The Night Chant is basically a healing ritual, designed both to cure people who are sick and to restore the order and balance of human relationships within the Navajo universe.
c. 1000 BCE to present day
The Navajo
The nine-night ceremony known as the Night Chant or Nightway is believed to date from around 1000 B . C . E ., when it was first performed by the Indians who lived in Canyon de Chelly (now eastern Arizona). It is considered to be the most sacred of all Navajo ceremonies and one of the most difficult and demanding to learn, involving the memorization of hundreds of songs, dozens of prayers, and several very complicated SAND PAINTINGS . And yet the demand for Night Chants is so great that as many as fifty such ceremonies might be held during a single season, which lasts eighteen to twenty weeks.
canyon de chelly | now eastern arizona in the navajo nation
How far back?
2020 | Present
