Legends in Sand- The Evolution of the Modern Navajo Sandpainting
Introduction
In this brief paper we will examine the Navajo sandpainting as a religious item and as an art item. A brief history will be necessary as will a discussion of the sandpaintings, as art forms that are used and made today. Lastly we will look at the evolution of the art form. As mentioned, this paper is quite brief and only touches the surface. A list of references is included for any one wishing to pursue this discussion in greater depth.
A General Overview
Navajo sandpaintings are encountered in two forms: the first is in the traditional healing or blessing ceremony conducted by a singer or medicine man, a hataalii. This is referred to by the Navajo as an iikaah, "a place where the gods come and go." This sandpainting is the crucial element in a healing or blessing ceremony that lasts for 2 to 9 days and is designed to restore balance, "hozho", thus restoring lost health or insuring "good things." The singer uses crushed stone, crushed flowers, gypsum, pollen, etc. The sandpainting is completed in one day and destroyed later that night. This type of sandpainting is rarely viewed in an actual healing ceremony by non-Navajos. However, several noted singers have demonstrated their skills during demonstrations at state fairs, pow-wow's, etc. However, in this latter event, the paintings accomplished are not the complete, pure and sacred work used in actual ceremonies. The demonstration is designed to "show how its done" only.
The second form is the sandpainting as an art form. It is accomplished on a piece of particle board or plywood. In this form, elements of the sacred ceremonies, some very nearly complete, are presented as a unique and permanent art form. Finely crushed stone, some natural, some permanently dyed, is applied to the glue base. The overall design is intended to be an art presentation that utilizes the sacred Navajo symbols but not in the manner that would be disrespectful. It is hoped that the beauty of this work coupled with the traditional Navajo beliefs will please the art buying public and will provide a meaningful income for the artist. James C. Joe (Eugene Baatsoslanii Joe's father) learned sandpainting as an art from his father and later became a noted medicine man, the first to have practiced both professions. From this, one can see that this art form is accepted by the Navajo as being quite legitimate.
The Origin of Navajo Sandpainting
Navajo legends tell us of the people before man. The Holy People are First Man, Changing Woman, Spider Woman, Monster Slayer, Born of (for) Water, The Snake People, The Corn People, etc. These Holy People maintained permanent paintings of sacred designs on spider webs, sheets of sky, on clouds, and on some fabrics including buckskin. When the first People, the Dineh, created by Changing Woman, were guided by First Man into the present world they were given the right to reproduce these sacred paintings in order to summon the assistance of the Holy People. But as ownership of them could lead to evil because, as the Holy People told them, ". Men are not as good as we; they might quarrel over the picture and tear it and that would bring misfortune;. rain would not fall. corn would not grow.." Therefore, it was decreed that they must accomplish the paintings with sand and upon the earth. Further it must be destroyed at night.
Most ethnologists and other researchers believed that the Navajo learned the art of sacred painting from the Pueblo Indians. These people's ancestors were the prehistoric Anasazi, Mogollon, and Mimbres peoples. Studies of prehistoric paintings on cave and kiva walls show that many were over painted or plastered over and then reused with different art. It is well known that early sandpainting used materials that included colored sands, crushed rock, charcoal, crushed flowers, gypsum, ochre, pollen, and cornmeal. These sands or "dry" paintings were used in the Pueblo's rituals in prehistoric times. Also, both the early Pueblo Indians and the Navajo used depictions of men impersonating the gods, there were several common motifs seen, and several early identifiable deities are noted in both, such as the Humpback or "Camel" God with his back full of seeds, the two children of Changing Woman (Monster Slayer and Born of Water), Red Cloud, Talking God and others.
The Great Pueblo Revolt occurred in 1680, when the Spanish, including all of their religious entourage were expelled from all the Southwestern Pueblos. Several years later the Spanish regrouped in El Paso (El Paso del Norte) and returned to the Pueblos in order to reestablish their political and religious hegemony. Many of the Pueblo Indians feared reprisals and left to live as nomads with the Navajo. There was much intermarriage and likely an incorporation of the Pueblo's dry painting into the Navajo rituals. We know the weaving techniques, so wonderfully perfected by the Navajos, had Pueblo origins. So too might some of the religious practices.
Regardless of which origin of the sandpainting one alludes to, one fact is clear, each is transitory, it is a specific rendering of a religious art form that is destroyed upon its completion. Therefore, no pictorial evidence of what they looked like one hundred years ago and earlier exists. All we can go by is the pictorial records on Kiva walls, cave walls, and mural fragments of several hundred years ago and their relationship to today's work. This, and the written text of earlier scholars and researchers as to what they learned from talking to the medicine men of their time. Fortunately a few drawings and reproductions of the religious work in the late 1800's and very early 1900's do exist. The legendary medicine man, and weaver, Hosteen Klah, (1867-1937) was, among many other things, instrumental in capturing, for history, a significant period of this legendary art. He, and his family wove the designs into Navajo rugs. These and his drawings are the center pieces of the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. These are our best links to the early religiously inspired designs that later became such an inspired art form.
The Role Of The Sandpainting
Navajo religion holds that everything is composed of powerful forces. These forces are capable of good or evil and the balance between them is quite fine. If a balance is upset, even accidentally, some misfortune or even a disaster will be the result. Nature is balanced, it is in harmony, only man can upset the balance. Of the many, many Navajo deities only one, Changing Woman is constantly striving to enhance the good forces for the people. It was she who gave birth to the twins, Monster Slayer and Born of Water. These two Heroes or War Gods left evidence of their exploits that exist even today. The great lava flow near Grants, New Mexico, is the dried blood of a slain monster and the Shiprock formation southwest of the city of the same name is the remains of a giant man-eating eagle, etc. They and their mother succeeded in ridding Dinetah, the Navajo world, of all evil except Old Age, Poverty, Sickness and Death.
There is no supreme being in the Navajo religion. Among the most powerful are Changing Woman, the Twin War Gods (heroes), Sun (the husband of Changing Woman), Holy Man, Holy Woman, Holy Boy, Holy Girl. Also powerful, and appearing in sandpaintings, are the Earth, Moon, Thunder, Wind, and others. Yeis (generally lesser deities), both male and female respectively, animals, plants, and various forces in nature are very important in the Navajo religion and find their place on many sandpaintings.
All of these deities are constantly in flux causing good and evil. The goal is for these forces to be in balance. The Navajo term for this perfect state is hozho. The term can be an amalgam or the concepts of blessed, holy, beautiful, balanced, without pain, etc.
Hozho is the desired balance, but it is difficult to maintain because everything (person, plant, animal, every stone, star, cloud, strike of lightning) has its Holy People. Anyone who angers any of these forces, and it is easy to do, creates disharmony and risks any one of several physical or mortal ills. In addition there are many witches that are seeking to harm individuals through their own ceremonies which also use sandpaintings.
The everyday existence of the Navajo is filled with pitfalls that could easily anger a Holy Person and cause the individual a loss of hozho. Examples are: killing a bear can result in arthritis; laughing at a bear can cause them to "get after you"; mountain sheep are linked to ear and eye problems; killing a sand spider can cause baldness; if you watch a dog "go to the bathroom" it can "cause you to go crazy"; killing snakes or lizards will "make your heart small- dry up- and you will get a crooked back"; if you yell at a pregnant woman the baby may be deaf; and on and on. There are literally thousands of taboos and there are as many cures.
In order to cure the attendant illness caused by the imbalance one first requires a diagnosis by a hand "trembler", a ndilniihii. Through prayer, concentration and use of sacred pollen the practitioners hand will tremble and analysis of these movements will pinpoint the cause of illness. This also identifies the "sing" or "chant" or "way" needed to effect a cure.
There are many ills and many ways to combat them. Navajo religious beliefs provide for approximately 500 different sandpaintings derived from some 50 different chants or ways. There are, for example, nearly 100 sandpaintings within the Shooting Way or Shooting Chant alone.
Each of these chants or ways is associated with an element or elements of the creation story. And each ill or imbalance is likewise associated with one of these chants. For example, the Bead Chant cures skin disease caused by thunder, lightning, or snakes and the Night Chant cures nervous disorders among other ills.
These ceremonies are presided over and orchestrated by a full medicine man. A ceremony can last two days or be as long as nine days. Involved are chants, songs, prayers, long lectures, dances, the use of sweat baths, herbs, emetics, prayer sticks, assorted fetishes, and, of course, sandpaintings.
These ceremonies are expensive. The medicine man must be paid and paid well, as well as food and accommodations must be provided for friends and family who attend. These people who attend share in the blessing that accompanies the ceremony and assist in the chant, dances, and in the construction of the sandpainting. A nine day Night Chant has been known to bankrupt a family.
When all the preliminary activities such as lectures, purifications, chants, etc. have been accomplished the medicine man begins the sandpainting ritual. It usually is conducted in the family hogan. All the pigments of color have been carefully gathered and prepared. The principal colors, white, blue, yellow and black are linked to the four sacred mountains as well as the directions- Red is often considered a sacred color and represents sunlight. As a note of interest, the four sacred mountains are: Arizona's San Francisco Peaks (west), Navajo Mountain in Utah (north), Mt. Blanco in Colorado (east) and Mt. Taylor in New Mexico (south).
The Navajo name for sandpainting, iikaah, translates to "place where gods come and go." This is the most appropriate in that if all activities were performed correctly, if the belief in the cure is present then the way is prepared for the forces or Holy People to intercede and restore the patients hozho, or balance. The final act to summon those forces is a properly prepared sandpainting. The patient sits in its center and faces the open door of the hogan, which always faces east. The Holy People being summoned will arrive and infuse the sand painting with their healing power. This dispels the evil and restores the balance. It also shields against further threats of a similar nature that may be directed toward the patient, such as witchcraft.
The sandpainting can be quite small or as large as 20 feet requiring several men and women to finish it in the allotted day. Most sandpaintings are between 6 and 8 feet. The medicine man or singer is the director, he is responsible for accuracy of color and design. For practical reasons work begins in the center and works outward in a "sunwise" pattern- this latter is for religious reasons (east to south to west to north and back to east.) Most sandpaintings have a protective garland around 3 sides to prevent evil from infusing the work from the north, west, or south. This is often a rainbow. The painting must face east for the Holy Peoples entrance. In order to prevent evil from entering before the work is complete, spiritual guardians may be positioned to the east. There are many such guardians- The beaver and otter are two because they gave their hides to Monster Slayer and Born of Water to prevent them from freezing on one of their journeys.
With the patient seated in the center of the sandpainting, the Singer takes items from his medicine bag and touches them to body parts of the Holy People in the sandpainting. He then touches corresponding parts of his body and then the patient's body. Thus, the powers of the Holy People, properly orchestrated through the intermediary are transmitted to the patient restoring the hozho needed for the cure.
When the ritual is completed the patient leaves the sandpainting and all the sands are swept away in a reverse order from the creation. The sand is then either buried outside or scattered to the four directions. Failure to destroy a sandpainting or an attempt to reverse any part may bring blindness or death to the transgressor.
All sandpaintings are not necessarily used only in curing the ill. In fact, the heart of the Navajo Religion is the Blessing Way Ceremony. It gives hozho to many things, a newly born child, a new home, a new planting, a new job, a marriage, etc. Usually the sandpainting is small and the ceremony covers a single day. In these ceremonies the floor of a hogan is not always required, it can be done on buckskin or cloth.
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