Blessing Way (or Blessingway) is an umbrella term for one of two major divisions of the Navajo (Diné) religious ceremonies, the other being the Enemy Way. Blessing Way ceremonies are primarily concerned with promoting harmony and balance in individuals, which in turn maintains balance in the community. Therefore, Blessing Way ceremonies are most often held for individuals at particularly auspicious or even perilous stages in their lives, such as coming of age rituals, birthing rites, and celebrations of creation.
The Blessing Way includes retellings of the elaborate Diné creation story, with emphasis on the aspects of the story most relevant to the particular Blessing Way being performed. For example, the girl’s initiation ceremony, a Blessing Way known as the kinaaldá, is performed for young women after the onset of menses and tells of the coming of the goddess figure Changing Woman, associated with the earth, fertility, and the creation of the Diné people. During the ceremony, the girl embodies this figure, making Changing Woman present to the people, and enables her to bestow blessings on the community for health, balance, and happiness, as well as for the success of the Diné crops. Blessing Way ceremonies are common throughout the growing season, both in anticipation of the cycles for corn, beans, and squash—staple crops for the Diné—but also for the health of their flocks of sheep, another important resource for Diné people.
The first Blessing Way ceremonies were specifically oriented toward balancing this world and everything in it, just as the Holy People had performed them during the ordering of the universe, the building of the first hogan—the paradigmatic Diné dwelling—and the creation of the Diné people. In fact, a Blessing Way accompanies any new construction of a hogan, primarily used for ceremonial activities among contemporary Diné. In building the first hogan, the Holy People simultaneously rendered the universe in the order known to contemporary Diné, such as the four sacred directions and the relative positions of the sun, moon, and stars. The Holy People also established the proper systems for interpersonal relationships, such as those between male and female domains, and the various clan responsibilities. So important was this aspect of creation that all Blessing Way ceremonies begin with the key songs associated with the hogan, seen as the origin of the order and balance that the Diné are charged with maintaining through proper behavior and ceremonial performance.
The major components of the Blessing Way are deceptively simple, but they allude to far more profound philosophical ideas. The key features are songs, many of which are often specific to the individual medicine men (medicine singers among the Diné are always male) that employ them, as they are given to them by spirit guides. However, many of the songs are known to all Diné and are often sung quietly during routine tasks as a reminder of the sacredness of the world of Dinetah (Navajo Land).
Other important elements in these ceremonies are plants, both dried and fresh, consumed in teas, applied as poultices, or burned to produce aromatic smoke. In addition, pulverized dried herbs, along with corn meal and pollen, are used in dry paintings made at specific times during the ceremonial activities. These can take place over any number of days, depending on both the type of Blessing Way and the style of the ceremony with some lasting as many as nine days. Ceremonies contain several subceremonies comprised of singing, ritual bathing in yucca suds, massaging of “the one sung over” (the recipient of some Blessing Way ceremonies), and dry painting rituals.
Blessing Way ceremonies are important elements in the lives of the Diné, consisting of the major portion of their daily religious activities through the use of Blessing Way songs, as well as regular opportunities for communal support of the lives of tribal members. Balance and harmony are key aspects of Diné philosophy, and regular Blessing Way participation ensures the maintenance of order and beauty in Dinetah.
Kate Stockton Kelley
See also Circle of Life and the Clambake, The; Creation Stories of the Native Americans
Further Reading
Dadosky, J. D. 1999. “Walking in the Beauty of the Spirit: A Phenomenological and Theological Case Study of a Navajo Blessingway Ceremony.” Mission 6 (2): 199–222.
Gray, Genevieve. 1975. Blessingway: Tales of a Navajo Family. St. Paul, MN: EMC.
Mitchell, Frank. 2003. Navajo Blessingway Singer: The Autobiography of Frank Mitchell 1881–1967, edited by Charlotte Frisbie and David P. McAllester. New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press.
Spickard, James V. 1991. “Experiencing Religious Rituals: A Schutzian Analysis of Navajo Ceremonies.” Sociology of Religion 52 (2): 191–204.