Navajo-Churro

The Navajo-Churro is the first sheep breed developed in North America. It descends from Churra sheep that Spanish colonizers brought from Iberia in the 1540s, and it was shaped over centuries by Diné and Hispanic shepherds working the mesas, valleys and mountains of the Colorado Plateau.

That history is not a gentle one. Spanish colonists built a textile industry on the enslaved and coerced labor of Indigenous weavers who had already worked cotton and other fibers in the Southwest for centuries. Many Diné, living at the edge of Spanish occupation, acquired sheep and goats by trade and by raid. After the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 they expanded their flocks across their own homeland, and the breed became central to Diné life and weaving.

The sheep suit transhumance, moving with the season from dry rangeland up to high country. The fleece is a weaving wool, and the breed's survival is bound up with Diné weaving. Horns vary: an animal may be polled, two-horned, or carry four or more. If you are buying for fiber, ask about fleece type and horn set, because both vary widely inside the breed.