The carvings by Navajo artist Clitso Dedman offer an authentic and

very detailed rendering of the Yeibichai dance as performed in the late nineteenth century. In the center of the above photograph are two figures in traditional Navajo attire: the medicine man (in a yellow shirt, holding his medicine bundle) and the patient (in a red shirt, holding a ceremonial basket with sacred corn pollen). They are surrounded by the actual dance team consisting of 14 masked participants impersonating the Navajo divinities that have been called upon for their healing powers: twelve Yeis (six males and six females) and their leader Yeibichai, also called Talking God, plus Water Sprinkler, the clown, who entertains the spectators with his antics. All the participants are wearing jacla necklaces. » The six male Yeis in the back row wear round head masks which are topped with two eagle feathers and attached at the collar with spruce ruffs. Their torsos and legs are covered in white clay paint which also protects against the winter evening cold. Their decorative dance kilts are adorned with silver concha belts. Unseen in the photo are the kit fox pelts that attached to the backs of the kilts. Their blue leggings are held in place with red garters. While performing, they each carry a dance rattle in the right hand and a spruce twig in the left. » The six female Yeis are impersonated by young men dressed in similar ceremonial kilts. The female Yeis, however, wear blue rectangular face masks made of stiff buckskin. Their traditional hair knots have been undone so that their long hair can hang down their backs. They wear no eagle feathers. Female Yeis carry only spruce twigs, and no rattles. » Talking God, in the center of the photograph, is recognizable by his white head mask with twelve eagle feathers. Over his traditional Navajo attire is draped a cream-colored sacred deerskin. In his right hand, he carries an Abert squirrel bag. » Water Sprinkler, in the front row, has spruce branches attached to his arms and torso and is thus distinguished from the other male Yeis. He holds an old fox pelt.