Navajo medicine attempts to restore harmony, with nature, society, and the supernatural

Donald Sandner attended the University of Illinois medical school and has been a Jungian analyst in San Francisco for the last 13 years. He was attracted to Navajo methods of healing and their use of sand paintings during a trip through the Southwest in 1966. Between 1968 and 1975 he spent six summers with the Navajo around Lukachukai, Arizona, among other areas, interviewing medicine men and attending chants. Toward the end of his field work, in order to help a Navajo friend and to be able to photograph a chant, he organized and paid for a curing ceremony. His book, Symbols of Healing: A Study of Navajo Chant Practice, will be published in January 1979.