LOOK
WHEN YOU
When you look at the Navajo Sandpainting,
you see a Forbidden Artwork, Robbed of its Meaning
The Navajo Sandpainting in the Orma J. Smith Museum.
Sandpaintings, sometimes referred to as drypaintings, are a ceremonial artwork practiced by the Navajo people of the American Southwest. Sandpaintings are created during various ceremonies, and each one is referred to with a -way suffix. There are countless, ranging from Mountainway, to Nightway to Red Antway. The creators of sandpaintings are known as Singers. A singer may know one ceremony or multiple, it depends on the singer, but since each takes 5 to 9 days, even knowing one requires a devotion.
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Sandpaintings serve as a connection between the earth and the Holy People of Navajo legend. The purpose of making a sandpainting is to recreate the likeness of the Holy People or another deity such as Rainbow Man or Buffalo People. A singer can recreate this likeness so accurately that the gods are compelled to the image. When a deity comes to the image, their Holy power becomes potent and the singer sings the prayer specific to the sandpainting. These could include prayers for health, fertility in crops, or other needs. However, because these sandpaintings are conduits for great power, it is important that a singer recreate the image exactly, sing the song accurately and destroy the sandpainting before night. Failure to accurately create the sandpainting, creating it out of season, or letting it linger for too long is believed to lead to blindness, paralysis and sickness.
Around the turn of the 20th century there was a rising demand from wealthy collectors to own a sandpainting for themselves. This is considered very taboo. The sandpaintings are dangerous, their production as art could anger the gods, hurt the buyer or the seller, and bring sickness to the community. But the Navajo were poor, and these collectors offered a lot of money, and where there is demand there will be someone to supply. Additionally, anthropologists also made preservations of the paintings, under the expectation that the Navajo religion was becoming extinct. A desire to help preserve their religion lead to some singers sharing their knowledge with white anthropologists.
A Yei Rug is a rug meant to recreate a sandpainting in a permanent way which is easier to produce than preserving sand with adhesives. Additionally, as singers are nearly always male, Yei Rugs provided a way for women to have an income. An interesting note about Yei rugs is their deviation in pattern, color or composition. Note the lack of blue in the Yei Rug, even in Rainbow Man who has the red/blue motif in nearly every painting he appears.
This change in design occurs in permanent sandpaintings too, not just Yei Rugs. Which begs the question: at what point has a preserved sandpainting diverged enough from a "true" sandpainting to no longer be one?
We fetishize the native artwork as talismans. From a western perspective, changes to the fundamental structure of a sandpainting are overlooked as a minor shift, when in fact they are drastic enough in the eyes of the Navajo change the entire purpose of the artwork.
When you see a sandpainting, do you really see one? Or is it a painting made of sand, distorted from its original form and function, driven by money-backed demand and cultural preservation?
By Mason Stubbs