Navajo Art Blog

THE origin of sand-paintings, or dry-paintings as Washington Matthews calls them, is shrouded in the mists of the past. In 1880, a Mexican captive who had been reared among the Navajos said to Matthews:
‘The Indians make figures of all their devils, sir.’
It was this hint which led to the discovery of their drypaintings, unsuspected until that time, though doubtless made for centuries. Since then it has been discovered that the Hopis and other Pueblos make sand-paintings in front of their altars, and in the vanishing ceremony of the Sun Dance the Cheyenne and other Plains Indians used both a sandpainting and rainbow kaytahns. But it is among the Navajos that the ee-kah’ (colored figures) has been brought to its greatest perfection, though its origin dates back to antiquity. It is suggestive of an Asiatic source that, among the Japanese, small pictures made with colored sands are drawn on a tray for the entertainment of guests.
In four different Navajo Chants the source of their sandpaintings is described. The yei of the Night Chant did not draw their Whirling Logs as we do now.
They had it on a sheet of some substance called naska. . . . It may have been cotton. . . . The yei who unfolded it to show the prophet said:
‘We will not give you this picture; men are not as good as we; they might quarrel over the picture and tear it and that would bring misfortune; the black clouds would not come again, the rain would not fall, the corn would not grow; but you may paint it on the ground with the colors of the earth.’
In the Stricken Twins version of the Night Chant, as recorded by Washington Matthews, the gods spread out over the floor of the lodge a black fog on which to paint the picture.
‘Truly,’ they said, ‘the People on the Earth can never draw their pictures on a fog; but they can spread sand on the floor and that will do as well.’
In the Mountain Chant the bears also made their paintings on clouds, and Matthews says that the background of all four of these sand-paintings is crossed with nebulous black streaks, to represent the original cloud. But, after quoting this great scientist and authority on all things Navajo, I turn to my old friend, Long Mustache of Klag-e-toh, for he too is not without repute.

THE FIRST SAND-PAINTINGS
It was White Head Chief, the War Eagle, who taught the Navajos how to make sand-paintings. When Nah-hwah’di Dah’hih, He-Who-Picks-up-Scraps, was a beggar before the walls of Kintyel, he saved the two sons of the eagle chief from the Kisani, who lived at Pueblo Bonito, as is told in the story of the Bead Chant. For this he was transported to the Skyland, where all the eagles dwell, and White Head took him to his own home, in the east.
There he taught him all his songs and ceremonies, and then, across a black rock, he laid a painted buckskin with a picture like a sand-painting on it.
‘That is the eagles’ way of making ceremonial pictures,’ he said. ‘In the world below you can make yours of the different colored rocks, ground up — red rock and yellow rock and white; and the black and blue you can make from hard-oak charcoal, mixed with dark earth and white earth.’
With different colored clays the boy practiced until he could make all the holy pictures, and then the eagle sent him down on a bolt of lightning to teach them to the Dineh’. At Round Top Hill, above Pueblo Bonito, the beggar boy, Picksup-Scraps, called the people together to see the first sandpaintings made. All the Eagle People came down and the War Eagle called a big council. After a talk they sent for the Long-Legged Crane and the Great Blue Crane. They summoned also the Crested Blue Jay and the Meadowlark, and the Mockingbird and Robin Redbreast offered to help.
This made six birds, having all the colors used in the sandpaintings. The War Eagle was black and white. The Mountain Jay was blue, the Meadowlark yellow, and the Robin, red. The eagles threw down from the sky red rock, yellow rock, and white rock, and the two Turtle-Dove girls were called in to do the grinding. Charcoal made of cedar and pifion wood was mixed with dark earth for black and with white earth for blue. Since everybody helped in making these first sand-paintings, the Navajos to this day ask every man who enters the hohrahn — and often women, too — to help in the making of the sand-painting. That is, if they know how, and most do.
The War Eagle told Scrap-Eater that they must never make the pictures on buckskin, like the eagles, and they must always wipe their sand-paintings out before the sun went down. He taught him also all the songs and ceremonies that go with every picture; and then, one after the other, they went through eight great chants to cure some of the people who were sick. The first was the Needle Chant, now forgotten, and the second was the Bead Chant, where Nah-hwah’di Dah’hih flew up into the Skyland with all the Kisani’s beads.
The seventeen chants which have sand-paintings are given in the list below. All but the last three are nine-day ceremonies.

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