Authentic Navajo retailer Glazed Flat Pot Elk

Navajo Glazed Flat Pot. Petroglyphs and Traditional Navajo symbols adorn this pot.

The first symbol starting this pot is an Elk Man in the Maze. Elk Man is a character which represents a Shaman or Medicine Man. The Maze represents life's journey.

To the right of this image is a Navajo Flute Player followed by two petroglyph styled Elk. Elk are an important part of the Navajo culture. They are hunted which provides sustenance for the tribe as well as clothing and materials from the hide and bones. Even today the tanned hide is a source of barter. Navajo girls accompany their fathers to hunt the elk. After they come of age (menstrual onset), the girl can no longer hunt with her father. The years of hunting are filled with wonderful memories for most of the Navajo girls who experience the hunt.

Elk are associated with love in many tribes, and Native American legends often credit elk with the creation of the first flute, an instrument used by men to woo women in many Native American cultures.

To the right of this scene are four Elk Man Characters with an Elk in the middle. The number four permeates traditional Navajo philosophy. In the Navajo culture there are four directions, four seasons, the first four clans and four colors that are associated with the four sacred mountains.

Turning the pot again, there are two hunters with two elk between the hunters as well as a water glyph. The water glyph is between the first hunter and the first elk. The Water Glyph is quite ancient. A Water Glyph is a single circle with a single line bisecting the circle. Water glyphs are a recurring type of petroglyph found across the American southwest, but primarily in southern Utah, northern Arizona, and Nevada.



Ancient Anasazi petroglyphs predate the Navajo arrival retailer in the Southwest.

Anasazi petroglyphs are commonly identified by interconnecting spirals and palm prints. Their con­temporary is the Hohokam Style of squares and swastikas; the later—both leftward- and rightward-oriented—signify solar and lunar movement, respectively, and/or ancestral migrations into central and southern Arizona, according to Hopi tradition.

Historic petroglyphs are often obvious enough when they portray men on horseback or warriors carrying weap­ons.

Astronomical examples are composed of starbursts, crescent moons, or rayed circles.

Spiritual petroglyphs feature horned figures with outstretched arms, or musicians, most famously, the shamanis­tic Kokopelli flue player of the Hopi. A large, if precisely unknown percentage of this genre were created by shamans themselves; so-called “medicine men,” who entered a deep trance to bring back guidance and healing for their people from the Otherworld.

Tribal elders and Shaman, who were believed to have powers to heal, make rain, control animals, and predict the future, carved their visions in stone immediately after emerg­ing from the trance, because these mind pictures, like dreams, tend to be easily forgotten.” These have evolved into traditional symbols.

Their images were often expressed in repetitive geometric designs recognized by modern medical practitioners as “form constants.” These are the same patterns produced by drugs, severe headaches (i.e., “migraine auras”), and simi­lar stimuli. Shamans routinely used mind-bending hallucinogens to achieve profoundly altered states of conscious­ness. The medicine man's favored spiritual inducement was Datura stramonium, from the Hindu word for the plant, and the Greek, (“nightshade”) and manikos (“mad”), more commonly known in North America as jimson weed or loco weed.

Datura stramonium contains tropane alkaloids, among the few substances, which cause true hallucinations indis­tinguishable from reality. The active ingredients are atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine, all classified as deliri­ants, or anticholinergics, that generate visionary experiences. The user is entirely awake during their effects, but be­lieves he is in a living dream on the flip side of reality. Ingesting Datura stramonium is extremely hazardous, how­ever, and its so-called “recreational use” often ends in death. Only trained experts familiar with the drug generally survive its potential.

A Navajo folk tradition admonishes anyone taking loco weed, “Eat a little, and go to sleep. Eat some more, and have a dream. Eat too much, and don't wake up.”

Shamanistic encounters with Datura stramonium are often expressed in the swirling or geometric designs that typify abstract rock art. Sometimes, the mind-altering flower itself is depicted as a trumpet-shaped figure. Other pe­troglyphs are an oval, its outline covered with spikes, the interior split into four spaces, each containing a few images resembling kidneys. These illustrations portray the Datura stramonium's egg-shaped, prickle-covered fruit. The size of a walnut, it is divided into four chambers in which the hallucinogenic seeds are found. Good examples of drug-induced shamanism may be seen at an archaeological site known as Painted Cave, north of Santa Barbara, on the Pa­cific coast. Until 400 years ago, the Chumash Indians brilliantly adorned its walls and ceiling with spirals, sunbursts, serpentine figures, rainbows, and similarly expressionistic designs accompanied by representations of flowers and fruits of the Datura stramonium.