Weaving Organic Wool: Tierra Wools
Tierra Wools supports 45 employees and their families in the community, where wages in turn benefit other local enterprises. The Churro sheep have also made a comeback, and the flock—one of the largest in the United States—now numbers 275.
November/December 2003
By Carola Kittredge
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Photo By Dorothy Galloway
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As recently as a decade ago, the Churro sheep, the oldest domestic farm animal in North America, faced extinction. Brought over by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, this hardy breed was so suited to the harsh winters, poor grazing, and lack of water of the Southwest that Churros eventually numbered in the millions. The sheep were important to the Native Americans, especially the Navajo, until after the Civil War when the U.S. military destroyed thousands of sheep as a tactic to starve the Navajo and force them onto reservations.
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With the decline of the sheep, the vitality of many small communities in northern New Mexico—already under threat from lumber companies, cattle ranchers, and developers—faded as well. In response, a group of ranchers including Molly and Antonio Manzanares formed Ganados del Valle in 1983 to bring back the Churro sheep. Lyle McNeal, Ph.D., of Utah State University contributed several purebred Churro rams, which they bred to local sheep that showed Churro genes, and after several generations they were breeding purebred Churros themselves. This sheep-raising mission has also been adopted by the Navajo Sheep Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to restoring Churros to the Navajo to help revitalize traditional tribal culture.
At the same time, Tierra Wools was created to revive the art of weaving. The business, based in the village of Los Ojos, is owned by weavers who buy certified organic wool from local herders and hand weave it into rugs and tapestries based on designs that have been handed down through the generations.