrestled it into submission.

``Easy, Lambert, easy!'' Henderson said, trying to soothe the sheep by rubbing its denuded flanks. ``His name is Lambert?'' one of the puzzled onlookers asked.

``Yes,'' Henderson said, returning to the task. ``We don't eat the ones we name.''

Henderson makes her living as a psychiatric social worker at the Northern Navajo Medical Center in Shiprock. Shearing sheep, spinning their wool and weaving rugs in the traditional Two Grey Hills style is her ``therapy.''

The Sunday demonstration drew about three dozen people to the trading post recently, located 10 miles west of Newcomb off U.S. Highway 666.

Once plentiful, traditional Navajo weavers like Henderson are becoming hard to find.

``It's a lifestyle, but there aren't that many left,'' she said.

``A lost art,'' Wilson called it.

Weaving runs in Henderson's family. Her sister, Sarah Natani of Table Mesa, is a renowned weaver who knows traditional Navajo weaving as well as many other styles. Henderson's mother, Mary Lee Henderson, ran a flock of 60 sheep on her grazing land 20 miles north of Two Grey Hills.

As a girl, Henderson helped her mother shear and weave, but didn't start weaving herself until about seven years ago. Now she carries on the tradition with the small flock of sheep she inherited.

No easy task, shearing is an example of ``mind over mutton.'' The sheep are dirty and definitely not housebroken. The reward for bending over each one for one-and-a-half to two hours, depending on size and attitude, is up to five pounds of wool and a kache.

A traditionalist, Henderson prefers old-fashion manual steel clippers, sharpened with a cold steel file. Electric clippers leave behind a thin layer of poor-quality wool which requires a second clipping, she explained.

The best wool on Henderson's flock is found on the neck, shoulders and flanks. She keeps a canvas ``cape'' on her sheep to protect those areas. After shearing, the wool is washed several times in a detergent to remove oils and dirt, then carded the old-fashioned way, between two brushes, and spun on a manual spindle.

Henderson's flock is mostly Churro, a hardy Spanish breed imported centuries ago. ``They lamb easily and live on sand and rocks, which we have a lot of,'' Wilson quipped. Churros are favored by Navajo weavers for the long, straight fibers of their wool, which are easy to spin and handle.

Across the corral, another sheep was losing its wool at the hands of Margaret C. Becenti. She came to the demonstration to get credit for a Southwest Indian Studies class at the University of New Mexico, but picked up the shears from nostalgia.

``I used to herd my grandmother's sheep when I was little,'' Becenti said. ``When grandmother passed away, that's where it ended. Everybody was going to boarding school.''

Shearing brought memories back. ``It feels good, getting into it,'' Becenti said.

If the tradition of Navajo weaving survives into the 21st Century, it will be because of weavers like Henderson and children like Lesley Eldridge. The nine year-old Tsaile resident pushed to the front of the crowd surrounding Henderson and watched carefully.

``I wanted to learn how,'' Eldridge said. ``My `nallie,'' Rena Gleason, knows how to weave, and I think I can learn from her.''