The Water Way Chant

Minnie S. Foster, artist

Cultural affiliations: Diné (Navajo)

The Water Way Chant, mid 1900s–1993

Where object was made: Southwestern United States

Material/technique: wood; sand; pigment

Dimensions:
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 30 x 30 cm
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 11 13/16 x 11 13/16 in

Credit line: Gift from the Menninger Foundation

Accession number: 2007.5823

Not on display

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During a Navajo healing ceremony, colored sands and finely ground plants slip through the fingers of a hataałii (singer or medicine man) onto the bare ground, giving life to an intricate iikaah (sandpainting) that embodies one of many revered creation myths. The hataałii’s chants draw sickness and evils out of the body of a patient and into the images of yé’ii (Holy People), sacred plants, and venerated animals created with sand. These sandpaintings are transitory, pulled from generational memory and ritually destroyed once a ceremony is complete. Foster has transformed the rite of dry sandpainting into a fixed and accessible art form by reproducing traditional paintings on boards, taking care to alter some aspects so as not to devalue the sacred imagery.