In case you were wondering, this is what I'm doing on the Navajo Nation reservation for the summer.
I am an intern for the Diné Policy Institute in Tsaile, Arizona. The Diné College created the Institute to “give Navajos a voice in important decisions.” Its purpose or mission is to “mesh” Western research practices with Diné (Navajo) traditional values and principles to advise the Navajo Nation law and policy makers.
The DPI “provides resources, facilitates dialogue, and provides quality research to analyze issues relevant to the Navajo Nation. DPI’s goal is to educate people and to ensure that well-reasoned policies are developed and implemented to protect the sovereignty of the Navajo Nation, and to advocate for all Native Americans.”
As such, for my field study and internship, I am researching how the “four sacred elements” of the traditional Diné existence, air, water, earth, and light can be used in a policy setting. In other words, for one particular case study, I am trying to understand if the Diné traditional concept of air, for instance, affronts the development of a proposed power plant – Desert Rock – southwest of Farmington, New Mexico.
In order to come to understand how the Diné (Navajo people) perceive the use of air, I am reading their recorded oral history such as Diné Bahané (the Navajo creation story) and other works, interviewing medicine men, the elderly and other Diné from a variety of age groups, and participating in and observing at ceremonies.
Earlier this morning, I spoke with a medicine man at the Diné College. He told me that much of what I seek to learn about is normally only told to medicine men apprentices. Also, there are only certain settings and ceremonies where some Diné philosophy is communicated. So much of what I hoped and planned to research will be unavailable to me as an outsider. These are a few of the challenges I face.
Other than being an outsider – a white woman - I also don’t speak or understand the Navajo language. I can only speak a few words. Although the language can be translated, much of the inherent meanings of Navajo words are lost when spoken in English.
Here are photos from part of my drive to and from Ganado to the college. Horses run wild all over the rez.
The DPI “provides resources, facilitates dialogue, and provides quality research to analyze issues relevant to the Navajo Nation. DPI’s goal is to educate people and to ensure that well-reasoned policies are developed and implemented to protect the sovereignty of the Navajo Nation, and to advocate for all Native Americans.”
As such, for my field study and internship, I am researching how the “four sacred elements” of the traditional Diné existence, air, water, earth, and light can be used in a policy setting. In other words, for one particular case study, I am trying to understand if the Diné traditional concept of air, for instance, affronts the development of a proposed power plant – Desert Rock – southwest of Farmington, New Mexico.
In order to come to understand how the Diné (Navajo people) perceive the use of air, I am reading their recorded oral history such as Diné Bahané (the Navajo creation story) and other works, interviewing medicine men, the elderly and other Diné from a variety of age groups, and participating in and observing at ceremonies.
Earlier this morning, I spoke with a medicine man at the Diné College. He told me that much of what I seek to learn about is normally only told to medicine men apprentices. Also, there are only certain settings and ceremonies where some Diné philosophy is communicated. So much of what I hoped and planned to research will be unavailable to me as an outsider. These are a few of the challenges I face.
Other than being an outsider – a white woman - I also don’t speak or understand the Navajo language. I can only speak a few words. Although the language can be translated, much of the inherent meanings of Navajo words are lost when spoken in English.
Here are photos from part of my drive to and from Ganado to the college. Horses run wild all over the rez.
Here are the Navajo Nation's "Alps". I'm staying in a hogan similar to the one in the photo below.
Beautiful sunsets.
10 comments:
Greetings Pilgrim
Read with interest your recent blog regarding the Diné sacred teachings. It raises serious questions like how will you proceed from here? It may be the case that you will have to spend much more time watching and listening than you originally allowed. In other words, you may have to leave the "White Culture's" sense of time and scheduling and adopt a longer, slower, from the "White" perspective, approach to this project.
The fact that the information you seek is only given to apprentice holy men appears from here to be a serious challenge maybe even a dead-end for your research. Have the Diné ever allowed a woman to be a holy "man?"
This knowledge you seek seems to be esoteric in nature and therefore like all holy knowledge is not for the "profane." Given the history of the Diné with "White Culture," do you think it likely you will be able to bridge the chasm between the two cultures enough for them to trust you with this knowledge?
Press on Pilgrim! I look forward to your response.
zwlc3
I actually foresaw these challenges before arriving to the field. I took a 3 credit field study prep course during winter semester where I learned cross-cultural skills, how to do qualitative and quantitative research, etc., and we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of being an outsider in a research setting...but I didn't quite comprehend how big of an obstacle it would be.
I think the only way that I will be able to access the knowledge and "answers" I seek is through cultural brokers and "gatekeepers".
I am incredibly privileged to live with the retired chief justice of the Navajo Nation and his lady friend.
Robert Yazzie is the director of the Dine Policy Institute. In addition to previously working as a judge he also used to teach Navajo culture and philosophy at the University of New Mexico.
I am fortunate to be working with him. He is very interested in my research and wants to go with me to interview medicine men. Ilene, his lady friend, is also my cultural broker. She has invited me to go to ceremonies with her and to other cultural and community events.
We stayed up until one o'clock last night talking about her life and then about skinwalkers, and Navajo ceremonies and customs. I asked her if you have to be Navajo in order to have a ceremony done for you. She said that white men or Bilagaana can as long as they really believe that the ceremony will restore balance in their life and if they have respect for it.
So to answer your question, through my cultural brokers or gatekeepers, I will be able to overcome some of these challenges and get entry into the culture.
However, I still will not be allowed to access all the knowledge I would like to. For example, Ilene told me that at some Enemy Way ceremonies, foreigners are not allowed to be there. She said that one time, a white man walked up into the sacred place while one of the ceremonies was being performed and it ruined the entire thing.
She also said that for the majority of the time, you have to be invited to the ceremony in order to participate. They are not advertised. People know about them through word of mouth.
All in all, to answer your last question,"do I think I will be able to bridge the chasm between the two cultures enough for them to trust me with this knowledge?"
The simple answer is no, I don't.
Before coming, one of my Navajo friends told me that many of the younger Navajo don't even know about much of the ceremonies, customs, and traditions because they are seen as sacred. You don't even talk about them to your own people in certain settings. (I am sure they could go to the ceremonies themselves though if they wanted to learn abou them).
[To quickly answer your other question, there are many women who are medicine men. I only hear them called medicine "men" by Navajo so I use that term.]
What are the implications then concerning my research?
Well, I believe I will have to change it accordingly. But, my research question/topic is too broad in the first place. I could write a dissertation on it. After my initial unstructured/informal interviews, I hope to have more of a grasp upon my research and then be able to narrow it down.
As a side note, I was never invited here to do research by the Navajo people (only the Dine Policy Institute). Who says I have the right to even be here asking these questions. [I have some ethical/moral dilemmas with research that I am trying to work through...and will comment more on in the near future; sometimes I fear identifying myself as an anthropologist...these are current concerns being discussed and debated between tribes, about intellectual and cultural property; there has been some major problems in the past...misinformation.]
I wish that I could give you a more unambiguous answer, but these are questions I am still grappling with.
I really appreciate your comment and questions because it has caused me to think about it more. I have much more to write about it and will plan on writing a post about it soon.
Mary
Greetings Pilgrim
I truly appreciate the way you are approaching this field experience. Two questions that showed up for me were these:
Given your understanding of the breadth and depth of the challenge, how far are you willing to go with this? The knowledge you are after will require months maybe years of effort to obtain. It will certainly mean that you will have to invest significant time in learning and absorbing the Diné language. By absorption I mean, gaining a native-speaker’s understanding of the nuances that the Diné language uses to capture the reality of Diné existence.
What showed up while I was writing the above was something one of my Counselor Education Professors made me aware of. Basically, it is that if you ask a client to open up to you, you have an ethical responsibility to make sure that that client is unharmed by your interaction with them. In all cases, the client’s needs came first. As such, the counselor had to put aside his/her agenda and follow where the client led them.
In your case, you are making the argument with Mr. Yazzie and Ilene that they should serve as your bridges to Diné culture. This request places an ethical burden upon you. You, if you are to proceed ethically, at least from my perspective (HAHA easy for me to say!!) must treat not only the information you receive with respect but the relationships you build with the Diné.
Now what do I mean by that? I can imagine the look on your face at that last part and hear you say “of course I will respect them.” But I am talking about the is the idea that you need to determine if you are willing to make the commitment to see this thing through to the end no matter how long it takes. If yes then there is no ethical dilemma. You will do what you need to; to build and maintain healthy relations both to the information and the people who are the sources of that information.
If no, then it gets stickier, again from my perspective. How will you determine what is the appropriate end-point? Maybe the Diné, in the person of Ilene, have already begun to show you end-points as in the taboo of seeing or participating in the Enemy-Way ceremony. Maybe that would be the most “ethical” “unharmfull way” to structure your project.
The fact that you wrote this:
“As a side note, I was never invited here to do research by the Navajo people (only the Dine Policy Institute). Who says I have the right to even be here asking these questions. [I have some ethical/moral dilemmas with research that I am trying to work through...and will comment more on in the near future; sometimes I fear identifying myself as an anthropologist...these are current concerns being discussed and debated between tribes, about intellectual and cultural property; there has been some major problems in the past...misinformation.]”
shows me that you are aware of some of what I am writing about.
Again Pilgrim know that you are honored for what you are trying to do!
Press On, Holy Knowledge awaits!!
Dear fellow pilgrim,
You understand exactly the dilemma that I face. If I am to continue my research in this topical area with the Diné , then I must learn to speak, read, and write Diné Bazaad (Navajo language)…not just memorize how to say words in Navajo but come to understand the complex histories, stories, and meanings behind the language. Because what I’ve become aware of and to appreciate is that it is within their language that the principles, beliefs, values, traditions, and concepts of the environment and of the entire Navajo culture lie.
Indeed, the death of the Navajo language also equals the end of their culture and way of being (I feel that the loss of the language as seen more and more within the younger generation reflects also the slow dieing out or dwindling of the Navajo culture).
Back to my situation, coming to learn the language to this degree is truly an impossible undertaking unless, as you mentioned, I am willing to put forth the necessary time and effort. But given that I spent a few hours everyday studying and practicing the Navajo language for the next couple of years, and given that I decided to spend a couple of years here post-graduate living among the Diné…still yet, how much would I be able to enter their reality?
And even if I “became native” (a term often used by anthropologists to describe someone who becomes so immersed into the culture that you are no longer an “outsider”), which could only be accomplished by living many years among the Navajo, would I still be filtering their reality through my Western lens?
These are other questions I am faced with and these are “problems” the Diné Policy Institute is currently researching and working through. Since the era of the 1980’s, many Navajo people in government and education positions began a discourse on how they could incorporate Navajo tradition and values into governance and in public education. A more recent brainchild of that movement was the creation of the Fundamental Law of the Diné (FLD)in 2002 which claims to spell out the “rights and freedoms” of the Navajo people under four laws: 1) traditional, 2) natural, 3) custom, and 4) common. DPI was given the task to critique the FLD and the principal researchers of that project found that the drafters of the FLD in fact, incorporates many Western values and principles along with some interpretations of historical Navajo traditions and concepts.
I would like to go into a more in-depth analysis and discussion of this critique, but for the moment I just wanted to illustrate the point through this example that there has been on-going dialogue and debate occurring between Navajos since the early 1980’s on what are the traditional Navajo beliefs and traditions and how to interpret and incorporate them into Tribal Council governance. Now, here’s where and why I feel incredibly inferior as a non-Navajo coming in and trying to learn about and interpret Navajo concepts when at the same time the Navajo people are unable to come to agreement themselves.
(As I am told here at DPI, while other native tribes are reviving their traditions and values within a Western paradigm, the Navajo Nation through the policy institute and other research institutes are decolonizing or deconstructing the Western perspective and trying to re-examine their century-held adoption of Western institutions and concepts).
To answer your question then, “how far am I willing to go with this?” Once again, I will give you an ambiguous answer. I’m not sure.
In all honesty, I often feel that I don’t belong here doing research. At times, I even feel that I am perpetuating the exploitative behaviors of the U.S. government and other colonialist institutions by coming here with the assumption that the Diné would be my informants in my research “project”. Of course I don’t intend to, but just by coming here as a privileged white girl from an academic institution motivated by a research agenda, I am inevitably creating unequal power differentials between me and the Diné. “I am the one researching and you are my subjects.”
Clearly, you can see that I am struggling here. I can see endless benefits out of being the BYU field study student for a summer (i.e. introduction to research and experience with a different culture, etc.) but I can see close to no advantages to the Navajo people. Some may argue that an exchange of cultures is beneficial to both parties, but I’m not so sure that I agree with that.
Since initial contact with the Spanish in the sixteenth century, indigenous peoples in North America have experienced nothing but oppression, racism, and genocide from Anglos. Continued contact, Natives received attention from the American government only when it fit within their plans. The Treaty of 1868 with the Diné was the American government’s way to bring the Navajo people into a dependent relationship with the U.S. and to assist the agricultural economy of the day.
Today, the U.S. claims that the Navajo Nation is a “sovereign nation” but still yet, we force them to abide by certain federal and state laws and jurisdiction. Colonialism still continues today. Instead of allowing the Navajo people to be in control of educating their children or future leaders, the U.S. demands that they follow and be assimilated into Western education standards, etc.
I am becoming very passionate about these issues.
What is to be done? How will the Navajo people reclaim their identity and freedom as a nation? I don’t know, but I believe they are slowly but surely figuring it out themselves.
I’m still learning and don’t know if I as a white person, even if I decided to commit to this cause, would be able to do anything for the oppressed peoples of our nation. I strongly believe that the will to create a change must rise up from within the hearts of the victims. I see this happening already.
What is my role or our role as advocates of these indigenous movements within our country? I believe that will come clear to me as I live here longer.
Now to go back to your original question…finally, I’m not sure what will happen with my research as it evolves over time. Until I resolve my ethical dilemma with research, I will continue to see myself simply as a student. I am here to learn. I am here to be taught by a people whom I have the utmost respect for and to listen to their stories, histories, songs and prayers of which I reverence.
I believe indigenous people hold within them the knowledge that will eventually save the industrial world from the inevitable and imminent crash of our capitalistic economy and society. We are entering a new phase within our history and I pray we will have the humility to listen to our brothers and sisters teach us once again how to live in harmony with the land.
Something has died within humanity. We no longer listen to the earth speak to us. Of the little I have learned about traditional Navajo knowledge, something that sticks out in my mind is their understanding and belief that the four sacred elements (air/wind, water, earth/pollen, and light/fire) are living and breathing entities like us. They communicate. One medicine man told me that it’s hard to understand but nonetheless, they do speak in their own individual way.
We no longer see and appreciate the beauty of a sunset, a forest, or a desert landscape. As Thomas Berry said, “the forest can only become so many board feet of lumber when a certain part of the human mind goes dead. Humans couldn’t kill the forest unless there was something already dead in the human intelligence, the human sensitivity, the human emotions. It’s like needlessly burning the great artistic productions of the world.”
I think we are figuring it out. Many people realize the insanity of our current economy and way of life and are making small but meaningful changes in their individual lifestyle.
Unfortunately it’s not enough. Our individual changes are meaningless beside the ecological footprint of the world’s corporations. If we are to stop the destruction of the earth’s land, the pollution of the air and water, I believe we need to rethink our society’s economy. Reformation isn’t enough. We need to revolutionize our relationship with and use of the earth’s “resources”.
This requires an entire new ideology or philosophy.
Greetings Pilgrim
Interesting that you should begin to call me a pilgrim too. For much of my life, I have felt like a stranger in a strange land, nowhere really feeling at home.
I believe I understand the intense loneliness you are feeling as you work your way through this labyrinth. Life IS a labyrinth with few clues along the way yo help us in the journey.
It does not suprise me that you do not yet know the answers to the questions I asked regarding commitment, long-term, to the project. It is as if you are standing at a crossroads, whichever direction you choose, that choics must necessarily eliminate other choices. In fact, you may be at the decision-point regarding what your life is going to be about. If you choose to stay and do what you will need to in order to really "get it," as in what the Diné reality is, it will mean that most if not all other life choices will be put aside. This is a serious, maybe the most serious, question a human being faces, what will be the meaning of my life?
My answer to that question has been and will continue to be to make my life one of service to others. It did not matter to me what form that service took as long as benefitting others was the primary focus.
As Mr Yazzie and others are serving as a bridge to Diné culture, you too are becoming a bridge back to "white" culture that may help us learn and understand a different way of seeing the world. A world that does not claim that the "one with the most toys when they die, wins."
This is a important, maybe even vital role for someone to play. It is one that should not be entered into lightly but with all the reverence one can muster for truly there is sacredness to be found there.
I want you to know that I admire you for what you are doing and as you are working through this, I too am examining my own life, motivations, ethical dilemmas. I draw strength from knowing that I am not alone in this struggle and that I know someone personally who is also wrestling with our collective demons.
zwlc3
Mary, I suppose you are trying to decide whether or not you want to stay in school and pursue a PhD and continue studying the Dine Policy Institute or some other culture. I think Cultural Anthropology is a great career to pursue, since so many cultures throughout the world will die out due to globalization in the 21st century. It is very important to record their cultures or they will be lost. You will most certainly have ample career options and opportunities to travel. I also believe that you will make a difference in the lives of whoever you come across regardless of the path you choose.
I often think about those conversations we had before I left in the fall of last year for school again. You mentioned to me that the path I was choosing would be very lonely…the path less traveled by.
I must admit though that it took me a while before coming to a complete understanding of your prophecy. I’ve come to understand much about human nature from within that loneliness though…thinking about why we as humans need organized religion and society. We are societal beings. We can’t exist without the support of each other physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.
Anyways, there is much I would like to discuss on these matters. I am still internally debating whether religion is ultimately good for society or obstructive to human development. Being here and deconstructing the Western approach and discovering another way of looking at life is helping me to see these matters in another light.
I don’t really feel that I am at a crossroads yet. I think in my heart I will know what I am to do once it comes time to leave here.
I appreciate you acknowledging the sacredness to be found in the role of acting as a bridge across the Diné and Bilaganna cultures. I know when I come back to the white man’s world some will want me to share the wisdom of indigenous knowledge, but I am not sure whether I will be able to. As you said, there must be a reverence and respect for these sacred stories and ceremonies or they will lose all of its meaning.
One of those most important lessons the Navajo people and culture are teaching me is that every thing in life is sacred. I think I will stop here and write a post for everyone to read.
Please know how much I appreciate you for opening so many forums for me to think through my experiences. It means a lot to me for you to be participating in this time.
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