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 …

…San Francisco Peak, Arizona, which represents twilight. Finally, the black color is the North that is Black Coal Mountain or Mount Hesperus, Colorado, which has meaning of evil. In later years, one of the Navajo singers, Hosteen Klah, broke the tradition by recording the sandpaintings on textiles to preserve the Navajo tradition. Today, sandpainters create permanent sandpaintings, picturing the Navajo environment and lifestyle, on particle boards within frames and to be hung on the walls.