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.
Sandpainting As Art
Hosteen Klah is
credited with being the first Navajo to present a sandpainting picture in a
permanent art form. He wove a "Whirling Logs" design from the
Nightway Chant into a textile (rug). He and his two nieces wove approximately
70 pieces over an 18 year span. From this came many sketches, drawings,
paintings and later, books. Another medicine man, Miguelito (1865-1936),
contributed greatly to this latter. Be assured, these weavings, and the
drawings by these famous and respected medicine men were altered to some degree
to preclude any disrespect to the Holy People. (One blanket purchased in 1929
had 34 identifiable errors according to a noted anthropologist.)
The most often seen sandpainting today is a reproduction on a piece of plywood
or particle board. This evolved from the 1930's and was first seen in Gallup,
New Mexico. Today the board is smoothed and covered with a thin glue. Upon this
is layered colored sand or crushed rock. More glue is painted on and then more
sand is deposited. The layering of glue is quite precise. If its too thick, the
line or area will be lumpy, if too fine or thin, not enough sand will adhere
and it will appear weak. In order to prevent the glue from drying too fast,
only small areas are worked at a time.
Although most glue base is common household glue, thinned, many artists have
one or more ingredients they add to satisfy their own requirements. These are
kept secret, also various artists use different rocks or pigments to achieve
various colors. Some use commercially colored sands. Part of the skill in
creating a very high quality sandpainting is the technique of dispensing the
sand on to the glue base. Most use a small amount of sand in the palm of their
hand placed below the second finger. This is allowed to trickle off the index
finger being guided and regulated by the thumb. The flow must be uniform or the
line on the sandpainting will be uneven. Some sand painters will first sketch
then work in pencil, others only by eye.
As demand for an item increases beyond production capability new production
techniques are developed. Some sand painters now use a series of copper
templates to speed up their work. Certain symbols, lines and patters are cut
out of copper. These templates are placed on the board and used to quickly
apply glue in the proper location. Often they are also used for the application
of sand. One sees the use of templates quite often in the more
"commercial" grade of sandpaintings.
Another item has become popular with sand painters, it is the air brush. This
allows for the rapid creation of a multihued background. The amount of work on
the background is not lessened as the background requirement for almost all
sandpaintings is the same. The air brush simply adds an artistic dimension and
what is sandpainting, after all, but an art.
The Evolution and Influence of
Sandpainting Art
We have noted that
sandpainting as an art was first seen in tapestries and later in paintings and
drawings. These forms still exist. As weavings, very few Navajos will attempt a
sandpainting as they are extremely difficult to do well and require a long time
to accomplish the final tapestry. Those so engaged can and do command a high
premium.
The Navajo Yei rug, first wove with great controversy near the turn of the
century quickly became popular due to its resale success. It is still popular
and a "must" for any weaving collector. It is not uncommon to see Yei
weavings blended with other regional rug patterns.
Artists frequently employ one or more figures from a sandpainting in their
contemporary work. Noted Navajo artist Harrison Begay frequently used one or
more guardians in his paintings as early as the late 1930's. Justin Tso, Jack Lee,
Benson Halwood and many others do also.
We note the frequent use of sandpainting figures in many pueblo pottery
designs. Hopi Kachinas are most often used but the Navajo Yei figures are
seeing increased usage.
In the actual sandpainting field itself there are great changes. At first one
simply saw the more common Yei figures, occasionally a corn plant would be
added. These evolved to renderings of simplified chants or ways- The Whirling
Logs, Big Thunder from the Shooting Chant, Coyote Stealing Fire, etc. Then
there came the artist in sand. Now we see renderings or realist and
impressionist movements, as well as pictures of Shiprock, fetish bears, pottery
depictions, etc. Generally the work is not complex, but is pleasing and
represents a strong art movement.
Over a period of several years various competitions began to recognize
sandpainting as an art form. As more and more museum shows, fairs, ceremonials,
etc. began to award prizes based on quality and innovation we saw a definite
increase in quality, quantity, and innovation.
Today we see in exquisite detail pure traditional sandpainting designs. Also,
several artists blend two or more sandpainting designs, or elements together.
Among the best of these groups are Rosabelle Ben and Fred Geary.
Other master artists such as Eugene Baatsoslanii Joe, Bobbie Johnson (d.), J.M.
Cambridge, Keith Silversmith, H.R. (War Eagle) Begay, and Gracie Dick use a
blend of tradition, impression, and realism to achieve one of a kind
expressions that rival, in expression and in quality, any great art.
As a last note to this section, sandpainting designs are being seen in sterling
and gold cast jewelry. It is very popular and selling well. It is easy to see
that the core of Navajo life, their religion and its expression in the
sandpaintings, has influenced all forms of Navajo artistic expression. Its
influence is expected to continue.
