I refer to a Hogan in my new book [soma earth HOME ENERGETIC BALANCING]. The below link is a fabulous slide show, showing how to construct one yourself! The pictures of the round wood frame structure are beautiful!
Building a Hogan - SLIDE SHOW LINK
For the Navajo, the spirit of the home is called a Hogan, and is treated like a living object by its inhabitants. It needs to be taken care of and loved to sustain the harmony of the Navajo home life. Historically they were originally a separate hut in the community and were used for ceremonies and to keep themselves in balance. Often built in a teepee shape or in a rounded mud shape, they were constructed out of wood poles and straw, clay and/or stones, either a 5 or 8 sided, usually facing the east.
“Hogan’s are personified in ordinary conservation – they are alive; they need to be fed, cared for, spoken to, and shielded from loneliness”
Frisbee, Charlotte J., The Navajo House Blessing Ceremonial 1980, p.166
Hogan round wood structure
The house blessing ritual aims to “feed the house, show proper treatment and respect to it, prevent timber breakage, and remove the Hogan’s loneliness” (Frisbie, C., The Navajo House Blessing Ceremonial, 1980, p. 176). A sacred song called the Blessingway is chanted during the ceremony. The Hogan’s loneliness, before the ceremony is performed, is a dangerous thing as it can attract evil spirits; “every new house is taboo until, by appropriate rites, it is made noa (secular or profane)” (Van Gennep, A., The Rites of Passage, 1960, p. 24).
The house blessing ceremony of the Navajo is performed so that the Hogan may be lived in by its designated inhabitants. When the built Hogan is finished, the medicine man blesses the home in beauty, invites happiness from the 4 directions as well as from the earth & sky, and asks for protection from illnesses and evil. The home is marked inside on the 4 walls with a sacred symbol to remind its inhabitants that it is graced with the blessings of the Great Spirit.
A finished HOGAN
Tags: Building SOUL, Healthy Building, Hogan, native american indian building, Natural Building, Sacred Geometry, Spirituality