Navajo Women-Doorway Between Traditional & Modern

[Okwes]

Navajo Women-Doorway Between Traditional & Modern Life

Navajo Women
Doorway Between Traditional & Modern Life
Essay by Betty Reid
Photographs by Kenji Kawano

[Navajo Women: Doorway Between Traditional & Modern Life.]

Sheila Goldtooth and Rebecca M. Benally are examples of Navajo women who
blend the American and Navajo philosophies to carry out their work.
Their careers and professions influence Navajo life and represent the
merging of traditional and contemporary practices occurring through the
doorway of the Nation. Navajo medicine people are keepers of the wisdom,
traditional faith, and philosophy of iiná�€"life�€"on the
Nation. Educators inspire children to pursue modern knowledge.

Sheila Goldtooth

When Sheila Goldtooth had her kinaalda, a Navajo girl’s
rite of passage, her uncle performed the Hózhóójí,
or Blessing Way, a ritual performed to ensure a blessed life of good
health, emotional strength, prosperity, and a positive outlook.
Goldtooth’s uncle announced, "Díí beebi’dool
zíí," meaning: "This one has a gift."

[Novajo women in ceremonial dress.] Dawn peeked over the Chuska
Mountains, near Tsénikani, or Round Rock, as
Goldtooth’s kinaalda was near completion. The tiny community is
located a stone’s throw from Monument Valley, an area famous for
its red buttes and rock spires that sit on the desert floor and reach
toward blue skies.

"Díí Hózhóójí doo náalhaashda (This one will be
a Blessing Way singer)," the uncle said. "Dii
bidine’éyíká adoolwol (This one will help her people)."

Those words sealed Goldtooth’s fate to pursue a profession rare
among Navajo women. She has become a medicine woman. They call her
Hataali Bitsií lichíí’, the Medicine Woman with
the Red Hair. She belongs to the Ma’ii deeshgiizhnii
(Coyote Pass People) and is born for Kin lichíi’nii
(Red House People). The educator at Diné Community College in
Tsaile-Wheatfields has trailed her uncle since age five. Today, Navajos
seek out the thirty-year-old to bless their lives between Yádilhil
monkeyaá (Father Sky) and Shimá Nahasdzáán (Mother
Earth).

When they journey outside the four sacred mountains�€"relocation to
the city, college, or a job site�€"Navajos come to Goldtooth to
bless their forays. They also seek a blessing before surgery, before
they move into a new home, or when a girl becomes a kinaalda.

The kinaalda, a four-day ceremony, reflects Changing Woman’s
first ritual when the Navajo Holy People gathered on Huerfano Mountain
in New Mexico. Oral history says the Navajo deities treat this moment in
the young girl’s life as pure, powerful, and sacred. It is said
Changing Woman jogged east and west to gain physical strength and
endurance. Medicine people say the Holy People performed the first
Hózhóójí. Changing Woman ground corn kernels on a metate
stone, a round corn cake was baked in the earth, and a female holy
person physically shaped and molded Changing Woman’s body by
pressing her head, shoulders, arms, back, legs, and feet.

The kinaalda creates a reenactment of how the Navajo Holy People held
the rite of passage for Changing Woman. She was dressed and painted in
white shell and received a second name, Yoolgai Azdáá
(White Shell Woman). The old belief says that this is when adulthood and
procreation begins for Navajo women. Today, most Navajo women are aware
of the American stages of life, beginning as a baby, progressing to
adolescence, adulthood, and old age. The contemporary kinaalda ritual
varies and depends on the energy of relatives, cost, and time. Navajo
families on an American work schedule may condense the event into a
single night on a weekend. They skip certain rituals such as the
four-day run, or they opt to have the Blessing Way only, without the
elaborate ritual. Other mothers replace the physically laborious
creation of the ground corn cake with a slab of chocolate cake from a
supermarket.

[Monumnet Valley and necklaces.] Navajos say their deities gave them
other curing rituals such as the Lifeway (Iináájí
k’ehgo) and Female Shooting Way
(Na’at’ooyee’Bi’áádjí), and seasonal
ceremonies such as the Enemy Way (Anaa’jí), before
they faded into the mountains, rocks, water, and vegetation. Navajo
medicine people call on the Holy People, who are believed to attend the
Blessing Way, seasonal ceremonies, and curing rituals. The Blessing Way
is said to be associated with Navajo women.

Medicine people like Goldtooth, called hataalii, which translates to
"singers" in English, are trained by elders to perfect them in the
skills of their profession. So when Goldtooth received her jish, or
medicine bundle, which holds a powerful collection of tools, her
connection to Navajo Country also deepened.

"I feel that in order to serve people, I need to be here," Goldtooth
remarks. "I grew up here. I have a flock of sheep. It’s that
serenity of life here that suits me and what I do for my people. I lived
in Flagstaff. It’s too noisy, polluted. The ceremonies are
connected to the land here."

Goldtooth attended Northern Arizona University, where she received
Western knowledge culminating in a bachelor degree in Native American
studies and sociology. A Western education could have guided her away
from the four sacred mountains and into a border town or city where jobs
are available. Instead, she returned to Round Rock to continue her role
as a Blessing Way hataalii and also to perform protection
prayers.

Not all Navajos embrace traditional worship. Other faiths are available,
ranging from Christian to the Native American Church, a worship that
blends traditional Navajo religion and Christianity beliefs with the use
of peyote. Some Navajos hopscotch between faiths. Detractors from the
traditional Navajo faith cite cost and a lack of access to medicine
people. Others blame the American life that forces them to move into the
city for jobs. Subsequently, they lose ties with extended family
relatives whose energy and resources are needed to pull off a successful
ceremony. Many Navajo youth are born into other faiths, which their
parents embrace and encourage.

[Navajo blanket.] Traditional Navajo faith also rides on the oral
language. When medicine people such as Goldtooth call on the Holy People
to bless an individual during a prayer, each deity carries a name. To
receive a blessing or help, the correct enunciation is required.
Goldtooth notices more Navajo children speak only English, which forces
medicine people like herself to modify their work. Sometimes mothers
recite the prayers in Navajo for their daughters. Goldtooth places the
responsibility on the girls.

"I explain [in English] that the Holy People only understand Navajo, and
therefore everything must be done in that language. I make them do their
own reciting in prayers rather than having a parent do the reciting. I
explain how the prayer is for them and their future, and therefore they
must do them themselves." And it works. By the time the ceremony ends,
most of the daughters are able to repeat the prayer in Navajo.

The medicine woman also notices that change occurs when Navajo youth
move into urban Navajo communities or off the Nation. As a result,
Goldtooth believes that urban life erodes Navajo language and
philosophy, especially the influence it has on a child’s
behavior. This includes respect for parents, elders, and other people.
Navajo children are taught in the Navajo language to never speak harsh
words, because they can inflict pain. But Western instruction encourages
youth to speak up and have an opinion�€"to be argumentative and to
solve problems through an analytical process is prized in the American
society. The traditional ability to solve issues with k’é, in
the spirit of good and harmony, is gone.

"I find that with my students at the community college," Goldtooth says.
"Their attitude is, that is in the past.We don’t need it anymore.
They also say, if it [Diné teachings] is true, then there has to be
proof."

The survival of Navajo religion and philosophy depends on
parents’ teaching the language, stories, rituals, and philosophy.
Still, that may not be enough."If the Navajo Nation leaders become
actively involved in preserving and passing laws regarding preservation
of our traditional healing methods and ceremonies, they can be
preserved,"Goldtooth states. "There are numerous young traditional
practitioners throughout the Navajo Nation, and [yet] many are unknown
to the public."

Rebecca M. Benally
[Faces of Navajos.] When Navajo educator Rebecca M. Benally took the
helm of the Montezuma Creek Elementary School in the northern portion of
the Navajo Nation in Utah, the new staff disapproved of her promotion to
principal. They did not object to her wealth of experience in the
education field, but to her gender. What shocked Benally even more was
the attitude that masked the resistance by Navajo
educators�€"especially female educators.

Montezuma Creek is an isolated Navajo community, surrounded by red
buttes, in which a trip to a "local" grocery store means a 110-mile
drive (one way) to Farmington, New Mexico. Christian missionaries in the
1920s attempted to tame the
wild surroundings, but even today the local Aneth Chapter House, one of
110 communities on the Navajo Nation, is wedged in an arroyo. The
influence of missionaries spurred an exodus of children to
off-reservation schools and introduced the concept of a male-dominated
society, in which men were "head of household" and made all the
important decisions.

So when Benally arrived, she was soon approached by a Navajo colleague
who confided that her Mormon faith made it uncomfortable to work in a
setting where a woman was in charge. A clash of cultures seemed certain,
because the Navajo culture is both matrilineal and matriarchal, while
the Mormon-dominated community of Montezuma Creek promotes a patrilineal
society. Benally, who belongs to the Kin yaa’áanii (Towering
House People) and is born for Tó ’aheedlíinii
(Two Rivers Coming Together Clan), found herself in a difficult
spot.

The elementary school staff expected the Navajo educator to throw up her
arms in defeat and walk away from criticism, as was traditional when
change was suggested in the school community. The workers did not
realize that this Navajo educator knew more about them than they did
about her, and she refused to wilt under pressure. She was on a mission
to raise student test scores in order to pass the federal report card
and to move Navajo kids out of special education.

[Teepee and mountain.] Benally refused to give in. She had come too far
to make accommodations. For two summers, she had driven 608 miles (round
trip) three times a week from Montezuma Creek to Provo, Utah, while
working on a master’s degree in educational leadership. She took
a hard line and told those who opposed her leadership because of her
gender they could leave, if they wished.

The stance resulted in an exodus of those resistant to female
leadership. Then, something almost miraculous happened. When she first
arrived on campus, half of the 210 students were in special education
classes. The teachers who remained under her leadership focused on 105
children, moving 21 of them into regular classrooms, where they thrived,
within the first year. Today, fewer than twenty students are in special
education at Montezuma Creek.

Local leaders told Benally that "Navajos can be like crabs in a bucket."
When one tries to get out, they pull each other back. "I always stood
for the betterment of Navajo children," she says. Having to face a
battle over gender in educational leadership was a distraction.

"The two reasons students were automatically placed in the special
education program was simply for language development acquisition and a
lack of knowledge to work with children with learning disabilities,"
Benally notes. "My drive to overcome obstacles and challenges is always
for the betterment and best interest for all children. I believe we
should all be advocates for children."

Benally is among those Navajos who delicately integrate both traditional
Navajo cultural values and teachings and Western philosophy. As a Navajo
woman, she maintains a Beauty Way of life. Both her father and
grandfather had encouraged Benally to remember that her role as a woman
meant that she was responsible for the passing down of cultural
knowledge from mother to daughter, and for setting a good example that
provides an important balance to the words and actions of men, resulting
in Navajo harmony between traditional and contemporary life. To be a
Navajo woman means connecting the spiritual, intellectual, social, and
the physical. At school, this meant accepting both the role of being a
woman and being a leader in education�€"reconciling the two, never
subjugating herself in the process.

[School bus on Navajo lands.] Encouraging her to excel in school, her
father instructed Benally at an early age that she would have to
overcome the male domination of the larger world. "You are a Navajo
woman in a white man’s world," he told her. "Never forget who you
are and where you come from."

Going against the grain would be difficult, and Benally would need to
summon the strength of her cultural upbringing to succeed. In the field
of Western education, questioning authority is encouraged, however, and
harmony often is more difficult to achieve. This was the case when she
began her new role as a school principal, again remembering her
father’s words: "Be competitive with elegance." Benally says she
succeeds by taking the best of both worlds and applying them in her job.

"A medicine man told me, ’For every bad thing that happens, there
is a way to fix it. It is fixed with corn pollen and positive
thoughts.’" She says she prays to the Holy People.

Culture and academic learning become one, and Aneth’s
students�€"most of whom are Navajo�€"learn how to apply what
they have learned at school to their lives on the reservation and
globally. Benally wanted to influence the Navajo Nation’s
curriculum further and campaigned for a seat on the first Navajo Nation
Board of Education. She won.

[Sheep.] Yuhzhee is my Navajo name. It translates as "short" or"petite"
in English. At age seven, I spoke only Navajo. My family, simple
shepherds and part-time migrant workers, raised and moved their flock of
sheep at a place called Bidáá, on the northeastern edge of the
Grand Canyon. Bidáá means, simply, "The Edge."

While the rest of America paid attention to the Vietnam War and the
civil rights movement, my extended family focused its attention on
existence. Rain, snow, sunshine, or wind, they took the sheep out to
pasture.

Our religion�€"Hózhóó, or Beauty�€"demands balance,
which holds my extended family like a tight weave in a Navajo rug. This
faith, embedded like stone into our young Navajo hearts, minds, and
souls, protects us. Iiná, life, we were told by our elders,
is full of bad and evil. And to fend off the bad,
Hózhóó helped us to think positive.

As a Navajo child, I believed my life was rich, because I had plenty of
relatives, sheep, and religion. The women and my father who raised me
never learned to recite the ABCs or read classic literature, like
Shakespeare. From their flock of sheep, they wove pretty rugs. They sold
sheep to buy potatoes, lard, baking powder, salt, and coffee. Or they
made payments on a communal pickup truck. They turned to migrant work in
the summer, pulling sugar beets in Utah. Out of their work, Navajos
coined the phrase Áshii likantah, or "Among Sugar Land." Sometimes
I joined in picking the potatoes in Elsinore, Utah.

[Sunset.] The price of wool and mohair took a nosedive in the 1980s.
Our family reduced the herd from 500 to 21. Today, my mother and her
sister-in-law Jeanette are retired shepherds who live in Tuba City,
closer to clinics and hospitals. Others, like my grandmother Edith, my
aunt Lutie, and my father, Willie, returned to the earth.
My brother William, a biology teacher at Tuba City High School and my
mother’s caregiver, continues to care for the tiny flock of sheep
that belongs to my family near Bidáá, west of Tuba City. My mother
likes this arrangement, because she believes the sheep give her life,
which is how they are described in Navajo prayers. The sheep ground her
to the traditional elements of the Navajo Nation.

This is my family’s glorious past as Navajo shepherds.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

What a beautiful reading this was for me today. All the words were
taking out of my mouth and spread across this article, brilliantly
expressed, more importantly so much truth & vitality to it all.

The lives of these two women bring forth many issues faced upon our
Navajo Nation, the most important of them all - the preservation of our
culture. Our sacred songs. Our ceremonies.

What will happen when all the haatalii’s pass on?

What happens when we, the kids, the grand kids, are now the
amasani’s and the acheii’s? Will we know the songs to
sing? Will we know the procedures of the ceremonies, so that our
grandchildren & great grandchildren could have their Blessing Way
Ceremonies or Kinaalda’s? All these ceremonies tie into our
language, yet many of us are not fluent. It is all weaved together, the
color of our skins, the beauty of our language & the precious ceremonies
that have been passed for decades. The ceremonies managed to survive
the Long Walk of 1868 - the Navajo concentration camp, will it survive
the urbanization process of the Navajo youth?