A Late Classic Second Phase Chief’s Blanket, Woman’s Style, Navajo,
circa 1865, also known as the McNett Second Phase.

A Late Classic Second Phase Chief’s Blanket, Woman’s Style, Navajo, circa 1865, also known as the McNett Second Phase.

The second phase measures 42 inches long by 63 inches wide, as woven.

Ex- Rachel Eleanor Griffin McNett, Fort Defiance, Arizona Territory.

The McNett Second Phase is illustrated as Plate 27 in Bonar, Woven by the Grandmothers, 1996. According to Bonar, the second phase was collected in 1870 at Fort Defiance,  Arizona Territory, by Rachel Eleanor Griffin McNett, the wife of Dr. Robert McNett, a US Army physician at Fort Defiance.

In 1961, Mrs. Harvé Reed Stuart, Rachel McNett’s daughter, donated the second phase to the Museum of the American Indian / Heye Foundation, in New York. The McNett Second Phase is now in the collection of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC. [NMAI#23.921].

The McNett Second Phase is illustrated as Plate 74 in Wheat and Hedlund, Blanket Weaving in the Southwest, 2003. Wheat and Hedlund date the second phase “1865-1870*” and note the McNett collection history.

The red yarns are raveled bayeta piece-dyed with cochineal.

The blue yarns are handspun Churro fleece dyed in the yarn with indigo.

The brown yarns are undyed handspun Churro fleece.

The white yarns are un-dyed handspun Churro fleece.