# Hosteen Klah

Hosteen Klah (Navajo: Hastiin Tłʼa, 1867– February 27, 1937) was a Navajo artist and medicine man. They documented aspects of Navajo religion and related ceremonial practices. As a traditional nádleehi person, they were both a ceremonial singer and master weaver.

## Background

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. 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. Klah was able to fully memorize and perform their first ceremony by only ten years old.

## Gender

Hosteen Klah was commonly identified as a Nádleeh (pl. Nádleehi, meaning "one-who-has-been-changed"). 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.

## Weaving

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. 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.

## Wheelwright Museum

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.
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.

## Death

Hosteen Klah died on February 27, 1937, from pneumonia, and is buried on the grounds of the Wheelwright Museum.