Navajo Art Blog

Although the colors were reversed in this small sandpainting to fit in with the hatali’s songs, the usual symbolism as shown in other pictures is quite the opposite. The east is white, the south is blue, the west is yellow, and the north black; but the order of the songs to be sung determines the order of the colors, the east being often black and the north white. These colors, with red, make the five sacred colors and, besides indicating the four directions, they have a deeper significance.
White is the color of Early Dawn, the false dawn which comes before daylight begins, when the gods are all gathered in the east. Blue is the color of the evening sky, Blue Twilight — the color of happiness. Yellow is the color of Yellow Twilight, and it too signifies happiness. Black is the color of Night in the sand-paintings, and it also represents black clouds, which are good. Red is the symbol of sunshine and is used also in making rainbows and a halo around the heads of certain gods.

There are those who profess to read a deeper, esoteric meaning into every color and sign in Indian art. Such a meaning no doubt is there; but it will be revealed, if at all, through the Indians themselves. The white man cannot think the way an Indian thinks, and when he guesses he generally guesses wrong. To indicate how far the Dineh’ have gone in symbolism, a full interpretation is herewith given of one of their oldest sand-paintings — Mother Earth and Father Sky — as given by Long Mustache of Klag-e-toh:

The black figure is the Sky, at night. In its center, with horns and plumes, are the Sun in blue and the Moon in white, with four sun-dogs around them, like halos. To the left is the North Star, a small cross, surrounded by the northern constellations. On the right, beginning at the bottom are Seven Stars [the Pleiades], Slim in the Middle Stars [Orion], Old Man Straddle, Four Stars, Man with the Cane, and Jumping Rabbit [tracks]. The double-twisted line above is the Milky Way, called He Who Waits for the Dawn. The cross above it is the Morning Star. The zigzag lines across the breast are male lightnings radiating from the Sun, in blue. Short rainbows on his arms are male lightnings, with arrow-heads on the tips. The four lines across the throat are the bands of the windpipe and the two lines from each ear are turquoise earrings.

Across the faces of each are four bands in the four sacred colors. The yellow below the mouth is the Yellow Twilight, the blue is the Blue Twilight, the black band is Night or Darkness and the white is Early Dawn. If a woman with child looks upon this painting it casts a prenatal influence upon the child, which can be removed only by performing the same ceremony as that which was witnessed. The same applies to other sand-paintings, and the influence is the same if the father of the unborn child sees the pictures of the gods in the sand.

Mother Earth is in blue, the color of growing things, and the straight lines across her breast and on her limbs represents sunstrings, with the Moon in white at the center. The black circle in the center of her body is the medicine-jar of pottery, which is set there by the hatali during the ceremony. It contains water, four medicinal herbs, and the four sun-dogs. Growing four ways from this watering place are the four sacred plants — corn above, with a low-breasted blackbird on its tip; beans to the right; squash below, and native tobacco on the left.

A yellow band, made of corn pollen and extending from mouth to mouth, represents ‘one word’ — that is, agreement and accord, each saying the same word. The hands and feet, of corn pollen and crossed, are a sign of friendship and love. The part circles at the base of the figures are called ‘Controllers of Birth.’ In the ancient story the Rainbow Boy and Crystal Girl were lovers, meeting often in secret and having a great desire for each other. The half-circle on the sky-picture is therefore the Rainbow, representing Male Desire; and the half-circle on the earth-picture is Crystal White, representing Female Desire.

At the top, as Door Guards, are the Bat on the right, and on the left the Sacred Tobacco-Pouch, each in a field of holy corn pollen. The triangular figure on the tobacco-pouch is a turquoise medicinepipe, and the circle below it represents the Sun, or the crystal through which it was lighted by the rays of the Sun.

Behind this picture, besides the symbolism of color and line, the Navajos see without being told the myths upon which it is built. They see in the first love of Earth and Sky the birth of First Woman and First Man, those great witches of the Underworld; and then on this earth the birth of Estsan’ Ad’lehi, The-Woman-Who-Changes, the embodiment of all that is good. They hear, as of old, the roar of thunder at Dzilth chol’ee-ee and see the black cloud to the north. Then at the end of the rainbow, where Salt Woman found her, they behold the beautiful white baby whose body gives off light. They envision the holy birth of a great goddess who still watches over mothers and their little ones.

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