Navajo Rugs, Mingei International Museum, San Diego

 I have always been very partial to Navajo rugs.  My parents had a Two Grey Hills and a Ganado rug that they acquired in the early 1970's that I have always loved.  Then as a young adult, I would wander through Navajo country every couple years, and even bought two for myself at the Hubbell Trading Post in the early 1980's, once I had some cash of my own. 
The recent exhibit of Navajo weavings that I saw in San Diego was spectacular.  The rug above is a Crystal District rug from 1940 and the Ganado Eye Dazzler below is an 1890 rug.  Wowza.

The Mingei has an incredible collection of turn of the century Navajo rugs of a quality that is rarely seen in rugs this age.
What do they symbolize? 
Two of the earliest known design elements to be utilized by Navajo weavers are the diamond and the triangle. These elements were incorporated into old wearing blankets and continue in the modern day Navajo rugs.  Navajo grandmothers say that the diamond is a symbol of the Dinétah or Navajo homeland with its four sacred corners that are marked by the four sacred mountains.
Triangles are basic building blocks of Navajo design. Placed on top of each other, triangles can become a series of prayer feathers or songs or become the backbone of a mountain Yei figure.