Lot #32: Vintage Framed Navajo Sand Art Picture "Whistling To Heal" 19"

Navajo SandpaintingsAccording to Navajo religion, the universe is a very delicately balanced place full of enormously powerful forces which, if upset, can bring abouta saster orumess. Is veteved uld Orly hidd Catupset this balance. It someone falls ill, it becomes necessary to perform one of the Navajo Chant-ways to restore the patient to harmony. The par-neuar chantway900neo wil ceonauDonthe nature and cause of tne liness. for examole. painful, swollen joints may be determined to have resulted fromquently, the Mountainway will be prescribed.Inese ceremonies, when may last from oneto mine cays, include cravers, medicinal neros, songs, and sandpaintings. Through these means, under the guidance of a hatathli, or medicine man, the patient ceremomally identities with the nero of the chantway to gain that hero's strength.The sandpaintings used in these ceremonies are created between sunrise and sunset of the same day and are destroyed at the end of that day.Until the mid-1950s only photographs and paintings served as a permanent record of these crea-tions. It was then that the new craft began.