Anthropology Tidbit: The Navaho and Sandpainting

This semester I'm taking a Native religions' class. As I've told you in the past, I like to share interesting tidbits about past human society that you may have never been aware of. Western religions are fairly recognizable to many of us, but Native rituals give us an entirely different perspective on life after death and accessing a world that is unseen.

Navaho and Sandpainting: How they access the unseen world

The Navaho use sand paintings to breathe life into an ailing person. The ritual ceremony involves the invocation of mythic beings in the unseen world. These mythic peoples have access to cures (albeit they may or may not use them) and they are once again retrieved for help by oral means with the help of a medicine man or singer. The physical form of the painting is important in that is manifests particular diyin dine’e (holy people) who will then mark the sick person with the same sand that was used to invoke themselves.

The significance of the sandpainting is that each pattern, and the entity invoked by it, is specific to each cultural circumstance, “the felt human needs that call for it and are often considered in the selection of the sandpaintings”. This means that the painting is not just art unchanged, but an aspect of Navaho tradition, and only one of the “many Navaho ceremonial ways”.

Sand painting also acts as a rite of re-creation for the ailing person. Although forces act against the ailing person, the idea is for the person to learn to live with what they have been given. Therefore, the result is not a life threatening disorder, but a newly molded Navaho with the ability to cope with their ailment. In the center of the sand painting is where the Navaho will be faced with all the tensions of their culture and the wholeness of the universe.

The painting, along with its flaws, becomes a part of the ailing person, and when it’s destroyed and the holy people disappear, the “tensions and imbalances that gave rise to the suffering”, disappear with them.

Source

Navajo sand painting. Photograph. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Web. 22 Sep. 2011.

Florida's Native People

Image via Wikipedia

Hunter gathers arrived in Florida close to 12,000 years ago when the Florida land mass was much larger and drier. Mega fauna and mammoths were hunted in great herds and grains, nuts, and berries were gathered during seasonal roving. Spears were used to hunt and leather bags were used to cook what was captured, using hot stones. You may know these early tribes as the Paleo-Indians.

Close to 8000 years later, the ice caps started to melt and Florida became what it is today. The Native Peoples started to develop new technology, like the atlatl, a s... Read this article about Native Peoples of Florida

Here's a Reason to Stop Building on Burial Grounds

I remember watching the 1982 movie The Poltergeist when the graves of Indians appeared out of the wet, rainy mud. Totally freaky at the time! Of course, what can you expect when you build your abode over an  ancient Indian burial site. So where did Miami’s mega-developer Jorge Perez build his largest project? Exactly where he shouldn’t have: atop an ancient Indian burial site.

The curse of the Miami Circle is unfolding before our eyes. The latest news is that Perez and his partners have been forced to return a majority of the $1 billion ICON Brickell complex to its lenders.

Read More on The Curse of the Ancients  via Biscayne Times

Archaeologist Bob Carr (left) at the Miami Circle site in 1999. Photo courtesy of HistoryMiami

The Earliest Natives in Florida

When people think of the earliest Indians in Florida, they typically think of the Seminoles. However, Europeans had arrived in Florida over 200 years prior before the Seminoles ever migrated to Florida from Georgia during the beginning of the 18th century.

So what exactly does it mean? It means that close to 12000 years ago, when Florida was much larger and drier, people arrived. They lived simple, yet meaningful lives, following herds of mammoths and collecting grains, seeds, and berries during the season.

Monday Ground Up: My Trip to the Dunlawton Plantation and The Ruins of the Sugar Mill

At first, when you walk through the gates of the Dunlawton Plantation in Port Orange, Florida it's as if you've passed through the gates of a mystical land. The birds are singing, flowers and exotic plants are blooming, and footsteps of confederate soldiers can be heard while they make their way to the arching Confederate Oak tree to camp for the night.

Directly behind the ancient tree, you will see the ruins of the 19th century molasses making building. The molasses was stored in barrels in the curing room, while it slowly dripped into the vat from the upper floors. There it was collected and shipped to the Indies for the manufacture of rum.

When you explore the sugar mill ruins you will notice several syrup boiling-kettles and several pieces of horse-drawn cane mill equipment spread out along the trails. You will also make your way done the Hammock Trail, through Bongoland at the back of the plantation.

The History

In 1836, during the Second Seminole War the moskito roarers, a company of Florida militia led by Major Benjamin Putnam, engaged a large tribe of Seminoles pillaging Dunlawton Plantation on the Halifax River. Heavy fighting ensued, but the militia were unable to disperse the Indians. Dunlawton Plantation was burned to the ground leaving only the ruins of the sugar mill and the heavy sugar cane machinery. The Sugar Plantations on the east coast of Florida were eventually destroyed by Seminole raids. The sugar industry never recovered after the war.

The mill was rebuilt in 1846, although it was completely abandoned after the Civil War. The war cost the United States 19 million dollars, which is 4 times the amount Spain paid for the entire state of Florida.



The Hammock Trail on Dunlawton Plantation was a loading area for the export of the sugar. The term "Hammock" was an Indian term that described the trails and the landscape when it belonged solely to the Indians. The land was completely cleared to plant crops, shelters, and roads. In fact, the best of those roads were no more than trails. This is were sugar was loaded for transport using boats until the 1800's when the railroads appeared and the interior of Florida was opened.

Several attempts were made to turn Dunlawton Plantation into a tourist attraction in the 1950's. Doctor Perry Sperber leased the premises from J. Saxon Lloyd in order to construct prehistoric replicas of dinosaurs made out of concrete and wire.

The name "Bongoland " came from the Baboon who was housed on the plantation. There was also a train that was meant to carry visitors around the park, which was reminiscent of the Indian lands before they were taken over. Since the day of the theme park had not yet arrived, the park never opened due to lack of public interest.

Take the Tour

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The Lost Adams Diggings

The Lost Adams diggings is a subject that I personally had never heard of, so leave it to my favorite Flemish Author Patrick Bernauw, and friend, to teach me something new.

"The Lost Adams Diggings" is the name of a legendary lost gold mine somewhere in New Mexico, United States. In 1864, a teamster listening to the name of Adams (no first name known) and some prospectors were approached by the Mexican Indian "Gotch Ear" in Gila Bend, Arizona. The Indian offered to show them a canyon filled with gold. Together they rode to find the gold; they crossed a road to Fort Wingate where they could go back for supplies when needed, and arrived only ten days later at a canyon with a blind entrance. They followed for some time a Z-shaped narrow trail and then found a creek rich with gold.

Read more about the Lost Adams Diggings