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Native American, late 19th to early 20th century. A group of 10 hand-drawn and hand-colored ledger drawings, including: 1 depicting 2 Navajo yei figures with balls and various accoutrements, jagged arrows below 1 of the figure's feet; 1 depicting a single yei figure with a large bow and arrows; 1 depicting a large woven Navajo rug with a long serpent slithering along its length and a pair of coiled snakes flanking the long serpent's head; 3 presenting colored rectangular bar-like forms; 1 featuring similar colored bars as well as 2 that are not colored but are decorated with stylized zoomorphic creatures; 2 more with abstract symbols suggestive of biomorphic forms on half sheets, and the covers of a "Car Ferry" notebook from which the smaller pages in this ensemble were presumably torn, with the back cover featuring a figural drawing as well. (In North America, car ferries carried rail vehicles.) Size of largest: 6.5" W x 8.5" H (16.5 cm x 21.6 cm) Size of glassine envelope (all the same): 9.5" W x 11" H (24.1 cm x 27.9 cm)

These ledger drawings are rather unusual, because they were created by the Navajo rather than the Plains Indians. The Plains created ledger drawings, because they did not have a written language to record their history, so they created a pictorial way of preserving oral history, first via petroglyphs and pictographs on rock walls, and later with paintings on buffalo hide. In addition, visual records and stories were painted on garments and tipis. Then, when explorers and traders came to the Plains' lands in the 1830s, the indigenous peoples began using ledger books as canvases for their artwork. This practice continued throughout the 19th century, but came to a close for most in the 1920s.

Navajo paintings/drawings are usually created on muslin and rooted in the Navajo sand painting tradition. They are called picture writing by the Navajo, and are painted with the same earthen pigments used for sand paintings. Yeis are the supernatural beings that make communication between the Navajo people and their Gods possible and are thought to possess the power to bring about healing in medicinal ceremonies. The Navajo medicine man employs a combination of herbal medicines, chanting, and sandpainting to cure an ill person. He will sprinkle colored sands on the ground to create a specific Yei depending on the god he is hoping to contact. Once finished, corn pollen is spread over the painting to sanctify it. During the ceremony, the medicine man will sometimes wet his hand, press it on the Yei image, and wipe it on the forehead of the patient. Sometimes lasting several days, this sacred ceremony is designed to prompt evil to vacate the person's body and cure the illness.

Provenance: ex-private Bishop Family Trust collection, the Trust of the late Bill Bishop, a noted antiquarian with shops in Scottsdale, Arizona and Allenspark, Colorado, USA, acquired before 2010

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#172952

All of the drawings are housed in glassine envelopes for protection. All have expected tears, folds, and toning, commensurate with age. Some are fragmented and have minor losses to peripheries. Nicely preserved pigments throughout.