This is a Navajo dry-painting made in colored sand. (20th century) Sand painting is a type of art where the
artist(s) pours colored sands, and/or powered pigments from minerals or
crystals, to make a piece of artwork.
These paintings where temporary works prepared in ritual for religious
or healing ceremonies and where swept away when the ceremony was complete. Many dry-paintings depicted spiritual living
beings and normally contained Yeibicheii or the Holy People in ritual for
healing purposes.
These works of art where prepared by the tribes Medicine Man
(Hatalii) and where painted on the ground of a Hogan, the primary traditional
home of the Navajo people where the ceremony took place. The Hatalii used gypsum, ochre, sandstone,
and charcoal to make white, yellow, red, and black respectively. Mixing these
elements yielded blues, browns, pinks and other variations of those colors
where achieved by mixing in additional materials such as corn mean, pollen,
powdered roots and bark. As many as 30
of these sand paintings where prepared by the Hatalii (with assistance) for a
single religious or healing ceremony.
After each painting is completed the Hatalii checks for work to ensure
that the painting symbolizes harmony, because the accuracy of the work is
believed to determine the efficiency of the ceremony. Finally after the ceremony was complete the
sand painting was destroyed giving these paintings a total life of about 12
hours.
Due to the holiness of these paintings, three laws are known
to have surrounded the ritual of sand painting.
1.
Woman able to bare children cannot sing the
chants associated with the Yeibicheii.
This is because the ceremony is thought to have the ability to possibly
injure an unborn child.
2.
One cannot pretend, mock, or mimic a Hatalii in
anyway or you can be subject to punishment by the Hatalii or Yeibicheii.
3.
Sand paintings cannot be photographed because
the flow of ceremony cannot be disrupted to achieve maximum effectiveness.
Although sand painting where most commonly known to be
Navajo dry-painting was also practiced by Australian Aborigines, Tibetan and Buddhist
monks, and Southwestern United States Native Americans.
Sources:
Navajo
sandpainting art by Baatsoslanii et al. (1978)
Navajo & Tibetan sacred wisdom: the circle of the
spirit by Gold, Peter (1994)
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