article
Navajo sandpaintings: the importance of sex roles in craft production
American Indian quarterly • 6 (1 & 2) • Published In 1982 • Pages: 125-148
By: Parezo, Nancy J..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this article, Parezo studies Navajo sandpainters, based on interviews with 77 contemporary painters and partial information on an additional 226 painters. Sandpaintings are a sacred art form which serve as temporary altars in ceremonials and are essential to the curing process by attracting good and expelling evil. Women were considered too vulnerable to supernatural powers and therefore did not paint. Beginning in the 1930s, Anglo-American artists took an interest in sandpaintings and developed a technique to preserve them by gluing them onto a backboard. This innovation opened up the commercial viability of the art form and also its participation by women. Parezo discusses how men and women painters learn their craft and their motivation for painting. She concludes that while gender may have been an important factor initially in the development of commercial sandpainting, economic motives prevail today.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Visual arts
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Navajo
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2004
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- North America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Southwest and Basin
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 2003
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1977-1979
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1962-1979
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- southwestern United States
- NotesAdditional notes
- Nancy J. Parezo
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 145-148)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 74647596
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Navajo Indians