An Early Classic Banded Moki Serape, Navajo, circa 1830. The Moki Serape measures 71 inches long by 49 inches wide.

Condition is excellent with less than .05% restoration. Corner tassels, side selvages, and top and bottom edge cords are original. The Moki Serape qualifies as a condition rarity.

Early classic banded Moki serapes with no red yarns were not collected by either Anglo-American or Spanish America collectors, who preferred the more colorful and decorative Navajo bayeta serapes. There are no other early classic banded Moki serapes that survived in anything approaching the original condition of this serape. In terms of age, balance, composition, condition, and fineness of weave, this serape qualifies as a candidate for the finest known example of a classic banded Moki serape.

“Moki” or “Moqui” is a Navajo slang term. It’s used in reference either to a Hopi person, to a group of Hopi people, or to the Hopi tribe.

The literal translation of Moki is “a deer.” The vernacular use of Moki implies hesitation, akin to the contemporary expression, “a deer caught in the headlights.” Moki can also refer to a person who acts in a quiet, subdued manner, similar to the American slang word, a “stiff.”

The Navajo characterization of the Hopi people as “Mokis” may have its origin in the contrast between agrarian and nomadic cultures. In the 1400s, when the nomadic Navajo began their migration from western Canada into the American Southwest, the agricultural Hopi had been growing corn and living in adobe villages for at least two centuries. Navajos may have called the Hopi “Mokis” because the Hopi practiced a different kind of patience than the patience practiced by the Navajo.

Dr. Joe Ben Wheat’s theory regarding the origins of the Moki serape appears on Page 139 in Wheat and Hedlund, Blanket Weaving In The Southwest, 2003:

Moki was a design introduced by the Spaniards probably by the 1630s. It
can result only after you get indigo and different natural colors of wool. The pattern consists of alternating blue and black, or brown, stripes, usually separated by white [bands]. It was a standard Spanish pattern. The interesting thing is that there are only two or three examples known to have been woven by the ‘Mokis’ [Moquis, meaning Hopis]. The Navajo had a very interesting name for it. It’s called a “Mexican pelt,” which tells exactly where they got it. It’s a Spanish design all the way through, and in Rio Grande weavings, it’s probably the most common design on blankets. It was a good utility blanket… Most Navajo Mokis usually have an added decoration, usually in red, on top of the Moki pattern (from transcription of Interview, Wheat, 1996c).

Dr. Wheat’s observation about Moki serapes does not account for
the alternation of blue and brown stripes that appears in early classic Ute Style first phases. It seems unlikely that Wheat would have attributed the blue and brown stripes in classic Ute Style first phases to Spanish influence.

Left: The center of the Early Classic Banded Moki Serape, Navajo, circa 1830.

Right: The center of the Cahn First Phase, Ute Style, Navajo, circa 1800-1830.

The Early Classic Banded Moki Serape is ex- private collection, Portland, Oregon. In 2018, Joshua Baer & Company purchased the Moki serape from the Portland private collector.

In 2019, the Moki serape was purchased from Joshua Baer & Company by the current owner.

In the Early Classic Banded Moki Serape, the blue yarns are handspun Churro fleece dyed in the yarn with indigo. The brown yarns and the white yarns are un-dyed handspun Churro fleece.