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SOUTHWESTERN STATES

TEEC NOS POS TRADING POST AND TEEC NOS POS STYLE

Teec Nos Pos is one of the most distinctive and complex regional weaving styles in the Navajo textile tradition.

The name Teec Nos Pos derives from the Navajo expression T'iis Názbąs, meaning "Circle of Cottonwoods" or "Ring of the Cottonwoods," and it is pronounced similar to /tease-nahs-pahss/.  The name comes from an important location in northeastern Arizona, near the Four Corners Monument within Navajo land. Situated west of Shiprock, this remote area became the epicenter of a weaving revolution that would fundamentally alter Navajo textile production.

The Teec Nos Pos style rose to prominence in 1905 when Hambleton Bridger Noel, also known as "Trader Noel," established a trading post in the area. Noel was the first Anglo-Saxon to receive approval from the local Navajo to set up a trading post on their land after two previous traders were driven off ten years earlier. His success in establishing this outpost proved pivotal in shaping a new direction for Navajo weaving.

The style's development was influenced by Noel's brothers, who established a trading post at Two Grey Hills in 1897. Drawing from their experience, Noel looked to existing rug designs to provide local weavers with guidance on what he wanted to purchase from them. In 1911, Noel married Eva Foutz. Eventually, the Foutz family took over the post and continues to operate it to this day. The trading post is open and active today, with Kathy Foutz and John McColloch as the current owners.

The Teec Nos Pos Trading Post in 1949. Photo by Milton (Jack) Snow, M. Burge Photograph Collection, Museum of New Mexico.

BELOW

The Teec Nos Pos Trading Center today.

Tony Hillerman (1925–2008) was a celebrated American novelist renowned for his mystery series set in the American Southwest, particularly on the Navajo Nation. Born in Sacred Heart, Oklahoma, Hillerman drew on his early experiences with Native American communities and his deep respect for Navajo culture to write novels blending tight crime plots with rich anthropological detail. His most famous works center on Navajo Tribal Police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. These characters use modern investigative techniques and traditional Navajo beliefs to solve crimes. His debut novel, The Blessing Way (1970), introduced Leaphorn and established the formula that would define the series: mysteries deeply rooted in the landscape, customs, and conflicts of the Navajo people. The series eventually spanned eighteen novels. The Teec Nos Pos Trading Post, located on the Navajo Nation, appears in several of Hillerman’s novels, including The Blessing Way.

The Teec Nos Pos style is a unique fusion of cultural influences, which makes it both celebrated and controversial within the Navajo weaving tradition. The designs draw heavily from Persian rugs, incorporating their intricate, busy patterns and bright colors, such as greens, blues, oranges, and reds. Traders deliberately encouraged this Persian influence to compete with Oriental rugs in the marketplace.

These foreign design elements were introduced through various means. Some sources credit Mrs. Wilson, a San Juan missionary, with popularizing the style, while others attribute its prevalence to Trader Noel himself. In some instances, traders painted Persian rug designs on the exterior walls of trading posts in the hope that weavers would copy these patterns.

Why is the Teec Nos Pos style considered "controversial"?

The Teec Nos Pos style occupies a unique and somewhat problematic position within the Navajo weaving tradition. It is often described as "the least Navajo" of all regional styles because of its Persian and Oriental influences. However, this characterization overlooks the sophisticated way Navajo weavers adapted and transformed foreign elements. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, THE WIND THAT STIRS THE PAINTER’S HAND HAS CROSSED TEN THOUSAND TONGUES, any purist attitude in art is short-sighted.

There is something, however, that I did not write there, something very important to me that I would like to share here.

Seeing and Weaving: Culture, Perception, and the Meaning of a Navajo Rug

When an Anglo-Saxon from the 19th or 20th century—or a Western tourist from the 21st—looks at a Navajo rug, they typically see...a rug. A beautiful object, certainly, but still just an object. An artifact. A piece of décor.

However, when a Navajo looks at a Navajo rug, regardless of the century, they don't just see a rug; they see the process that birthed it. (And yes, that verb is deliberate.)

That distinction matters. Deeply.

As we discussed in The Japanese Arto of Kintsugi, perception isn't a purely neurophysiological event. The brain doesn’t exist in isolation, like a microchip on a motherboard. It is embedded in a body, an environment, and a cultural world.

Beliefs, values, traditions, and customs influence brain development by shaping neural pathways and synaptic connections and molding perceptual processes, cognitive abilities, emotions, and behavior.

This dynamic interplay between nature and nurture is what makes neuroplasticity so remarkable—and so vulnerable. It enables the brain to develop new skills, modify behaviors, and overcome challenges, but it also makes the brain extremely sensitive to the cultural matrix within which it develops. Neuroplasticity is an extraordinary adaptive resource but also a structural vulnerability.

Culture doesn’t just teach us what to think; it literally shapes the way we think, see, interpret, and react.

This cultural imprint on the brain has powerful consequences.

• Perceptual filters: The brain develops recognition and interpretation patterns based on dominant cultural patterns, which literally influence what we "see" and how we interpret it.
• Behavioral habits and automatisms: Neural circuits that consolidate during development favor behavioral responses consistent with assimilated cultural values, becoming automatic over time.
• Resistance to change: The same plasticity that enables growth also creates mental inertia, so deeply established patterns can be difficult to unlearn.

Therefore, how we see — and even what we see — is far from objective. As Anaïs Nin, the French-Cuban-American diarist, once wrote: We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Westerners tend to see what is in front of them as things: fixed, discrete, and commodified. Our minds default to analysis, categorization, and assigning value based on visual characteristics, design harmony, weight, softness, and market worth. In that frame, a Navajo rug becomes just another thing—a textile with visual features, tactile qualities, and a price tag.

However, not every culture shares this objectifying perspective. In many Indigenous worldviews, including the Navajo worldview, what we call a "thing" may be seen as a process, a network of relationships, or a node of living connections. Mathematicians see mathematical objects as formal structures that interlink a set of properties under a law. Some Asian people may consider objects as illusory shadows. Without delving too deeply, it suffices to recall the wisdom of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, who argued that objects are never "mere things" but rather phenomena laden with meaning and embedded in a context of relationships and subjective experiences.

To Navajos, a rug is not merely wool and dye; it is the convergence of stories, intentions, rituals, ancestors, divine spirits, and the earth itself.

It is an action in material form—a thread through which history, spirituality, family, creativity, and identity pass. It exists not only to be seen but also to be felt and lived with and honored.

Some Western viewers might criticize certain Navajo rugs, particularly those in the Teec Nos Pos style, calling them "un-Navajo." They point out that certain decorative motifs and intricate details resemble those used in Persian rugs or are reminiscent of the Oriental "horror vacui," or the fear of empty space. This aesthetic is considered a departure from "authentic" Navajo designs, which are thought to be more balanced and harmonious.

However, to a Navajo weaver, these comments often reveal more about the observer than the rug itself.

To them, the rug is not an exotic art piece or commercial commodity. It is a sacred expression of family history, cultural continuity, technical mastery, and spiritual strength. Within each weave lives the memory of the hands that wove it, the teachings that shaped it, the land that yielded the materials, and the resilience that enabled those hands and the hands before to survive ethnic cleansing. Reducing it to "taste" or "design" is not only superficial, it's a kind of blindness.

When a Navajo looks at a Navajo rug, they don't see a "thing" to evaluate. They see a life lived, a process embodied, and a sacred act made visible. In that act of seeing, they invite us—if we’re willing—to look again. Properly, this time.

In this regard, I'll tell you a story—a Navajo story, of course.

The story of the Hubbell-Joe Rug

During the Great Depression, Lorenzo Hubbell Jr., one of the sons of John Lorenzo Hubbell—the prominent trader and founder of the Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado, Arizona—found himself in a difficult situation. His trading post in Winslow wasn't prospering. Nor were his pockets particularly full. How could he attract tourists and revive the moribund trade? He had an audacious idea to get people talking about him: he commissioned one of his best Navajo weavers to create the "World's Largest Navajo Rug" as a showpiece for his Winslow Trading Post.

In 1932, Hubbell turned to Julia Joe, a master weaver from Greasewood, Arizona, to bring his vision to life. With the help of her daughter, Lillie Joe Hill, and her extended Red House Clan (Kin ł ichii’nii), Julia embarked on a monumental project of artistry. To accommodate the planned dimensions, Julia’s husband, Sam Joe, built a custom metal pipe loom and a 40-foot-by-30-foot-by-10-foot building to house the loom and the weaving process.

The community’s involvement was essential. Local families sheared approximately 78 sheep (60 white and 18 black) to provide the necessary wool. This wool then underwent two years of washing, carding, dyeing, and spinning. Julia and Lillie, often working from sunrise to midnight, spent over three years weaving the rug. According to Hubbell’s records, the process took "three years and three weeks" of nearly continuous labor.

It sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it? I assure you it's all true.

Completed in 1937, the finished rug measured an astonishing 21 feet 4 inches by 32 feet 7 inches (650 x 993 cm), making it the largest known Navajo rug for four decades. «What resulted was a masterpiece, not just in size, but in technique, with an evenness of weave, uniformity of color, and complexity of design.» (Hubbell-Joe Rug History, Affeldt Mion Museum, Winslow, AZ). The rug's palette featured natural grays, blacks, whites, and the signature “Ganado red,” and its designs were inspired by the universe, stars, and the Milky Way. The design also featured protective horned toads and border patterns reminiscent of Ancestral Puebloan pottery. In keeping with Navajo belief, a traditional "spirit line" (ch’ihónít’i) was woven into the lower right corner as a symbolic path for the weaver’s spirit to exit the rug.

Initially displayed at the Winslow Trading Post, the rug's size made it difficult to exhibit. It traveled to fairs, museums, and even the U.S. Senate chambers in Washington, D.C. There, it served as a marvel of craftsmanship and a powerful advertisement for Navajo weaving and the Hubbell enterprise.

The rug displayed at the Winslow Trading Post in 1937. Herb and Dorothy McLaughlin Collection, Arizona State University Library, CP MCL 9569.

As I mentioned, in the following years, the rug served as a centerpiece in Hubbell's marketing efforts. It was displayed at various prominent venues, including the 1939 Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Exhibition, the U.S. Senate Chambers in Washington, D.C., Marshall Field & Company in Chicago, the 1948 International Travel Show in New York City, and the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.

After Hubbell's bankruptcy in 1949, the rug changed hands multiple times and was eventually stored away and largely forgotten for over 40 years. In 2012, Allan Affeldt and Tina Mion acquired the rug and returned it to Winslow, recognizing its cultural significance. They renamed it the Hubbell-Joe Rug to highlight Lorenzo Hubbell Jr.'s dual legacy as commissioner and Julia Joe's as the rug's creator. They also acquired the trading post, which became the Winslow Visitor’s Center.

Today, thanks to the Winslow Arts Trust, the rug is on long-term display at the Affeldt Mion Museum in Winslow, Arizona, where it continues to inspire awe for its artistry, scale, and the story of community collaboration and resilience that brought it into being. A specially engineered display allows the rug to be viewed both flat and partially upright, minimizing stress on the textile while showcasing its intricate designs.

Before displaying the rug to the public, however, Allan Affeldt and Tina Mion honored the Navajo culture by hosting a touching blessing ceremony with Julia Joe’s family, including her daughter, Emma Joe Lee, who had helped card the wool 80 years earlier. The video of the ceremony is an emotional testament to how Navajos see, feel, and honor a rug.

Therefore, it is essential to encounter cultures far removed from our own—whether separated by time or space. Such experiences teach us to build bridges, engage in dialogue, and live more peacefully. They force us to break out of our shells, like fledglings opening their eyes to the world for the first time. They help us see beyond appearances and beyond 'things' and 'commodities'. In doing so, we become less blind, less deaf, less impoverished in spirit. We begin to see, hear, and feel what once seemed unimaginable.

This transformation isn’t just metaphorical—it has neurological roots. Thanks to the brain’s remarkable plasticity, learning and change remain possible throughout life. While adult learning differs from the rapid absorption of childhood, it can still reshape our neural circuits—especially through conscious strategies and repeated practice. In this sense, cultural encounters offer a kind of cognitive reprogramming: slower, more effortful, but deeply enriching.

Yes, it can be tiring— far less relaxing than scrolling through an endless stream of mindless content on a platform. But meeting the Other makes us smarter, deeper, richer, and wiser. It’s truly unfortunate how many people retreat in fear at the mere thought of such encounters. Because by avoiding the unfamiliar, the strange and the diverse, we risk never knowing how much more fully we could have lived.

Alyx Becerra