many reasons for supposing, that the Navajos learned their craft from
the Pueblo Indians, and that, too, since the advent of the Spaniards;
yet the pupils, if such they be, far excel their masters to-day in the
beauty and quality of their work. It may be safely stated that with no
native tribe in America, north of the Mexican boundary, has the art of
weaving been carried to greater perfection than among the Navajos,
while with none in the entire continent is it less Europeanized. As in
language, habits, and opinions, so in arts, the Navajos have been less
influenced than their sedentary neighbors of the pueblos by the
civilization of the Old World.

The superiority of the Navajo to the Pueblo work results not only from
a constant advance of the weaver's art among the former, but from a
constant deterioration of it among the latter. The chief cause of this
deterioration is that the Pueblos find it more remunerative to buy, at
least the finer _serapes_, from the Navajos, and give their time to
other pursuits, than to manufacture for themselves; they are nearer
the white settlements and can get better prices for their produce;
they give more attention to agriculture; they have within their
country, mines of turquoise which the Navajos prize, and they have no
trouble in procuring whisky, which some of the Navajos prize even more
than gems. Consequently, while the wilder Indian has incentives to
improve his art, the more advanced has many temptations to abandon it
altogether. In some pueblos the skill of the loom has been almost
forgotten. A growing fondness for European clothing has also had its
influence, no doubt.

§ II. Cotton, which grows well in New Mexico and Arizona, the tough
fibers of yucca leaves and the fibers of other plants, the hair of
different quadrupeds, and the down of birds furnished in prehistoric