![]() In 2020, they started Rainbow Fiber Co-Op, a wool co-op intended to protect ancestral flocks on Navajo Nation and to help other Diné (Navajo) shepherds get fair prices for their wool, especially wool from the Navajo-Churro breed prized by weavers around the world for their range of natural colors and quality of the fibers.ĭuring the pandemic, they started teaching weaving classes on Zoom, which continue to this day each morning. In some ways, the art is dying.īegay is determined to help stop that from happening. And traders no longer place as high a value on Navajo hand-weaving as they once did, because many, though not all, aspects of weaving can be accomplished by machine. The drought means spending more on feed in the winter. Erosion is common, because more than two decades of drought has meant fewer native grasses to hold the land in place when it does rain. A highway fence has been put up, and the grazing limits are lower. Begay knows each sheep by shades of brown or white, by their horns and by their personalities-assertive, quiet and occasionally sassy or mean.īegay’s family used to have around 150 head, but that isn’t possible now. If the sheep gets startled, they soothe them with a soft word or touch. The sheep lies down, calm, as Begay pulls up a section and snips deftly with even strokes. ![]() When it’s time for shearing, they tie their hooves into place and cut the wool by hand with a special pair of scissors. “My heart was always just with the sheep,” they said. Upon returning, Begay learned that their grandmother had, in a Navajo custom, buried their umbilical cord in a sheep corral in the hopes that they would carry on the tradition and become a shepherd and a weaver. It was quiet out here, not loud like in Tempe, making them feel more grounded. They were torn about the decision, and felt disconnected and lonely. ![]() Then the company shifted its operations, and Begay had the option to move to California or Florida. When Begay grew up, they moved to Tempe, outside Phoenix, and worked for an electronics manufacturing company. By the time Begay was 13, they had gotten involved in local Future Farmers of America programs and started keeping a flock. It was a sentiment passed through the generations, one Begay says their great-grandmother had proven by winning the family’s first truck, a 1950’s Chevy, in a raffle as part of a local sheep shearing contest. “You can never say that you’re broke, that you’re hungry, that you’re bored, that you don’t know what to do, because you have two hands,” Begay remembered their grandmother saying while teaching them to weave. While she worked, carding and spinning wool outdoors, Begay would play with Hot Wheels cars, carving little roads in the sand and clay. ![]() And as a kid, Begay, who is non-binary and uses the pronoun they, always felt connected to their grandmother. In a family with seven children, Begay and their younger sisters were the ones who felt drawn to the sheep. (AP) - Growing up in Ganado, a small town in Navajo Nation in eastern Arizona, Nikyle Begay always wanted to visit their grandmother’s sheep.īegay’s parents had grown up raising livestock, and their dad had always wanted to raise sheep and cattle, but it was a hard way to make a living.
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