Oct. 27 was proclaimed Robert Yellowhair Day in Snowflake in recognition of the longtime resident’s many artistic talents which he uses to share his Navajo culture.
When asked by Councilman Cory Johnson about his work, Yellowhair said he painted about 2,500 paintings, made more than 100 buckles, and built 716 or 717 saddles.
Mayor Tom Poscharsky asked Johnson if in his younger days he had won a Yellowhair belt buckle.
“I won a buckle and a saddle,” he replied, “and my house is adorned with Robert’s paintings.”
Yellowhair was born in 1937 in a hogan in Na-Ah-Tee Canyon, which is 35 miles north of Holbrook. His father Peter was a medicine man, bounty hunter, rancher, silversmith and sand painter. His mother Phoebe was skilled in weaving Navajo rugs.
He grew up in an artistic family, and as a child Yellowhair would draw figures on sandstone with a nail. He held his first art show at a trading post he often went to with his father.
“Waiting patiently one day he found some colored rock, he began sketching on a nearby wall. His audience was some of the older Navajos, who were giving him advice on every subject he drew. They were his teachers, critics as well as teachers. Soon he would have to stand on his horse to reach the blank areas of the barn,” according to Yellowhair’s Facebook page. Some of those drawings can still be seen.
Charley McGee was a well-known trader and in the 1950s he gave Yellowhair his first watercolor set. A few days later Yellowhair sold his first watercolor to McGee for $50.
“He filled his head and heart with legends of his Navajo culture,” according to his biography on the Native Arts of America website.
Yellowhair married Louise from Indian Wells, and they have seven children and 15 grandchildren. They moved to Snowflake in 1964, and are very well known in the community.
Yellowhair loves the legends of his Navajo culture, and shared a legend with the town council last week.
“I would like to say something about how Snowflake in the Indian world exists,” said Yellowhair explaining that Chaco Canyon between Gallup and Shiprock was the headquarters for the Anasazi many, many years ago. There was also a headquarters near Fort Apache.
The Chaco Canyon people sent two warriors, a younger man and an older man, to that area. They were at Woodruff Mountain when they were told that there were people a half-mile from there. The older man said he would go, and if he wasn’t back in four days, they killed him, and that means they are warriors.
The older man came to Five Mile Canyon and a family of the Rainbow Clan, which meant they were honest people, explained Yellowhair.
“I went down the canyon one time and took some pictures, and believe it or not there’s a house just like the temple (the Snowflake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints),” he said. “They (the petroglyphs) existed before the Book of Mormon was written.
“As the story goes they were hunters and had gardens here, so the warrior went back to Woodruff and the other warrior said, ‘I want to see these people,’” Yellowhair recounted. The older warrior went back and told his people that they existed, and the younger warrior stayed.
They named Snowflake an Indian name, which means the water is running through the canyon. Yellowhair said that as time went on the Anasazi’s moved out and the Navajos and Apaches settled here.
In 1864 they went from Pinetop to the other side of Holbrook.
“There’s a big garden here,” said Yellowhair. “That’s why they got together every year at harvest time.”
He noted that as time went along, a white man came and did some things with the Apache, who called him Firewater because he gave them firewater and rifles.
This man settled in Snowflake until the Mormons came along.
“They still had the harvest. Both sides came here,” said Yellowhair.”
“I would like to record some of these in a painting, and instead of a bunch of buildings, I think I should bring these pioneers in,” he said. The man who came before the Mormons was James Stinson.
“Cody Hancock, Matt Sherwood and Rick Stock, those people are well known through the country,” said Yellowhair. “Everywhere I go they ask me about Cody Hancock.”
Yellowhair offered to do a painting for the town, noting, “I’m negotiable” regarding the price after he mentioned he sold a big, big painting to Robert Horn for $30,000 and a smaller one, maybe half that size, for $20,000. He said he would be willing to donate half of the cost.
The mayor said that he would have the town manager look into this.
Poscharsky said that Yellowhair has paintings in museums in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, N.M. Yellowhair added that he did a portrait of John F. Kennedy that is in Washington, D.C., and he did a painting for the Smithsonian, noting, “It’s still there.”
Well known artist Robert Yellowhair was honored Oct. 27 at the Snowflake Town Council meeting, and the day was set aside as Robert Yellowhair Day. Among those on hand for the occasion are (left to right) Councilman Lynn Johnson, Vice Mayor Kerry Ballard, Robert Yellowhair Jr., Robert Yellowhair Sr., Mayor Tom Poscharsky, and Councilmen Cory Johnson and Terril Kay.
