Catalog Number
|
Catalog Number |
CAS 2006-0015-0001 | |
| Category | Visual Arts | |
| Object Name | Sandpainting memory aid | |
| Culture | Navajo | |
| Global Region | North America | |
| Country | USA | |
| State/Prov./Dist. | Arizona, New Mexico | |
| County | ||
| Other Geographic Data | unknown | |
| Maker's Name | Unknown | |
| Date of Manufacture | ca. 1970s | |
| Collection Name | N/A | |
| Materials | Commercially woven muslin cloth; Commercial pigments | |
| Description | Sandpainting memory aid in the form of a partial image from a sand painting drawn and painted on a rectangular piece of white muslin cloth; Image is taken from the Navajo Male Shootingway Chant and depicts the sacred Buffalo People, shown here in the form of stylized buffalos with human-like heads; The body of each buffalo is painted in one of the four sacred directional colors of white, black, blue, or yellow; Traditionally, Navajo medicine men would draw images like this in small notebooks or on pieces of paper or cloth and carry these in their medicine bundles to remind them of a sandpainting’s many details when the complete image was being drawn for actual use during a ceremony; NOTE: Tyrone Campbell, from whom this was purchased by the donor, dated this piece to ca. 1940s. However, similar pieces were also produced by several individuals in the 1970s and 1980s, and were often purposely “distressed†to make them appear older than they were. This particular example is so carefully drawn and colored that it seems unlikely that a traditional medicine man drew it. | |
| Dimensions (cm) | Width = 63.0, Length = 37.0 | |