The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian was founded in 1937 by Mary Cabot Wheelwright and is the oldest, independent, non-profit museum in New Mexico. Born into a wealthy Boston family, Mary Cabot Wheelwright traveled widely and had a lifelong interest in the study of religions. Her collaborator in the establishment of the museum was Hastiin Klah, an esteemed and influential Navajo singer, or “medicine man.” Klah was born in 1867, when most of Navajo people were held as prisoners of war by the United States government.Wheelwright and Klah were introduced in 1921 by Arthur and Frances Newcomb, who lived on the Navajo reservation, operating a trading post near Klah’s home, about 50 miles north of Gallup, New Mexico. By 1921 Klah had witnessed decades of relentless efforts by the United States government and by missionaries to assimilate the Navajo people into mainstream society. Children were removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools, where they were punished for speaking their language and forced to adopt Christianity. To Klah, the future of traditional Navajo religious practice appeared bleak, and the opportunity to collaborate with a sympathetic outsider such as Wheelwright was appealing.When they met, Wheelwright and Klah sensed mutual trust and they quickly became close friends. It was not long before they determined to create a permanent record of Klah’s and other singers’ ritual knowledge, and in this effort they were joined by Frances (“Franc”) Newcomb. Klah dictated and Wheelwright recorded the Navajo Creation Story and other great narratives that form the basis of Navajo religion.While Wheelwright concentrated on the spoken word in Navajo ritual, Newcomb focused on the sandpaintings that are created and destroyed during healing ceremonies, recreating versions of them in tempera on paper.Klah participated in yet another way: he was a weaver, and his huge tapestries were also permanent records of sandpaintings.By the early 1930s it was clear to Wheelwright and Klah that a museum would be necessary to realize their goals. It could not be simply a repository for the sound recordings, manuscripts, paintings, and sandpainting tapestries. It had to offer the public an opportunity to sense the beauty, dignity, and profound logic of Navajo religion. Their chosen architect, William Penhallow Henderson, based his design on the hooghan, the traditional Navajo home and the setting for Navajo ceremonies. Klah blessed the ground on which the museum is built but died a few months before it was completed. A traditional Navajo house blessing was conducted by the singer Big Man in November 1937
many of Klah’s relatives attended. The museum’s earliest names were the Navajo House of Prayer and House of Navajo Religion, but soon after it opened to the public its name officially became the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art.
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