Hosteen Klah

Hosteen (spelled "Hastiin" in the Navajo language) Klah was born to Navajo parents Hoksay Nolyae and Ahson Tsosie in 1867 in the Tunicha Valley of New Mexico, USA. They were called "Klah" for being left-handed. Able to avoid residential schooling, Klah learned traditional Navajo spirituality from their uncle, who was a medicine man.{{Cite journal |last=Roscoe |first=Will |date=1988 |title=We'wha and Klah the American Indian Berdache as Artist and Priest |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1184319 |journal=American Indian Quarterly |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=127–150 |doi=10.2307/1184319 |jstor=1184319 |issn=0095-182X}} Klah was trained in healing ceremonies that involved dancing, chanting, singing, and sandpainting- the act of creating temporary designs on the ground using colored dirt and shells.{{Cite book |author=Koenig, Seymour H. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/61280655 |title=Acculturation in the Navajo Eden : New Mexico, 1550-1750 |year=2005 |publisher=YBK Publishers |isbn=0-9764359-1-8 |oclc=61280655}} Klah was able to fully memorize and perform their first ceremony by only ten years old.

Hosteen Klah was commonly identified as a Nádleeh (pl. Nádleehi, meaning "one-who-has-been-changed").{{Cite book |last=Stein |first=Marc |title=Encyclopedia of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history in America |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |year=2004 |pages=117}} Nádleehi is one of the genders recognized by the Navajo people as people who take on both traditionally male and female roles, in Klah's case, being a healer (a traditionally male role) and a weaver (a traditionally female role). Nádleehi at the time, including Klah, were often assigned male at birth, though some may have been intersex. Nádleehi would also often dress in traditionally women's clothing, although Klah did not. Klah was also reportedly not interested in women and never married.     

Klah mastered multiple traditional art forms, most notably sandpainting and weaving (which they learned from their mother). Klah wove their first complete weaving at the 1892–1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where they were also probably part of a sandpainting demonstration. Around 1914, Klah began experimenting with combining the act of weaving with other sacred imagery and wove imagery from the Yéʼii bicheii dance into a rug. They completed Their first sandpainting-inspired weaving around 1919. Some fellow healers within their community found these weavings controversial, as imagery produced during ceremonies in sandpaintings are purposefully meant to be non-permanent which was defied by the relative permanent of weaving.{{Cite book |author=Everett, Deborah |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/755870014 |title=Encyclopedia of Native American artists |date=2011 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-1-84972-850-8 |oclc=755870014}} The colorful and intricate designs caught the eye of various art collectors, many of which purchased Klah's work.

Klah went on to demonstrate sandpainting in 1934, at the Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago, of which President Franklin D. Roosevelt was in attendance.

Klah taught their weaving techniques and designs to their two nieces before passing in 1937.

In 1921, Hosteen Klah was introduced to Mary Cabot Wheelwright, a Boston heiress. The two became friends and collaborated in founding the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Fearing for the future of Navajo religion after witnessing decades of assimilationist assaults on traditional culture by missionaries and the US government, Klah wanted to document Navajo religion and make it available for future generations. The museum was initially called the Navajo House of Prayer and House of Navajo Religion, but then renamed the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art, and ultimately renamed in 1977, when the museum repatriated sensitive cultural patrimony back to the Navajo Nation.[https://web.archive.org/web/20001002030242/http://www.wheelwright.org/about.html "About the Museum."] Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. (retrieved 19 Oct 2009)

In 1942, the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art (as it was then called) published Navajo Creation Myth - the Story of the Emergence by Hosteen Klah, Recorded by Mary C. Wheelwright.[https://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/nav/ncm/index.htm "Navajo Creation Myth."] Sacred Texts. (retrieved 17 Dec 2019)

Hosteen Klah died on February 27, 1937, from pneumonia, and is buried on the grounds of the Wheelwright Museum.Lapahie, Harrison, Jr. [http://www.lapahie.com/Hosteen_Klah.cfm Hosteen Klah (Sir Left Handed).] Lapahie.com. 2001 (retrieved 19 Oct 2009)

• Navajo rug
• Navajo way
• Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian

{{reflist}}

• Berlo, Janet C., and Phillips, Ruth B. (1998) Native North American Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-19-284218-3}}. 1998, and later reprints.
• Everett, Deborah, and Elayne Zorn. “Hastiin Klah (1867–1937), Navajo Weaver.” Encyclopedia of Native American Artists, Greenwood Press, 2008.
• {{cite book

|title=Hosteen Klah: Navaho Medicine Man and Sand Painter

|author=Franc Johnson Newcomb

|date=June 1980

|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press

|isbn=0-8061-1008-2

}} 1971, and later reprints.

• {{cite book

|title=Navajo Creation Myth - the Story of the Emergence

|author=Klah, Hosteen

|editor=Wheelwright, Mary C.

|date=1942

|publisher=The Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art

|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.89349/page/n11

}}

• Koenig, Seymour H., and Harriet Koenig. Acculturation in the Navajo Eden: New Mexico, 1550-1750. YBK Publishers, 2005.
• Roscoe, Will. “We’Wha and Klah: The American Indian Berdache as Artist and Priest.” American Indian Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 2, 1988, p. 127., https://doi.org/10.2307/1184319.
• Stein, Marc. “Klah, Hostiin.” Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in America, Charles Scribner's Sons/Thomson/Gale, 2004.

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Category:Navajo textile artists

Category:Weavers from New Mexico

Category:Religious figures of the indigenous peoples of North America

Category:Two-spirit people

Category:American animists

Category:1867 births

Category:1937 deaths

Category:Museum founders

Category:Folk healers

Category:Textile artists from New Mexico

Category:20th-century Native American artists

Category:19th-century Native American artists

Category:20th-century American artists

Category:19th-century American artists