The Navajo Wedding Basket is viewed as a map through which the Navajo chart their lives. The inner coils of the basket are white to represent birth. Traveling outward the black represents darkness, struggle and pain. The red bands represent marriage the mixing of blood with a spouse and creation of family. The light represents increasing enlightenment, which expands until entering the all white banding representing the spirit world, where there is no darkness. The plain line through the ring is called the 'Shipapu' and represents a path of communication between the worlds. During ceremonies it is always pointed east. The last coil on the basket rim is finished off at this pathway allowing the medicine man to easily locate it in darkness. This fine example is 17.5" in diameter.
The Navajo Wedding Basket is viewed as a map through which the Navajo chart their lives. The inner coils of the basket are white to represent birth. Traveling outward the black represents darkness, struggle and pain. The red bands represent marriage the mixing of blood with a spouse and creation of family. The light represents increasing enlightenment, which expands until entering the all white banding representing the spirit world, where there is no darkness. The plain line through the ring is called the 'Shipapu' and represents a path of communication between the worlds. During ceremonies it is always pointed east. The last coil on the basket rim is finished off at this pathway allowing the medicine man to easily locate it in darkness. This fine example is 17.5" in diameter.