Museum of Northern Arizona
3101 N. Fort Valley Rd.
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
928-774-5211 ext. 256 or 269
library@mna.mus.az.us
Biographical Note
Leland Clifton Wyman (20 February 1897- 13 January 1988) grew up in Livermore Falls, Maine and attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1918 and then continued on to Harvard University and earned his doctorate in 1922. Wyman began teaching experimental and theoretical physiology and endocrinology at Boston University. He served as chairman of the Division of Medical Sciences for the university from 1942-1946. His professorship lasted 40 years and he retired in 1962.
Wyman married a Danish woman named Paula. The two traveled extensively together throughout their lives.
Wyman’s interest in the Navajo Nation began in the late 1920s after attending a performance of Navajo singing. He began studying Navajo culture, conversing extensively with other experts such as Father Berard Haile and Gladys Reichard on the subject and eventually began teaching courses on Navajo studies at Boston University aside from his other interests of physiology and Indian and Asiatic art. After Wyman retired from teaching he began doing research on Navajo ethnology for the University of New Mexico. His research included extensive field work on the Navajo reservation. He was invited to live with different families and attend their ceremonies.
Wyman took particular interest in Navajo sandpaintings, which is an art form practiced by many cultures that consists of pouring colored sands, powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, and pigments from other natural sources onto a surface to make an image. Because sandpaintings are temporary, Wyman photographed and reproduced many of the paintings he saw.
From the 1930s to 1970s, Wyman used his experiences to edit, annotate, and write extensively on Navajo sandpainting collections, ceremonies, myths, ethnoentomology, medical ethnobotany, and more. One of his more important publications is Blessingway, which Father Berard Haile was working on at the time of his death and Wyman completed.
Wyman was the owner and part-time curator of a collection of 1,469 sandpainting reproductions, colloquially known as the Sandpainting File, currently housed at the Museum of Northern Arizona.
Leland Clifton Wyman passed away in 1988 in Massachusetts.
Scope and Content
Collection includes illustration materials for Wyman’s book, “Sandpaintings of the Kayenta Navaho,” as well as sandpainting reproductions painted by Wyman, a series of which are copies of sandpainting reproductions in the L.W. Wetherill collection (MS-27).
Arrangement
Wyman’s original numbering system has been maintained to ensure that the items will match those in Wyman’s Sandpainting Index (MS-110).
This collection contains culturally sensitive material (Navajo sandpaintings). Therefore, this collection has been restricted. The restriction was placed in 2007 by staff at the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department. Contact the Museum of Northern Arizona Archivist for more information.
Conditions Governing Use
Unpublished and published manuscripts are protected by copyright. Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.
The Museum of Northern Arizona has related archival collections that contain sandpainting images; these have been collected, researched, and cross-indexed by Wyman with material in his sandpainting file:
The Leland Wyman papers on Navajo myths and sandpaintings, 1920-1981, (MS-650 BC) are housed in the Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico University Libraries.
MS-22 (Gladys Reichard collection)
MS-27 (Louisa Wade Wetherill collection)
MS-32 (Robert Euler collection)
MS-34 (Katherine M. Harvey Sandpainting collection)
Leland C. Wyman Sandpainting collection, MS-033 [Box Number]. Museum of Northern Arizona. Flagstaff, Arizona.
Acquisition Information
Collection was donated by Leland C. Wyman in 1962.
Processing Information
Processed in September of 2010.
Bibliography
The reproductions in Series 2 were used in:
Kluckhohn, Clyde, and Leland Clifton Wyman. 1940. An introduction to Navaho chant practice: with an account of the behaviors observed in four chants. Menasha, Wis: American Anthropological Association.
Wyman, Leland Clifton. 1970. Navajo striped windway an injury-way chant. Human relations area files, 80. New Haven, Conn: Human Relations Area Files. And: Wyman, Leland Clifton. 1962. The windways of the Navaho. [Colorado Springs]: Taylor Museum of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.
The reproduction copies in Series 3 were used in:
Wyman, Leland Clifton, and Louisa Wade Wetherill. 1952. The sandpaintings of the Kayenta Navaho: an analysis of the Louisa Wade Wetherill collection. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Reprint.
Wheelwright, Mary C., Berard Haile, Gishin Begay, and Louie H. Ewing. 1949. Emergence myth according to the Hanelthnayhe or Upward-reaching rite. Navajo religion series, 3. Santa Fe, N.M.: Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art.
This series includes illustration materials for Wyman’s book, “Sandpaintings of the Kayenta Navaho.”
These materials were used in: Wyman, Leland Clifton, and Louisa Wade Wetherill. 1952. The sandpaintings of the Kayenta Navaho: an analysis of the Louisa Wade Wetherill collection. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Reprint.
Box
Folder
1
1
India ink drawings on tracing cloth, circa 1952
1
2
Small plates of mounted photographs , circa 1952
1
3
Large plates of mounted photographs , circa 1952
1
4
Photographs of sandpainting reproductions, circa 1952