Whirling Logs - The Navajo Sandpainting
According to Navajo tradition, the Whirling Logs sandpainting was a religious item. The Navajo people used the sandpainting in healing ceremony. Also, the Navajos referred to the sandpainting as an iikaah meaning an opening for the gods to enter and leave. The sandpainting was an essential device in the healing ceremony that could last up to nine days. A singer, who also was a medicine man, performed the healing ceremony. During the ceremony, the medicine man directed other Navajos in creating the sandpainting on the ground to illustrate an allegory within the healing ceremony. The sandpainters used crushed stones, flowers, gypsums, and pollen to create and complete the sandpainting in one day. Then, they destroyed it later that night in order to dispel evil and restore health.In the Whirling Logs sandpainting, the Navajos depicted a story of Tsil-ol-ne, a hero who went on a
In the center of the sandpainting is the whirling cross with Yeis, who are the gods of the Navajos, seating in pair on each of the four ends. These two guardians carry tobacco pouches. The yellow color is the West that is Yellow Abalone Shell or San Francisco Peak, Arizona, which represents twilight. The guardians' humps are believed to be their backpacks. The Navajos use four principle colors (white, blue, yellow, and black) to symbolize the meaning of the four sacred directions. Figures around the four ends of the whirling cross, clockwise, are also the gods: Talking God, the teacher and the elder of other gods, who carries a medicine pouch in the shape of a weasel, is at the top; Calling God, farming and fertility god, is at the bottom; and two dressed alike humpbacked guardians are on the left and the right side who are seed gatherers and bearers. The sandpainting got its name as Whirling Logs due to the hero and his logs which were trapped in a whirlpool where the San Juan River and Colorado River meet, and he was rescued by the gods. The top of the sandpainting is the east direction of the Navajo people that is our North. One is a male dressing in black with a round head mask, and the other is a female dressing in white with a square head mask. The Yeis taught Tsil-ol-ne how to farm and grow seeds. The blue color is the South that is Blue Turquoise Mountain or Mount Tailor, New Mexico, which symbolizes the sky. At the four corners of the whirling cross, starting from the top right corner clockwise, there are plants: corn, beans, squash, and tobacco. Finally, the black color is the North that is Black Coal Mountain or Mount Hesperus, Colorado, which has meaning of evil.
Common topics in this essay:
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