Vintage Navajo Sandpainting of a Horned Moon signed N. Benally

The horned moon is completed in turquoise, lavender and pink sand. Painting is signed on back by N. Benally and includes a stapled on authentication certificate. This Native American Folk Art piece is framed in a natural wood frame. A History of This Authentic Navajo SandpaintingThe sandpainting you see originates from Navajo healing ceremonies.The medicine man builds a sandpalnting and places the patient in the middle of It. To aid in the heallng process, sand from the sand painting is rubbed over certain parts of the patient's body. When the ceremony is over, the sand painting is destroyed, thereby destroying the illness.Sand painting are very detailed and colorful and each figure carries a special meaning. The designs are made up of many subjects famlliar to the Navajo people - yeis (yays) or Navajo holy people: rainbows: sacred plants: roots; trees: birds. Colors used in the sandpainting contain every color of the rainbow and are made from many different sources such as colored rocks, roots. flowers, sand, bark, ashes, cactus. For example the colors green and blue can be made from mineral ores; red and orange from flower petals: yellow from cornmeal.This amazing detalled and complex Navajo symbol ot healing has been broadened into a unique art form to be appreclated by many.