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
This collection includes L.C. Wyman’s index to sandpainting reproductions in various collections at the Museum of Northern Arizona and other institutions; notes, correspondence, and manuscripts relating to Wyman’s various publications and unpublished works, as well as notes correspondence, and manuscripts written by students of colleagues of Wyman, many of which he annotated. The collection also includes personal and professional correspondence with Wyman’s friends and colleagues, and biographical information.
This collection contains culturally sensitive material (Navajo sandpaintings and ceremonial material). Therefore, many parts of the collection have 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.
The University of Arizona’s Special Collections also has a Leland Clifton Wyman collection (AZ 512), which includes correspondence regarding the publication of Father Berard Haile's versions of Blessingway, as well as many of his personal papers.
The Harvard University archives has Wyman’s original thesis.
The Massachusetts Historical Society has a Wyman Family collection (Ms. N-246).
This series includes notes, correspondence, and manuscripts relating to Wyman’s various publications and unpublished works, as well as notes correspondence, and manuscripts written by students of colleagues of Wyman, many of which he annotated.
The series is arranged in the following subseries:
Subseries 2.1: Publications Written by Leland C. Wyman
Series includes articles and manuscripts written by colleagues and students of L.C. Wyman, often annotated by Wyman.
Box
Folder
19
2
"Female Red Anyway Myth": Gunshooter, 1936
Box
Folder
1
11
"Property and Inheritance Among the Navajo": Elizabeth Long, student field notes and manuscript, 1940
1
12
"The Division of Labor Within the Family Group Among the Navaho Indians in the Chaco Canyon Area": Charlotte Cooper, student field notes and manuscript, 1940
1
13
"A Study of Navaho Footwear": Margaret H. King, student field notes and manuscript, 1940
Box
Folder
2
1
"Navaho Games, Gambling, etc.": David Aberle, student field notes, 1940
Box
Folder
1
9
"Notes on Navajo Eagle Way": Clyde Kluckhorn, original unrevised manuscript, circa 1941
Box
Folder
2
2
"Speech Difficulties, Care and Discipline of Children, General Observations of Culture": Adelaide K. Bullen, student field notes, 1941
2
3
"A General Ethnography of the Navaho Indians of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (with genealogies, etc.)": Henry Altenberg, student field notes and manuscript, 1941
2
4
"A Survey of Navaho Culture in the Chaco Canyon Area": Ronald Smith, student field notes and manuscript, 1941
2
5
"Navaho Daily Activities": Paul L. Burlingame and Richard Sampson, student field notes, 1941
2
6
"Rorschach Tests of Navahos. General Observations of Navaho Life": Charlotte Dalrymple, student field notes, 1942
2
7
"Attitudes of the Navahos Toward Outgroups": Roxanne Winburn, student field notes, 1942
Box
Folder
1
10
"Myths and Rituals: A General Theory": Clyde Kluckhorn, excerpts from original unrevised manuscript, circa 1942
Box
Folder
3
6
"Two Examples of Ritual as an Adjustive Response to Anxiety": Flora L. Bailey, manuscript, 1944
3
1
"Survey of the Evaluation of the Application of Physiological Techniques to the Study of a Primitive Culture": Flora L. Bailey, ca. 1940s
Box
Folder
2
8
Letter from Robert N. Rapoport re: student field notes, 1950
Box
Folder
4
4
"Ethnobotany of the Ramah Navaho: Original Tables of Medicinal Uses of Plants": P.A. Vestal, manuscript, 1952
4
5
"Ethnobotany of the Ramah Navaho: Original Tables of Medicinal Uses of Plants": P.A. Vestal, excerpts, correspondence, analysis of data, 1949-1952
