Hastiin Tła (Left-Handed Man; also known as Hosteen Klah), (Diné (Navajo), 1867–1937)
Rainbow People Have Arrived (Nááts’íílid Bee Yikáh)
INV-1600
Hastiin Tła (Left-Handed Man; also known as Hosteen Klah), (Diné (Navajo), 1867–1937)About 1925
Rainbow People Have Arrived (Nááts’íílid Bee Yikáh)
Hastiin Tła (Left-Handed Man; also known as Hosteen Klah), (Diné (Navajo), 1867–1937) →navajodineindigenous Artindigenousweavingtextile
Date
About 1925
Medium
Wool, dovetail and single interlocking tapestry weave; edges finished with three strand weft twining with four knotted corner tassels
Dimensions
172.2 × 160.8 cm (67 3/4 × 63 1/4 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Ada Turnbull Hertle Endowment
Hastiin Tła was a Medicine Man specializing in healing chants. In this tapestry based on a sand painting, he depicted the last morning of the nine-day Nightway Chant for healing, although he may have intentionally omitted a symbolic item included in the original painting. The four pairs of Rainbow People are guardians that keep the patient safe. Each consists of a female with a square head and male with a round head, both holding spruce branches and feathers. They stand atop a stone in one of the Diné’s sacred, ceremonial colors: shell-white for the east, turquoise-blue for the south, abalone-yellow for the west, and jet-black for the north. Two Holy People and their spirits trail across the sky, indicating that the healing is done.
—Lynda Teller Pete, fifth-generation Diné tapestry weaver
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