Sacred Navajo sand painting, New Mexico, circa 1935

About this postcard

The image shows a Navajo sand painting, or dry painting, laid out on the ground: a large dark cross with a blue center and radiating white lines, flanked by four stylized figures in red, green, blue, and yellow, with small bowls of colored sand and circular mounds of pigment around it. In Navajo practice such paintings are made for healing ceremonies, part of elaborate rituals called "sings," and are traced in crushed minerals, pollen, and charcoal on a bed of sand. The design had to be traditionally perfect, and the work was begun shortly after sunrise and destroyed before sunset, so the painting served the ceremony rather than surviving as an object. The symmetry and color-coded figures reflect the ritual order of the ceremony.