Dinestory

In their language, the Navajo call themselves Diné. It means “the people.” Their community life and self identity is based on a clan system of kinship. There are four original clans — The Towering House clan, One-walks-around clan, Bitter Water clan and Mud clan. They further divide into more than 100 related clans, most grouped under one of the original four. As well as clan, they can differ in family history, occupation, religious views, location of dwelling and more.

To answer the question of what it means to be Navajo is not simple, or uniform. For a people group who has a long history of misrepresentation and forced cultural assimilation, this question is more important than ever among the Navajo.  

Today the Navajo reservation — called the Navajo Nation — is the largest in the United States. It is a nation within a nation. They sit under their own government — with elected officials with opposing viewpoints—the states which contain the reservation — parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah — and that of the United States. The Navajo Nation has its own government and school system.

In an era where the influence of technology and mainstream American culture is widespread, the Navajo language is not spoken nearly as much as it once was. With loss of language comes loss of culture and pride. This is not a simple issue to address. People 60 and older know first hand what it was like to be forced to leave their home nine months out of the year to live at a boarding school where their hair was cut and they were heavily reprimanded if they so much as uttered a word in their native tongue. How does a people group revitalize their culture and language after it was repressed for several generations? 

The elders remember vividly everything bout their language and culture. But by the time they had children, English was the most important language to know in order to get ahead in “the white man’s world.” Children today now know little of the Navajo language. Most new parents cannot teach their children to speak it fluently because they themselves cannot. Only one elementary school student out of a thousand currently can speak the Diné language fluently. While many programs have been put in place to revitalize their language, it’s not an easy task.

The Navajo are not isolated. They are very much part of and affected by the modern, western world. Christianity has spread throughout much of the reservation, replacing their traditional religion. Many Diné see a direct correlation between the God of the Bible and their creation stories. Some still embrace their traditional heritage, language and culture, while others see aspects of their traditional culture as being religious and resist change. 

The Navajo people along with all indigenous tribes face pressing issues of drugs and alcohol, depression, suicide, inadequate government funding for projects on the reservation, lack of control over their lands, and racism.

Though these issues make the situation seem bleak, there is hope. Recent efforts to educate the American public about indigenous lands and people are in place. And among the Navajo themselves, their Department of Education is focused on educating the current generation of children about their traditional culture and language.

Many Americans still correlate Native Americans with old black and white pictures of chiefs in headdresses and braves in buckskin riding across the prairie. They don’t know about the lawyers, politicians, physicians, fashion designers and soccer players who have come out the Navajo Nation. Yet efforts have emerged to challenge these stereotypes and put a modern face to indigenous America.

In the past,  Diné were sheepherders. Today, most no longer herd sheep. Instead they sell jewelry, pottery and rugs on the side of the road at bead stands to tourists driving through. Some of whom don’t even know they have been on the Navajo Reservation for the past hour. 

While some still weave traditional rugs the Navajo are famous for, others own thriving cattle ranches, work for the Department of Diné Education, are hospital workers, teachers and politicians. They live in larger towns or cities on the reservation, and a few still live so far in the interior of the reservation that most vehicles can’t navigate the rocky, dirt roads to get to them. Some still live in Hogan’s — the traditional dwelling made of wood and mud — without running water or electricity. Yet others live off the reservation across the United States and overseas.

Good jobs on the reservation are hard to come by and many face a choice of either staying on the reservation, where jobs are scarce or leaving the reservation in order to pursue other job opportunities. Many leave and come back, while others never leave at all. Life on the reservation is different than living anywhere else. Most home sites don’t have a traditional address where you could send mail or plug into google maps. While some people grow crops, there is still a necessity for many to make an hour or more drive off the reservation, or into a city to stock up on food and supplies. Bashas Diné markets is a chain that you will find in the larger towns throughout Navajo Nation. In these towns you will find mostly fast food restaurants. Options are limited and many are used to making long drives in order to get what they want or need.

Like most things that change over time, this depiction of life looks much different than years past. However, there is a correlation between the past, the present and the future. What does it look like for Diné to be Diné today? Many will tell you it’s their stories, their history, their traditions. The Diné people have a proud history as a people. Many will tell you about the Long Walk or the Navajo code talkers. Their stories also tell a great deal about who they are as people. There are certain stories of their creation and traditional beliefs and history that are told in the winter only, some during the summer or other times of the year. Most cannot be shared with others who are not Diné in order to protect their heritage. There are also certain ceremonies and traditional gatherings that have been carried out over centuries. The enemy way ceremony [N’daa] is one of the more notable and widely known traditions, though it has changed over the years and some will say in more recent times they are sometimes not taken as seriously.

One special ceremony is the Kinaaldá or the coming of age ceremony for a girl, becoming a young woman. This is somewhat of a community celebration and still held often. The boys coming of age ceremony is more rare these days, probably due to the fact that it’s a bit more private and few medicine men practice the ritual now. This is also something that is supposed to be passed down within the family and specifics can vary from family to family. The ceremony includes a male sweat lodge, which dates back to the emergence story.

There has been some intermingling of traditions amongst different native communities over the years. The Native American Church is a religious gathering based on traditional native spiritual beliefs. Depending on where you go they might include religious aspects in their ceremonies from multiple tribes, and some even pull from Judaism or Christianity. Some ceremonies are held in Hogans still. However, increasingly teepees have been adopted from the plains tribes because of the ease of being able to put them up, take them down and move them. 

Across the America’s and the world native communities face challenges. Some feel as though they are caught between two worlds, while others embrace change. Even though language and culture has been suppressed in the past, there are those who carry on their traditions and desire to pass them down to the next generations. This is how Diné will continue. It is up to the next generations to learn what they can and continue to pass it down. In a modern world with American pop culture everywhere, it is still possible to find an identity within the confines of the native community.

Increasingly what I have found to be the most beautiful thing about the Diné people is the spirit of the people. This is what will continue to bridge the gap between generations.