TahNibaa Naataanii
native American traditional artist
TahNibaa Naataanii (born May 5, 1967) is a Native American traditional artist and a member of the Navajo Tribe. She has espoused a belief that creativity should be allowed to be the source of art and that artists should not have to confine themselves to a particular style. Naataanii has also stated that weaving art and tradition should be passed along to present and future generations, with her art techniques and mediums being the traditional form, and artistic style dependent on the artist.
Biography
Naataanii was born on May 5, 1967, in Shiprock, New Mexico, to Sarah H. Natani, a weaver. Her paternal grandmother gave her the name TahNibaa Aglohiigiih, which means "TahNibaa the Weaver". By the age of five Naataanii had moved away from her birthplace and was attending kindergarten in Fort Defiance, Arizona.
She was taught how to weave when she was seven and when she was ten, her family moved to Table Mesa, about 12 miles south from her birthplace. Naataanii continued to weave during the summers up until she finished high school, selling what she wove so she could buy herself new clothes for the next academic year. While attending school Naataanii found it difficult to live with the Biligaana (white people) and Diné (own people) at the same time, often having both cultural and societal forms of living interfering with one another. After completing high school she enlisted in the U.S. Navy.
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This entry incorporates text from “TahNibaa Naataanii” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.