Spiritual Perspectives
Preparing for a Navajo Ceremony

By Johnson Dennison
Special to The Independent

Preparation for a ceremony could be a lot of work or it could also be simple. It depends on the size of a ceremony. A small and simple ceremony requires simple preparations, but one of the larger and major ceremonies will require a lot of preparations.

I will only discuss the preparations for smaller Navajo ceremonies. The small ceremonies are: sand paintings, protection way prayer, blessing way prayer, offering ceremony, short term purification ceremony, herbal treatment, hand trembling, and a home dedication ceremony.

All of the ceremonies mentioned above are required to be conducted by a medicine person. A medicine person is a man or woman who is knowledgeable to perform a ceremony. Not all medicine people know how to conduct every ceremony, but most of them know how to perform some different small ceremonies.

Since a Navajo ceremony requires a medicine person, the first step to sponsor a ceremony is to ask a medicine person to perform. To ask a medicine person is called "ookaah" in Navajo. It means to make an offering as a fee to the medicine person for his or her service. The medicine person will set a date and time for the ceremony. Sometimes a ceremony is performed immediately without setting a date. The person asking for a ceremonial service then goes home to start preparation for the ceremony while the medicine person is on his or her way to the residence of the patient. The ceremony can also be conducted at the medicine person's hogan if the patient does not have a hogan. That is becoming a normal practice now since most people are not living in hogans anymore.

A preparation for a small ceremony will depend on what kind of ceremony is requested. The patient's part of preparation begins with cleansing herself or himself and to dress appropriately with turquoise jewelry. Moccasin are appropriate, but if you don't have a pair of moccasins, you could wear any kind of shoes. However, the patient should wear or carry a robe for a man and a shawl for a lady. A headband is usually required for the male patient. If the patient has a corn pollen pouch, it is always appropriate to have the pouch with him or her during the process of the ceremony.

The hogan or a place where the ceremony is to take place should also be cleansed and the seating or bedding should be arranged. The bedding for the medicine person is set in the southwest corner of the room facing east. The patient's seating and bedding should be set in the northwest side of the room with a space between the patient and the medicine person. The finest cloth of material is laid out between the medicine person and the patient. It is called "ayaasikaad." It is laid out for the medicine person's paraphernalia to be placed on. This material will be taken by the medicine person after the ceremony is over. A cup of white cornmeal is also prepared to be used for blessing the hogan before the ceremony begins.

These ceremonial preparations are the same for all ceremonies. Other preparations vary depending on the specialization of the ceremony.

The sand painting ceremony could last two days. The first part of two categories of sand painting is done the first day and the second part is done the next day. The size of the sand painting depends on the purpose of the ceremony. The smaller sand painting requires less amount of colored sand while the larger one will require the preparation of more sand. There are at least six different colors of sand.

To make colored sand, the colored sandstones are gathered, crushed, and ground into very fine sand. The finer the sand is ground, the better the colored sand will be used. Sometimes the medicine person will provide his or her own colored sand, but it is the patient's responsibility to provide this sand.

The design of the sand painting is done on the natural sand; therefore, it is necessary to have a bucket of fine natural sand. The sand should be sifted, so it will be free of other small particles.

The blessing way prayer, protection way prayer, and offering ceremony do not require any special preparation except the general preparation I have already discussed.

But the purification ceremony requires more preparations. For the evil spirit purification, the patient's body will be blackened with black ashes. To make ashes, sacred plants are gathered and burnt to make ashes. It is the patient's responsibility to obtain the sacred plants. The medicine person will instruct the patient to gather sacred plants to be used. Medium sized pottery will also be used to contain herbal tea during the ceremony. It is also the responsibility of the patient to provide the pottery. For the thunder way and snake way purification ceremonies, the ashes are not used, but a ceremonial basket is used to contain herbal tea instead of a bowl of pottery. The patient is responsible to provide the basket as well.

This column is the result of a desire by community members, representing different faith communities, wishing to share their ideas about bringing a spiritual perspective into our daily lives and community issues.

For information about contributing a guest column, contact Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola at the Independent: (505) 863-8611, ext. 218 or lizreligion01@yahoo.com