About the Art
In 1919 Klah began to weave sandpainting rugs which were based on the chants he was qualified to sing. His first sandpainting weaving was a whirling log design from the Nightway ceremony.
Klah’s last sandpainting weaving, The Skies from the Shootingway ceremony, was done in 1937 and was not complete at the time of his death. The work was finished by his nieces, Gladys and Irene Manuelito.
It is important to know that initially the reproduction of any of the sacred images was looked upon by most Navajo with apprehension and fear. To the Navajo, a ceremonial sandpainting contains multidimensional power. This power is both visual and conceptual, metaphorical and literal, aesthetic and therapeutic. For the Navajo, it would seem strange and inappropriate to view a sandpainting as two-dimensional art because, in its proper place, the sandpainting is the powerful and sacred center of their universe. Many stories have been told of terrible consequences – including blindness and crippling – for offending the Holy People. It is not unusual, therefore, to hear that a particular sandpainting weaver has had a healing ceremony. To avoid curses, weavers frequently omit a detail or otherwise modify a design.
Fear and apprehension of weaving a sandpainting were, for a time, allayed by an extraordinary circumstance when the weaver and the singer were one and the same. Historically, the best-known sandpaintings were by “Left-handed” or Hosteen Klah. Klah was both a weaver and a Medicine Man. He was known to the Navajos by a term that means transformed. His acceptance in both male and female activities was due to the special status and prestige bestowed upon a transformed male. His orientation placed him in a class of “man-woman” which, in Navajo mythology, is thought to possess special powers in the real world. Klah and his nieces, Gladys and Irene, wove more than 70 sandpainting tapestries between 1919 and 1937.
Klah was asked why he did not weave a rug with a ceremonial design. He said that sacred symbols should not be . . . placed on the floor to be walked on all day. He was assured that . . . [it] would never be used on the floor, but would be hung on the wall of a museum. . . . After talking it over with his family, he decided it would be all right. . . . He had logs brought from the mountain and built a loom that would hold a rug 12 feet square. Then came the problem of finding the right wool. A rug of this size would require about 20 pounds of raw wool, and as the proper background tan color was only found on the underside of the brown sheep, it did not seem possible to collect this much. . . .
Sandpaintings of five Chantways are represented in Klah’s and his niece’s weavings, including 49 tapestries from Night Chant, 9 from Hail Chant, 10 from Shooting Chant and 1 each from Mountainway and Eagleway Chant.
To weave a sandpainting textile requires a strong sense of autonomy, self-confidence and physical endurance. The Navajo’s respect for autonomy is reflected in many facets of Navajo culture, including language structure, family relationships and particularly religious beliefs. Even though family and friends might disagree with a weaver for producing a sandpainting weaving, they would say nothing.
In addition to a strong sense of individualism, a weaver must be confident. An extraordinary level of technical skill and special weaving expertise is required to carry out a sandpainting textile. A weaver must be confident of her ability to weave circles, curves and a wide variety of animals and figures. The ability of sandpainting weavers to solve technical problems and accurately translate intricate designs to their weavings places them in a special category of weaving excellence.
Lastly, the weaver must have the physical endurance to weave a large tapestry. Sandpainting weavings are often much larger than other styles, which means the weaver must spend more time and effort constructing an oversize loom and acquiring more wool prior to carding, dyeing, spinning and weaving. Sometimes, the wool needs to be dyed in unusual shades such as pink or light green.
Among the Navajo, Klah was known as a nádleeh which can be translated as “one who is changed” or “one who is transformed.” There are some who feel that Klah was born as a hermaphrodite while others report that he was emasculated in a childhood accident. There are still others who simply say that he sometimes identified himself as a man and at other times as a woman.
In the 1880s, Klah began to learn weaving from his mother and from his sister. He first began to learn the Navajo medicine ways – chanting and sandpainting – from his uncle. In learning the Nightway ceremony, Klah worked under the guidance of Laughing Singer and Tall Chanter. While most Navajo singers can master only one or two complete chants, Klah mastered at least eight. Among the ceremonies which he mastered were the Hailway, the Mountainway, the Nightway, the Windway, and the Chiricahua.
Among the Navajo, the purpose of the chant is to cure the sick. For the chant to work, it must be repeated exactly by the singer. Learning a chant takes a considerable amount of intellectual work: each one is like memorizing hundreds of lines of song or poetry. When a singer contracts to perform a ceremony, he undertakes a great deal of responsibility for not only the patient, but also others who are present at the ceremony.
In 1917, after 24 years of study, Hosteen Klah performed his first Nighway Ceremony (Yeibichai). The nine-day ceremony was perfect in chant, symbol, and ceremony and established him as a great singer.
As a part of the Navajo ceremonies, the singer produces a dry painting (known as a sand painting) which calls in the power of the Holy People. The sand paintings are made on the floor of the ceremonial hogan and blessed with pollen and corn meal. The sand painting serves as a temporary altar on which the patient sits while the ceremony is performed. Following the ceremony, the singer destroys the painting. If there is no ceremonial need for the painting, the power of the Holy People can be dangerous and even fatal. Therefore, Navajo culture does not allow for the images used in the sand paintings to be produced outside of their ceremonial context.
In 1911 Hosteen Klah wove a blanket of yeibichai dancers which portrayed sacred masks. Local singers felt that this was sacrilegious and demanded that Klah have a ceremony to expel the evil and that he destroy the weaving. Instead, Klah sent the weaving to Washington and experienced no negative effects.
In 1917 Klah took Franc Newcomb, a trader’s wife, to a Nightway ceremony. After the ceremony, she attempted to draw from memory the designs from the sandpaintings which were used in the ceremony. She was unsuccessful and Klah sketched them for her in pencil. Newcomb then made these into watercolor reproductions and hung them in her bedroom so that the other Navajo would not be offended. After seeing that no punishment occurred, Klah then did an additional 27 paintings for her.
Over the years, Klah worked with a number of non-Indian scholars and allowed them to record his songs, ceremonies, stories, and sandpaintings. His only Navajo student – Beaal Begay – died suddenly in 1931 and so much of his knowledge was not passed on in the traditional Navajo way.
One of the Anglos who worked with Klah was Mary Cabot Wheelwright who founded the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art in 1937. She had been permitted to record many of Klah’s songs and erected the museum to preserve his medicine knowledge and his sacred objects. The museum is now known as the Wheelwright Museum. Until recently, the Museum displayed many of his drawings and paintings of sandpaintings as well as his sandpainting weavings. However, the Museum has restricted the display and reproduction of these items based on the recommendations of the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department’s Traditional Cultural Program Committee.
***Beads strung on a chain, by themselves and beads simply added to wire or cord will not be accepted.***
Please add the tag or title AUG ABS to your photos. Include a short description, who created the art beads and a link to your blog, if you have one.
ENTRIES for ART BEAD ARTISTS!!
• Please post at least one single shot of your creation on the Pinterest Board. This will be used to make a collage for the Monthly Challenge Gallery. Every creation will be added to the collage, regardless of a blog post. So everyone gets included!
Your entry must be on Pinterest 2 days BEFORE the recap to be included.
• Be sure to share with us the name of the art bead artist in the description of your photo so that if you are selected for the weekly Perfect Pairings on Wednesdays, both you as the designer and the art bead artist can get the credit you both deserve!
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• The Monthly Challenge Recap with Blog Tour will be posted on August 31st.
• One prize winner will be selected at random from all pictures posted on the Pinterest board.
• One prize winner will be selected at random from all blog posts added to the hop for the Monthly Challenge Recap post. So if you want to be in the pool for the second prize, be sure to use the InLinkz code at the bottom of the post to share your process and inspirations!
• Winners will be randomly chosen from all the qualifying entries on July 1st.
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• From all the entries during the month, an editor will pick their favorite design to be featured every Wednesday here on ABS, so get those entries in soon.
An art bead is a bead, charm, button or finding made by an independent artist. Art beads are the vision and handiwork of an individual artist. You can read more about art beads here.
***A bead that is handmade is not necessarily an art bead. Hill Tribe Silver, Kazuri ceramic beads or lampwork beads made in factories are examples of handmade beads that are not considered art beads.
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Katherine Thompson
August 4, 2015 at 12:30 pmI apreciate the energy that goes into a work of art like this. It is incredibly beautiful.
Perri www.ShaktipajDesigns.etsy.com
August 4, 2015 at 3:47 pmThis is not only a beautiful piece of work, but an example of a rich spiritual culture. The fact that it is shown on the net at all is a gift and serves to educate those of us who might not have ever seen it before.
Along with the photograph, there is a great deal of text that was copied and pasted from other websites, with no attribution. As such, I am a bit disappointed that there was no link included back to the original pages where the original information and photo were found, or even a mention of it.
Including **where** we find information on the net is how we help others learn more about what we find interesting. It gives them a clean start to their own path of learning.
I'm sure this was a simple oversight, put can this information be added?
Thank you 🙂
Tari of ClayButtons.com
August 4, 2015 at 4:51 pmhttp://shortstreet.net/NA/images/nav%20summer%20thunder%20sp%20weave.jpg
http://www.twinrocks.com/legends/164-sandpainting-textiles.html
http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/320
Perri www.ShaktipajDesigns.etsy.com
August 5, 2015 at 8:52 amThanks so much, Tari. 🙂
It is a good idea and great courtesy to include this info whenever we cut and paste the work of others, usually in a sentence or two underneath the article where it is used.
Thanks, again. 🙂
BluMoon
August 6, 2015 at 8:38 amWhat an interesting piece of art and symbolism, I read the script under it and have to say I was fascinated. I am sure this will be a wonderful inspiration for creativity!
Jackie