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The Blessingway
The Navajo song ceremonial complex is a spiritual practice used by certain Navajo ceremonial people to restore and maintain balance and harmony in the lives of the people. One half of the ceremonial complex is the Blessing Way, while the other half is the Enemy Way (). The Blessing Way The rites and prayers in the Blessing Way are concerned with healing, creation, harmony and peace. The song cycles recount the elaborate Navajo creation story (). One of most important Blessing Way rites is the ''Kinaaldá'' ceremony, in which a young girl makes the transition to womanhood upon her menarche.Joanne McCloskey, ''Living Through the Generations: Continuity And Change in Navajo Women's Lives'', University of Arizona Press, 2007pp. 159–162 . During the course of the ceremony, the girl enacts the part of Changing Woman (), the powerful spirit woman responsible for fertility entering the world. The ''Kinaaldá'' ceremony includes the girl demonstrating endurance by ritualised running, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United States; additionally, the Navajo Nation has the largest reservation in the country. The reservation straddles the Four Corners region and covers more than 27,325 square miles (70,000 square km) of land in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. The Navajo Reservation is slightly larger than the state of West Virginia. The Navajo language is spoken throughout the region, and most Navajos also speak English. The states with the largest Navajo populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (108,306). More than three-fourths of the enrolled Navajo population resides in these two states. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medicine Man
A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Individual cultures have their own names, in their respective languages, for spiritual healers and ceremonial leaders in their particular cultures. Cultural context In the ceremonial context of Indigenous North American communities, "medicine" usually refers to ''spiritual'' healing. Medicine men/women should not be confused with those who employ Native American ethnobotany, a practice that is very common in a large number of Native American and First Nations households.Alcoze, Dr Thomas M. Ethnobotany from a Native American Perspective: Restoring Our Relationship with the Earth" in ''Botanic Gardens Conservation International'' Volume 1 Number 19 - December 1999Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry,Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Sustaining Our Lives and the Natural World at ''United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diné Bahaneʼ
( nv, "Story of the People"), the Navajo creation myth, describes the prehistoric emergence of the Navajo as a part of the Navajo religious beliefs. It centers on the area known as the Dinétah, the traditional homeland of the Navajo, and forms the basis of the traditional Navajo way of life and ceremony. The basic outline of begins with the creation of the (Holy Wind) as the mists of lights which arose through the darkness to animate and bring purpose to the four (Holy People) in the different three lower worlds. This event happened before the Earth and the physical aspect of humans had come into existence, but the spiritual aspect of humans had. The Holy People then began journeying through the different worlds, learning important lessons in each one before moving on to the next. The fourth and final world is the world in which the Navajo live in now. The First or Dark World, , was small and centered on an island floating in the middle of four seas. The inhabitants of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Menarche
Menarche ( ; ) is the first menstrual cycle, or first menstrual bleeding, in female humans. From both social and medical perspectives, it is often considered the central event of female puberty, as it signals the possibility of fertility. Girls experience menarche at different ages. Having menarche occur between the ages of 9–16 in the west is considered normal.US National Health Statistics Report September 2020 Canadian psychological researcher Niva Piran claims that menarche or the perceived average age of puberty is used in many cultures to separate girls from activity with boys, and to begin confinement as a woman and future wife. The timing of menarche is influenced by female , as we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé
() (also spelled ''Ahsonnutli'', ''Estsanatlehi'', and ''Etsanatlehi'' in older sources), meaning "the woman who changes", is one of the creation spirits of the Navajo. According to the Navajos, she created the Navajo people by taking old skin from her body and using her mountain soil bundle (a bag made of four pieces of buckskin, brought by her father from the underworld) to create four couples, who are the ancestors of the four original Navajo clans. She helped create the sky and the earth. She is the mother of twins Monster Slayer and Born for Water (fathered by the sun). In English sources she is usually named Changing Woman. Her parents were Long Life Boy and Happiness Girl, who "represent the means by which all life passes through time." She is associated with a young Navajo woman's entry into puberty, and the , a four-day rite at that time. Changing Woman is celebrated in the Blessing Way, a Navajo prayer ceremony that brings fortune and long life. In the American Sout ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fertility
Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertility is addressed when there is a difficulty or an inability to reproduce naturally, which is referred to as infertility. Infertility is widespread, with fertility specialists available all over the world to assist mothers and couples who experience difficulties having a baby. Human fertility depends on factors of nutrition, sexual behaviour, consanguinity, culture, instinct, endocrinology, timing, economics, personality, way of life, and emotions. Fertility differs from fecundity, which is defined as the ''potential'' for reproduction (influenced by gamete production, fertilization and carrying a pregnancy to term). Where a woman or the lack of fertility is infertility while a lack of fecundity would be called sterility. Demography I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chindi
In Navajo religious belief, a chindi ( nv, ) is the ghost left behind after a person dies, believed to leave the body with the deceased's last breath. It is everything that was bad about the person; the "residue that man has been unable to bring into universal harmony". Traditional Navajo believe that contact with a chindi can cause illness ("ghost sickness") and death. Chindi are believed to linger around the deceased's bones or possessions, so possessions are often destroyed after death and contact with bodies is avoided. After death, the deceased's name is never spoken, for fear that the chindi will hear and come and make one ill. Traditional Navajo practice is to allow death to occur outdoors, to allow the chindi to disperse. If a person dies in a house or hogan, that building is believed to be inhabited by the chindi and is abandoned. See also * Enemy Way * Vengeful ghost In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Navajo Mythology
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United States; additionally, the Navajo Nation has the largest reservation in the country. The reservation straddles the Four Corners region and covers more than 27,325 square miles (70,000 square km) of land in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. The Navajo Reservation is slightly larger than the state of West Virginia. The Navajo language is spoken throughout the region, and most Navajos also speak English. The states with the largest Navajo populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (108,306). More than three-fourths of the enrolled Navajo population resides in these two states. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandpainting
Sandpainting is the art of pouring coloured sands, and powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, or pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a fixed or unfixed sand painting. Unfixed sand paintings have a long established cultural history in numerous social groupings around the globe, and are often temporary, ritual paintings prepared for religious or healing ceremonies. This form of art is also referred to as drypainting. Drypainting is practised by Native Americans in the Southwestern United States, by Tibetan and Buddhist monks, as well as Indigenous Australians, and also by Latin Americans on certain Christian holy days. History Native American sandpainting In the sandpainting of southwestern Native Americans (the most famous of which are the Navajo nown as the Diné, the Medicine Man (or ''Hatałii'') paints loosely upon the ground of a hogan, where the ceremony takes place, or on a buckskin or cloth tarpaulin, by letting the colou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeff King (Navajo)
Jeff King (1865?–1964; known in Navajo as ''Hashkeh-yilth-e-yah'') was a US Army scout from 1891 to 1911, and went on to become a highly respected (singer, or medicine man). According to army records, King was born in Rock Springs, New Mexico, in 1865; however, his family's records indicated that he may have been born as early as 1851. He lived for most of his life in Pinedale, New Mexico on the Navajo Reservation."Diné scout lies buried at Arlington" ''The Navajo Times,'' January 21, 2009 When the United States joined in 1941 and young Navajos left the reservation to serve in the army, King performed a ritual for them called ''Where the Two Came to Their Fath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ceremonies
A ceremony (, ) is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin '' caerimonia''. Church and civil (secular) ceremonies According to Dally Messenger and Alain de Botton, in most Western countries the values and ideals articulated in both church and civil ceremonies are generally similar. The difference is in what Messenger calls the "supernatural infrastructure" or de Botton the "implausible supernatural element".Messenger, Dally; ''Murphy's Law and the Pursuit of Happiness: a History of the Civil Celebrant Movement'', Spectrum Publications, Melbourne (Australia), 2012 Most churches and religions claim some extra advantage conferred by the deity e.g. Roman Catholics believe that through the words of consecration in the mass ceremony, God himself becomes actually present on the altar. Both church and civil ceremonies share the powerful psycho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Native American Religion
Native American religions are the spiritual practices of the Native Americans in the United States. Ceremonial ways can vary widely and are based on the differing histories and beliefs of individual nations, tribes and bands. Early European explorers describe individual Native American tribes and even small bands as each having their own religious practices. Theology may be monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, shamanistic, pantheistic or any combination thereof, among others. Traditional beliefs are usually passed down in the forms of oral histories, stories, allegories, and principles. Overview Beginning in the 1600s, European Christians, both Catholics and those of various Protestant denominations, sought to convert Native American tribes from their pre-existing beliefs to Christianity. After the United States gained independence in the late 1700s, its government continued to suppress Indigenous practices and promote forcible conversion. Government agen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
