Beautifully abstracted in Navajo sandpaintings, dragonflies were usually depicted as symbols and guardians of water.
In 1948, Lyman and Bailey studied the role of insects in Navajo language, everyday life and religion. It was pioneering fieldwork in ethnoentomology, the study of insects in our culture. Regarding their cosmological role, they wrote, “In Navaho (sic) mythology insects have a position of primary importance in its very beginnings, and also are represented fairly frequently in the sacred dry-paintings which serve to illustrate the myths and provide a magical means of identifying the patient in a religious curing ceremonial with supernatural power.”
Navajo Dragonfly