Navajo Sandpaintings

Sandpaintings, also called dry paintings, are called "places where the gods come and go" in the Navajo language. They are used in curing ceremonies in which the gods' help is requested for harvests and healing. The figures in sand paintings are symbolic representations of a story in Navajo mythology. They depict objects like the sacred mountains where the gods live, or legendary visions, or they illustrate dances or chants performed in rituals.

The Navajos, or Diné (“the People”), have created a rich cosmology of gods, or Holy People, who are represented by nearly everything, including the four sacred plants (corn, squash, beans, tobacco), clouds, animals, stars, lightening, thunder, etc. According to Navajo myth, as a reward to a hero, the Holy People bestowed upon the Diné the right to create transient pictures in sand of their own sacred designs, which the gods drew on spiders' webs, sheets of sky, clouds, fog, buckskin, and fabric.

Curing ceremonies in which sandpaintings are drawn help restore hózhó, which is variously translated as beauty, balance, harmony, or holiness. Navajos try to live in harmony with Mother Earth and Father Sky, and all of nature. But they also believe that hózhó is difficult to maintain because of witchcraft, evil spirits, violated taboos, and the fact that the Holy People are sensitive and easily offended. If hózhó is lost because something bad happens, the unfortunate person visits a Singer, also called a Medicine Man/Woman or Healer, to restore the cosmic balance. Ceremonies can last up to nine days, with four or more sand paintings created in that time.

Sandpaintings are made with sand, colored charcoal, pollen, corn meal, white gypsum, red sandstone, yellow ocher, and crushed flower petals. The colors used are symbolic, and also represent the four sacred mountains of the Navajos: white, meaning east or dawn (White Shell Mountain, or Sierra Blanca Peak in Colorado); yellow, for the west or twilight (Abalone Shell Mountain, or San Francisco Peak in Arizona); black (male), meaning north or darkness (Coal Mountain or Hesperus Peak in Colorado); blue (female), for the south or sky (Turquoise Mountain, or Mount Taylor in New Mexico); and red for sunshine. The borders are garlands to ward off evil, such as rainbows, interconnected arrowheads, sunflowers, or multicolored mirages.

The three main sandpainting patterns are linear, in which the figures appear above lines and a ground bar; extended center, where the central design dominates; and radial, in which images are painted around a central point that indicates an important location.

Sandpaintings can be anywhere from one to twenty feet in diameter, or six to eight feet square; the largest ones can keep a dozen or more apprentices busy for most of a day. Sand is dribbled on a sand bed one to three inches thick in a Navajo hogan--an eight-sided cribbed-log dwelling--and smoothed with a wooden weaving-batten. Sometimes a buckskin or cloth rather than sand is used as a surface.

There are from 600 to 1000 sandpainting designs. The east is usually shown at the top of the design, open to let in the light of dawn. The painting used for a particular ritual is chosen by the healer, or Singer, who has served an apprenticeship and earned permission to prescribe sandpaintings to cure various mental and physical ills. Each painting is matched with a set of songs and rituals called chantways, named for the forces working for the patient (such as Coyoteway, Antway). These chantways can last from two to nine nights, with as many as nine different paintings drawn. The songs contain ritual formulas, and each Singer knows one or two of them (there are over 100 in all). Some paintings are created exactly the same for each ritual, while others are allowed to have variations. But in each one, every detail must be accurate, and all are created and then destroyed between sunrise and sunset of one day.

The Whirling Logs sandpainting, the most well known, is the theme of the Nightway chant. In the Whirling Logs narrative, illustrated by the sandpainting, the hero goes on a long journey in which he has many adventures and gains much knowledge. The gods are Talking God, the teacher, on the top; and Calling God, associated with farming and fertility, on the bottom. On each side are two humpbacked guardians who are seed gatherers and bearers and usually carry tobacco pouches. Both gods carry prayer sticks, and Talking God has a weasel-shaped medicine pouch.

On the crossed logs are two Yeis, or celestial guardians, seated on each of the four ends. They teach the hero farming and give him seeds. The male Yei wears a round head mask, and the female Yei wears a square head mask. The four sacred plants are depicted in the four sacred colors described above. A rainbow Yei serves as a three-sided border, with the top open to let in the dawn. Sometimes a circle is drawn and painted blue at the intersection of the logs, representing the destination of the story's hero.

The healing ritual has two parts. It starts with purification and exorcism of evil through the use of emetics, herbs, and sweat baths. This is followed by supplication, in which ritual sandpaintings are employed. The Singer uses song, prayer, and movements to relate the body of the patient to the body of the gods. The patient is seated on the sandpainting facing east, the direction from which the Holy People come. The painting serves as a pathway for humans and gods to interact; evil or illness is replaced by the healing power of the gods depicted in the painting. Guardians of the gods can be represented by the moon, the sun, or animals such as bats, buffalos, snakes, beavers, or otters. The patient absorbs the wisdom of the gods, who continue to guide the patient even after the end of the ritual. When the ritual is completed, members of the audience approach the painting and rub sand on themselves, thus participating in the healing ceremony and bringing harmony to themselves. The sandpainting is then ceremonially destroyed in the reverse order of its creation, and buried to dispose of all absorbed evil, preventing it from angering the Holy People.

Since Navajo rituals focus on blessing, purification and curing, the idea of a permanent sandpainting is contrary to their belief system. Despite this fact, in the 1930s some Singers decided to allow the transfer of sandpainting designs to paper and hides. They were designed as teaching tools and as a way of passing the tradition to future generations. But they were probably altered to prevent the wrath of the Holy People.

Today sandpaintings are created for sale on particleboard or pressboard with glued sand. Many are quite well done, though secular, with alterations from the originals rendering them harmless. Some sandpainters will not draw certain figures, and others draw only non-traditional pictures or geometric designs. These permanent sandpaintings are usually sprayed with a fixative to protect them, but they still need to be handled carefully to prevent deterioration.

Hosteen Klah was the most influential Singer to break the tradition of strictly ceremonial sandpaintings and weave them into rugs. An amateur Navajo ethnographer named Franc J. Newcomb came to the Navajo reservation in 1913 with her husband to run the trading post. She became friends with Klah, who allowed her to attend Navajo ceremonies. From memory, she made drawings of over 700 sandpaintings and persuaded Klah to make corrections to her drawings. He then decided to record the ceremonies for future generations. His first weaving was of the Whirling Logs sandpainting, after he appeased the Holy People through incantations, realizing the danger of making a permanent record of the illustrations.

Mary Cabot Wheelwright, a member of a party of tourists who visited the reservation, bought a sandpainting weaving from Klah after promising never to put it on the floor where it could be walked on. Eventually she created the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art in Santa Fe--now called the Wheelwright Museum--in the shape of a hogan to house a collection of his sandpainting textiles, where they are still displayed today.

Navajo sandpainting textiles come from an area near Shiprock in northwestern New Mexico. The technique of weaving sandpaintings is difficult and complex, and added to that is the necessity of appeals to the Holy People by the weaver to protect her from the danger of Navajo taboos. Many weavers today will not make an exact replica of a sandpainting illustration; designs are woven into rugs with errors included. But increasingly, sandpaintings are being reproduced exactly in an effort to preserve Navajo art and culture.