Rainbow People Have Arrived (Nááts’íílid Bee Yikáh)

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