CORTEZ, Colo.—The fate of the Churro sheep flocks have been interwoven with the Navajo people for decades up to the present day, when locals like Betsy Harrison are doing their part to help the breed make a comeback.
Harrison joined the effort with her small Navajo Churro sheep herd in conserving and promoting this heritage breed that is the source of wool for the nation’s professional fiber artists, puts meat on the table and represents life to the Navajo.
Harrison started with five sheep after visiting a sustainability event in Hesperus.
“I got to talking with people in the booth and I found out about the Sheep is Life project and that the breed was almost extinct,” she said. “People were working to bring back the breed, and that’s what interested me. So I bought them from this couple who lived out in Marvel, brought them home and started breeding.”
According to Navajo tradition, the Churros were placed on earth by the gods so the people would never go hungry, providing meat, milk, hide, horns, and wool for weaving blankets and clothes. Talking gods placed the sheep on earth by bringing the clouds down and shaping them into the body of the sheep, picking and inserting willow branches for the legs, and a rainbow made into the hooves and the horns of the sheep. Their faces were made of dawn, with rock crystals for the eyes and sheep tobacco placed in the head for the ears. Then the breath of life was blown into the sheep, according to a documentary about the history of the Navajo Churro, “A Gift From Talking God.”
After Spanish colonists extended its territory to Arizona and New Mexico in the late 1500s, the Navajo first acquired the Churro sheep from their Spanish and Pueblo neighbors, which sustained the Navajos for 400 years.
But although the sheep flourished, numbering in the millions, the breed has come close to extinction twice. The first time was in 1863, when the United States declared the Navajo enemies and sent Kit Carson to conquer the tribe. Carson organized a massive slaughter of the flocks as well as burned crops and peach trees. A few clans escaped to canyons with their sheep, avoiding the roundup and forced walk that would later be known as the Long Walk, to Bosque Redondo in eastern New Mexico.
In 1868, The Navajo returned to their homeland and had rebuilt the flocks to 1 million sheep on the reservation by 1890, according to “A Gift From Talking Gods.”
But the Navajo Churro sheep faced extinction again in the 1930s, when land managers ordered stock reductions to offset erosion and overgrazing. The slaughtered Churro were replaced with meatier breeds, more vulnerable to disease that produced a shorter, greasy fleece unsuitable for weaving.
In the 1950s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recognized Churro sheep as the most suitable breed for the arid environment at its livestock program in Fort Wingate in Gallup.
When Dr. Lyle McNeal, a professor of animal sciences, took up the cause of the Churro, he discovered the last of Wingate’s sheep at a remote California ranch where they were hunted as trophies.
McNeal, who grew up with Native Americans, felt compelled to save the 435 remaining animals so vital to the Navajo, Pueblo and Hispano cultures and still actively seeks out Churro throughout the reservation and beyond to participate in strengthening the breed.
“Doc McNeal has been out to my house several times,” Harrison said.
Besides showing and selling fleeces, which have fetched awards at the Sheep is Live Celebration, the Taos Wool Festival and the Fiber Arts Festival in Farmington, Harrison thins out her herd by butchering, selling the meat locally.
The Slow Food Foundation for Vital Diversity formally recognized the Navajo Churro in 2006 as a distinctive food with cultural value, worthy of special recognition and marketing support. As part of the movement, the Navajo Churro Precidium project serves holistically raised Churro lamb throughout the Four Corners.
The documentary “Talking God” was funded by the Slow Food Presidium in conjunction with the Presidium – a project of Slow Food Alta Arizona and developed by Peter Blystone and Margaret Chanler over the course of two years.
“Breeders like Betsy play a very important role in keeping the genetic diversity of the breed alive and developing viable economic outlets for the sheep and their products,” said Cindy Dvergsten, who is a member of the Navajo-Churro Sheep Association and an adviser to Dine’ Be Iina (Navajo Lifeway), which hosts Sheep Is Life events. “We need to be able to market these animals and their products in order to keep the breed alive and support our Navajo people’s way of life.”
Vital markets for the fleece and meat – some lamb fetches $6.50 a pound – has helped Dine’ and Hispanic peoples make a living while raising their traditional animals.
Although Harrison supports the Slow Food movement and the natural wool of the Churro, for her, it’s about strengthening the breed.
“For me, it’s not about the meat. It’s not about the wool. It’s about the conservation of the Navajo Churro,” she said.
