THIS IS A FREE ARTICLE FROM SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE. Sacred Hoop is an independent magazine about Shamanism and Animistic Spirituality, based in West Wales, published four times a year since 1993. You may share this in any non-commercial way but reference to www.SacredHoop.org must be made if it is reprinted anywhere. To get a very special low-cost subscription to Sacred Hoop please visit : www.SacredHoop.org/offer.html

Singing the path of the Spirits The Navaho ways of healing and sorcery Nicholas Breeze Wood

Above: Monument The Diné are a Native American dangerous and needs to be Valley, a sacred tribal group living where Arizona, guarded against by place in the Diné Utah and New Mexico meet in the performing specific homelands USA. They are often known as the ceremonies to restore the Inset ‐ top: or Navaho, but their real harmony. Danger can come making a name is Diné which means ‘The from any disturbance of the moths and butterflies. Dangerous sandpainting People.’ The name Navajo is a harmonious order, and the Diné disharmony can occur either by Spanish adaptation of the Tewa believe that much in the universe coming directly into contact with Inset ‐ bottom: a Pueblo word navahu’u, which means has a tendency to go out of harmony them, or by touching things such as Diné singer makes ‘farm fields in a valley,’ and was when not controlled. This is firewood or stones, which have had an offering of given to the Diné by the Spanish especially true of the many things previous contact with them. cornflour because they lived in such a place. the Diné feel hold great power, and Cactus plants are also these are especially watched out for. considered dangerous and must THE DINÉ UNIVERSE never be burnt, and natural The Diné see the universe as These ‘loose cannons in phenomena such as lightning and made up of myriad interrelated creation’ include the dead, and whirlwinds are very dangerous living elements, from ants to there is much fear in Diné culture indeed and anything touched by mountains, and hot winds to hail of (). A person, no such a phenomena should never be used or approached. Below: raw and thunderstorms. In their matter how harmoniously ‘good’ Even dreaming about any of turquoise stones, cosmology, all beings have a they have been in life, has a these things can be potentially life which the Diné natural place in creation, and when disharmonious ‘evil’ aspect that threatening. However, the threat use as offering beings are in harmony and may well become a dangerous from all these perils is reduced when to the spirits balance, the universe is in a place after death, and which is of hozho (beauty) - this is a Diné very likely to harm the living if not the correct ceremonies are term for harmony and has nothing dealt with. performed and strict taboos kept. All to do with attractiveness. Other parts of creation of this can make Diné culture appear However, aspects of considered to be especially prone to very superstitious compared to the universe have a disharmony include certain animals Western culture, although to the tendency to fall into such as snakes, bears, porcupines, Diné it all makes perfect sense to disharmony and this is weasels, deer, coyotes, eagles, ants, keep the universe in harmony. SH 12 ISSUE 73 2011 THIS IS A FREE ARTICLE FROM SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE. Sacred Hoop is an independent magazine about Shamanism and Animistic Spirituality, based in West Wales, published four times a year since 1993. You may share this in any non-commercial way but reference to www.SacredHoop.org must be made if it is reprinted anywhere. To get a very special low-cost subscription to Sacred Hoop please visit : www.SacredHoop.org/offer.html

wish them well, mostly they are considered to be indifferent. But everything of power in the Diné’s world view is potentially dangerous; there is the ever-present need to maintain harmony between oneself and the Holy People - or ideally avoid them - to prevent injury or illness because you came into contact with their power. Thus an attack from a Holy Person is not personal - unlike an attack from a ghost or a sorcerer

TABOO BREAKING The breaking of accepted Diné cultural taboos is seen as a great cause of disharmony and danger, which can open flood gates for greater disharmony to come rushing in. The Holy People do not necessarily Taboos in Diné culture are many and varied; they include care about humans or wish them rules of social contact between family members, well, mostly they are indifferent. periods of gambling, But everything of power in the improper sexual activity, breaking cultural laws about Diné’s world view is potentially the dead, casually mentioning certain animals dangerous; and there is the ever (such as owls), incorrectly maintaining the home, being present need to maintain harmony untidy or dirty, not caring correctly for sacred objects, to prevent injury or illness leaving a weaving unfinished with the weaving tools in the balance is seen as a blessing, and Above: Yei spirit wrong place, or even weaving ceremonies and rituals are often people in a facing the wrong direction. A full referred to under the collective sandpainting list of taboos would be almost term ‘blessingways.’ THE HOLY PEOPLE endless, and the breaking of any Blessingways bring good hope Left inset - To the Diné the universe is alive, taboo could result in illness, and luck, avert misfortune, invoke a Diné weaver and each aspect of it has spirit accident or at best misfortune, and positive blessings for a long and power and a soul. Then, in addition may ultimately end in your death. happy life and for the protection to these, there are the larger However, breaking a taboo is not and increase of possessions. They ancestral spirit beings, the cultural a ‘sin’ as we might consider it in the may be used to protect livestock, gods and goddesses. These include West - it is not bad because the aid childbirth, bless a new dwelling, Changing Woman (Asdzáá ‘crime’ was bad - it is bad because consecrate ritual objects, protect a Nádleehé), who is deeply it attracts external disharmony; for departing or returning soldier, connected to their sacred traditions, instance murder is bad not because strengthen an apprentice medicine and is the Diné’s most beloved of the deed itself, it is bad because person, or consecrate a marriage. spirit being. Changing Woman has it brings contact with the dead. Ceremonies are generally twin children, Monster Slayer performed for an individual who (Naaytt' Neizghlini) and Born for PUTTING THINGS RIGHT requests and sponsors them. This is Water (Tóbájíshchíní). Their father is The correct performance of different to the other native peoples the Sun, and the four of them form ceremony brings the disharmony who live near to the Diné, and who a holy family that is encountered in under control, banishes ghosts and have a set cycle of community many Diné stories and ceremonies. restores harmony. Ceremonies also ceremonies for the bringing of rain, There are also many other spirit give protection from the crop fertility and to help smooth the beings in Diné cosmology, disharmony, should it break out natural procession of the year. collectively called yei. These again. The Holy People are Ceremonies for rain may be include beings with such names as attracted to ceremonies, and the performed in times of drought by ‘Growling God,’ ‘Black God,’ and performance of a ceremony has to the Diné, but they will be individual ‘Water Sprinkler.’ Each of the yei be exact, so that they are satisfied affairs rather than large collective has a specific place in Diné by it, and give their blessing in ceremonies. ceremonial cosmology, and during order to set things right. ceremonies they are sometimes This seeking of blessing forms There are many forms of portrayed by masked dancers. a very major part of Diné blessingway, each with a different These ‘Holy People’ do not ceremony - the restoring of name such as ‘hand-tremblingway,’ necessarily care about humans or ‘shootingway,’ ‘eagleway,’ ‘red SH ISSUE 73 2011 13 THIS IS A FREE ARTICLE FROM SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE. Sacred Hoop is an independent magazine about Shamanism and Animistic Spirituality, based in West Wales, published four times a year since 1993. You may share this in any non-commercial way but reference to www.SacredHoop.org must be made if it is reprinted anywhere. To get a very special low-cost subscription to Sacred Hoop please visit : www.SacredHoop.org/offer.html

and kidney and bladder disturbances. or two, or at most a handfull, of When a healing is being given blessingways, because each and the illness is not easy to ceremony is so vast and complex, diagnose, excerpts of a blessingway, and requires the accurate lasting only part of a day or a night knowledge of hundreds of songs, may be performed as a diagnostic long prescribed prayers, the use of test, and if the sick person seems to sacred plants and ritual objects, the improve, the whole ceremony may construction of sandpaintings, and be then given for them. many other rituals. Women rarely become hataafįį, but there is no Blessingway ceremonies can rule against them becoming one. last a long time. They are measured in nights, from sundown TURNING TO THE DARK SIDE to dawn, and some ceremonies Sometimes hataafįį or other people can be as many as nine nights are accused, or suspected of Above: a Diné antway’ and ‘big starway.’ long, although sacred activities becoming sorcerers (ánt’įįhnii) and ‘singer’ holding Each blessingway has a particular such as sandpainting and the using dark practices for personal a medicine focus, for instance, ‘mountainway’ is holding of sweatlodges are also gain and to spread disharmony. basket and a a set of ceremonies used to deal done in the days as well. Sorcerers - who are generally called plume-feathered with disharmony brought about by Diné medicine people are called witches when a Diné is speaking prayer stick hataafįį (singers) because singing contact with animals that live in the English - are said to be mostly male, accompanies every blessingway Above right: mountains such as bears, and are traditionally believed to learn and is considered essential to bright yellow porcupines, weasels, squirrels, their practices from a parent or a them. Ceremonies are taught to pollen collected chipmunks, badgers, skunks, and grandparent. Initiation into the new hataafįį by older experts, from corn pants wild turkeys. People who have witchway traditions (ánt įįhni) often over very long periods of used in Diné come in contact with an animal - generally involves murdering a close time, and the apprentice pays his ceremonies even by unwittingly touching a tree relative, often a sibling - but other teacher to be taught them. It is which the animal had touched - crimes associated with them are essential that a hataafįį performs a exhibits a set of symptoms, and necrophilia, grave-robbing, and incest. ceremony correctly in order for it to these are diagnosed. For instance, Any Diné suspected of any of work, and so as to not create more ‘bear disease’ is associated with those major taboo breakages is disharmony - so the training of a arthritis and emotional disturbances, generally branded a sorcerer even Below: a Diné hataafįį is very exacting. whereas ‘porcupine disease’ if they are not one. healing ceremony A hataafįį will specialise in one manifests as gastro-intestinal trouble A major method of the witchway traditions is said to be the use of Ceremonies are taught by older experts, often powdered corpses, known as ánt i (corpse poison). According to over very long periods of time, and the apprentice tradition the best ánt i comes from the corpses of children, and looks pays his teacher to be taught them. It is essential like corn pollen which is used in blessings, however ánt i is used to to perform a ceremony correctly in order for curse, not to bless. Other people are the most it to work, and so as to not create typical targets of sorcerers, but animals, businesses, crops, cars, more disharmony and other personal property are sometimes cursed in this way. Other Diné cursing practices involve obtaining someones personal possession or something containing DNA (hair, fingernails, blood, excrement etc) and burying it with corpse flesh or ánt i, either in a grave, or under a tree that has been struck by lightning. Special songs are THIS IS A FREE ARTICLE FROM SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE. Sacred Hoop is an independent magazine about Shamanism and Animistic Spirituality, based in West Wales, published four times a year since 1993. You may share this in any non-commercial way but reference to www.SacredHoop.org must be made if it is reprinted anywhere. To get a very special low-cost subscription to Sacred Hoop please visit : www.SacredHoop.org/offer.html then sung or prayers said - often a who have reached a level of Skinwalkers are said to be the most blessingway prayer said backwards, expertise called clizyati (pure evil) or a special prayer called ‘praying a Skinwalkers are said to powerful and most dangerous of all person down into the ground.’ sometimes try to break into Harmful sandpaintings are also hogans and houses and attack the Diné sorcerers, who have reached sometimes created, except curse people inside, although on paintings use ash, instead of occasion their attacks are almost a level called clizyati (pure evil) coloured sand, cornflour and pollen in the form of a macabre practical and the sorcerers then urinate and joke, as they are said to dig up a defecate on the sandpainting to corpse, sever a finger and hide it add anti-life power to it. inside a hogan. The Diné then say On a lesser level, sorcerers are the ghost will rise in search of the said to apply a powder containing finger and haunt the hogan where dust from the wings of a moth or a it is hidden. butterfly to the body of a victim to Other times, skinwalkers are said cause insanity. This ‘moth sickness’ to bang on the walls of houses, is also associated with incest, which climb onto roofs and knock on is considered a form of insanity windows, peering in with strange sometimes associated with sorcery. animal-like faces. As shape-shifters they are said to be cunning and FEAR OF THE SKINWALKER deadly, using many tricks to get Probably the best known Diné their victim, including mimicking the sorcerers are the skinwalkers (yee voice of a loved one or the cry of naaldlooshii). The Diné name means a child to lure people out of the ‘with it he goes on all fours,’ as safety of their homes. skinwalkers are said to be Because of this, sorcerers shapeshifters, capable of turning - even with mild powers - themselves into animals to conceal are deeply hated and feared themselves. Generally they are said in Diné culture, the fear to turn into foxes, coyotes, wolves, persisting even among Diné peaceful ways, when owls, or crows, but can turn into any who have no contact with other dealing with ghosts and sorcerers, other animal if they desire it. aspects of ceremonial life. another set of ceremonies known Because skinwalkers are associated as the ‘evilway’ or the ‘enemyway’ with animals, the owning of the pelt DEALING WITH THE DARKSIDE are used. The enemyway is also used to protect warriors from the of a bear, coyote, wolf, cougar and When an act of sorcery is Below left: a chindi (ghosts) of enemies they other animals is taboo with the Diné. diagnosed, it is considered difficult sacred mud have killed. is seen They are akin to the vampire of to deal with by many hataafįį, and ceremony in as a result of contact with the part of the European folklore, as they can there are special traditions regarding spirits of the dead. It occurs in ‘evilway’ for steal the life essence, draining it the treatment of people effected by many Native American cultures the healing of out of their victims. They are also it, as well as some hataafįį who under different names, but it is ‘ghost sickness’ said to be able to enter your body specialise in its treatment. especially common amongst the and take you over if you look into Whereas the blessingway is Diné. Its symptoms include Below right: a their eyes. They are said to be the used for the restoring of harmony weakness, a loss of appetite, Diné yei dancer most powerful and most and the treatment of illness in dangerous of all Diné sorcerers, feelings of being suffocated, wearing a mask

SH ISSUE 73 2011 15 THIS IS A FREE ARTICLE FROM SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE. Sacred Hoop is an independent magazine about Shamanism and Animistic Spirituality, based in West Wales, published four times a year since 1993. You may share this in any non-commercial way but reference to www.SacredHoop.org must be made if it is reprinted anywhere. To get a very special low-cost subscription to Sacred Hoop please visit : www.SacredHoop.org/offer.html

recurring nightmares, or through the hoops arrowheads and other sleep problems. symbolises the spearpoints - Sufferers generally restoration to normality. used in report a constant feeling TOOLS OF THE TRADE exorcisms, a of terror, and often are Diné hataafįį generally have a small stone club, obsessed with death, or bundle of objects they use in bits of turquoise, with a deceased person healing and ceremony called a jish. abalone, white shell, and jet, oddly - in which case it is They gather everything they need for shaped stones or fossils, carved generally believed that ceremonies over many years, and animal fetishes, quartz crystals, this person is the source the complete contents of a jish must many small sacks of coloured earth of the illness. be there even if they are not for paint making, cornmeal, pollens, In evilway ceremonies required in the ceremony currently herbal medicines, and many, many ghost offerings are made being performed - showing up with other things as well, depending on to attract the ghost so it only partial contents of a jish is like what is required for the can be dealt with. These arriving with half an ambulance - the blessingways in the hataafįį’s can be prayer sticks of patient is short-changed by not repertoire. charcoal and often having the full power of the When a hataafįį singer dies, his include blue glass beads complete jish. jish may be buried with him or it and ashes. The patient As well as being a hataafįį’s may be passed on to a relative maybe brushed with an personal ceremonial kit, each jish who knows how to use it. eagle feather dipped in also represents the bundle of a ashes, and other particular Diné ancestral figure, so THE SACRED PERFORMANCE practices with ash are for instance, there is a jish When someone feels that they often involved such as associated with Changing Woman, need sacred help, either because having the sick person and another with her children, and of illness, bad dreams, fear of blow ashes toward the others with other spirit beings. , or some other reason, a hogan’s smoke hole to A full list of objects a jish may family conference is often held to represent the expulsion contain is too long to list here, but choose a specific blessingway and and banishment of the to give an example of the the hataafįį to perform it. If the sick ghost. complexity of a complete jish, I will person does not know what they Above: a Diné A ceremony called the ‘big describe a bundle found in a need, a special diviner - usually not yei dancer hoop ceremony’ may be Changing Woman jish called a a hataafįį and quite often a woman wearing a mask performed, where the sick person ‘mountain earth bundle.’ - is sought out, the ailment Top inset: a passes through a series of four or This bundle contains earth diagnosed, the remedy blessingway carved stone five big hoops made of flexible collected from the four sacred chosen and a hataafįį contacted. Zuni horse fetish branches. The sick person wears a mountains of the Diné homelands A blessingway is a very complex buckskin or cloth over their head which represent the four directions. set of related smaller ceremonies Below: Diné and shoulders, which is pulled off Pollen is mixed with each earth, that are enacted in specific order sacred bundle, gradually by the hataafįį (singer) as and then each earth is wrapped over a number of nights (and hide pouch they pass through each hoop in separately in buckskin. A precious days). Because complete holding nine turn - often while following a sand stone is then attached to each of blessingways are so complex, it is prayer sticks of painted path of mountains and these earth bundles to show which impossible to describe a full wood, twine, bear tracks on the ground leading of the four directions it represents. sequence of events here, but feathers, trade between each hoop. Once through Between these earth bundles are below is a description of some of beads and the last hoop they undertake a placed stick-like rods of ‘mirage the main elements. turquoise. sweat-lodge purification stone’ (aragonite), agate, and They are performed in a family Height 42 cm, ceremony. Passing quartz and carved stone animal hogan (traditional dwelling), which width 8.5 cm fetishes (often bought from the is emptied and swept clean, but near by Zuni people, who are sometimes a large hogan is built famous for their stone fetishes). especially if large sandpaintings Below ‐ inset: Then everything is covered with and many people are going to be ‘Mirage Stone’ pollen and all of the individual present. Every blessingway begins Aragonite - an pouches are wrapped in with special hogan songs to bless important part buckskin to form a larger bundle. and harmonise the space. Song of Diné bundles A complete hataafįį’s jish will accompanies almost every part of a contain rattles, a bull-roarer, ceremony, in Diné thought song is feathered prayer wands, ceremonial indispensable, and without it there digging sticks, little bundles of fluffy can be no cure. Knowledge of eagle plumes to tie on patients so several hundred songs is required the spirits recognise them, eagle for most blessingways. and turkey feathers, animal skins, claws and teeth associated with The hataafįį’s ritual objects are each blessingway the hataafįį laid out in a fixed order upon a skin knows how to perform, an eagle or calico altar cloth at the west of bone whistle, a sacred fire making the hogan. Some objects, kit, medicine cups made such as prayersticks, will from abalone or turtle be wiped over the body shell, prehistoric of the patient by the SH 16 ISSUE 73 2011 THIS IS A FREE ARTICLE FROM SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE. Sacred Hoop is an independent magazine about Shamanism and Animistic Spirituality, based in West Wales, published four times a year since 1993. You may share this in any non-commercial way but reference to www.SacredHoop.org must be made if it is reprinted anywhere. To get a very special low-cost subscription to Sacred Hoop please visit : www.SacredHoop.org/offer.html

hataafįį while they piece of yucca sing. root (to act as The wiping of soap) are the body is done placed in a from the feet watertight upwards to the top basket and of the head, and whipped into a everything applied to stiff mound of soap the patient - plant suds. Designs of pollen medicines, cornmeal, pollen, sand and powdered herbs are from sandpaintings - is applied in sprinkled on the suds, and these this order. All the movement of are then used to wash the patient. people and ritual objects in the Following the bath an iikhhh ceremony is done ‘sunwise’ (sandpainting) is begun. A (clockwise). sandpainting may be less than A bull-roarer is whirled outside 30cm across, but the average the hogan at each of the four painting is about 2 meters across. directions, and everything and Sometimes very large ones around everyone is well smudged. 7 meters across are made. The actual ceremony starts at When the sandpainting is sundown, beginning with a hogan completed the ceremony begins. blessing. Following this, after Prayersticks are brought in and set sundown, and on the next three upright around the painting, and bead for a man), which the evenings there is an ‘unraveling cornmeal is sprinkled on it by the patient will keep as a ceremony.’ A number of wool strings hataafįį and the patient. protection from further danger. (generally between four and fifteen) Sometime during the singing On the final night there is are made, with bundles of herbs and the patient sits on a yei (spirit) an all-night sing, finishing with feathers tied on them in such a way figure in the painting, and the special dawn songs, after as to fall off when the end is pulled. hataafįį puts his moistened palms which the patient leaves the These are put over the patient's onto parts of the sandpainting hogan, faces the east and Top: Diné ritual body and unraveled in ceremonial making the sand stick to them. breathes in the dawn four ‘marrage’ basket order. This symbolises a release The hataafįį then applies the sand times. The ceremony ends with a from disharmony, danger, and harm. to the patient's body. final prayer and a song to remove Above: a Diné Following this, medicine songs are When the sandpainting ceremony any disharmony created by any sweatlodge hogan sung for an hour or so, the singer is completed the patient goes errors in the ceremony. Inset: Diné either using a rattle or ‘basket outside and the hataafįį sweeps the During the ceremony and for carved wooden drumming’ - using an upturned basket painting away, collecting all the four days afterwards, the patient bull-roarer covered with a blanket as a contaminated sand together which must observe many restrictions on Left: carved drum with a drumstick of is then disposed of in a sacred their behaviour in case they harm stone Diné family yucca leaves made for manner outside the other people, this is because they protection bundle the occasion. hogan. are considered sacred and powerful Below: painting Just after Sometimes a ‘shock like the Holy People themselves. of a sandpainting, dawn on each of ceremony’ is done as a The family of a patient pay for showing prayer the first four test to see if the the blessingway - a nine night sticks and a mornings a treatment being used is ceremony can cost many thousands masked yei sweatlodge ceremony is the correct one. For these a of dollars. dancer (artist performed, after which special sandpainting is made The component ceremonies of a unknown) people rest and eat outside surrounded by a low blessingway will vary depending upon breakfast. After breakfast bank of earth, and a man its purpose. Some ceremonies, such Nicholas Breeze Wood on the first four days an covered with branches, as consecration of the hogan and the is a shamanic practitoner offering ceremony is impersonating a bear, suds bath appear only once in any and the editor of Sacred performed to attract the leaps out to terrify the blessingway, but other ceremonies Hoop Magazine. He has made a life-long study Holy People. Offerings patient. If the patient maybe performed four times or more of sacred objects are made of bits of faints or has a fit over the whole series of nights. www.3worlds.co.uk turquoise, shell and after four such jet, short lengths of appearances it shows painted reeds stuffed with that the correct blessingway has wild tobacco, and prayersticks. been chosen, and he is then The patient holds these and the resuscitated by a special hataafįį says a long prayer, the restoration ritual. patient repeating each sentence On the last day the patient's after the singer. When this is done body is painted from head to foot a hataafįį’s assistant puts the with symbolic designs with earth offerings at special sites a long paints, which identify him with the way from the hogan where the Holy People. Small sacred prayer Holy People can find them. objects are tied in their hair, as well A bath ceremony may take as a personal medicine gift (a shell place in the morning, water and a bead for a woman or a turquoise