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| Spider Goddess rock in Canyon de Chelly |
The great river Rio Grande cuts through the plateau of
New Mexico creating a gorge so deep that one can get dizzy standing
on its verge. Farther west the Colorado river cuts through colourful
rock creating a canyon that takes a breath of a viewer. It seldom
rains on the plateau between these rivers. Only the Chuska Mountains
in the middle of it get enough rain to support some trees. There are
also mountain ranges around the plateau: Sangre the Christo to the
east, San Matteo to the south, San Francisco to the west and San Juan
to the north. They bear names of Catholic saints but it is the
spirits of nature that live there, not the saints. Whoever
understands those spirits and knows how to call them for help can be
sure that the grass for sheep in Chuska Mountains will be green and
plentiful, that maize planted in spring will grow despite infrequent
rains and that peaches in orchards in Canyon de Chelly will bear
fruit. The Navajos do know how to call the spirits. The country
between the two great rivers is theirs.
How long have the Navajo been living there? They
themselves say that they have always lived there. This is the country
which the Creator gave to the Navajos and told them to plant peaches
in Canyon de Chelly, to graze sheep in Chuska Mountains and to weave
blankets from sheep's wool. In Canyon de Chelly there is a rock where
the Spider Goddess taught Navajo women how to weave. Anybody can go
there and see it.
As often is the case - white scholars don't believe the
old myths and have their own theories, even if they have seen the
Spider Goddess rock. The main theory is that the Navajos came to
Arizona from north Canada because the Indians of that region - around
Lake Athabasca - speak languages similar to the Navajo. The Navajos
themselves confirm this, they say they understand the Canadian
Indians speech. They also say that the language of Navajos and
Apaches is basically the same, only pronunciation of some words is
different. So the theory says that the Navajos and Apaches came to
Arizona not very long ago, only a few hundred years, maybe at the
same time as the Spaniards.
Arizona
has been, nevertheless, inhabited for millennia by peoples
cultivating maize and building fortified villages. In Canyon de
Chelly one can see those villages built of stone high in the canyon
walls, clearly for defence. Now they are deserted and have been so
for centuries. The Navajos, who live there now, never lived in stone
villages. In fact they don't live in any villages at all, their
dwellings are dispersed around the mountains. Traditionally the
Navajos lived in conical structures made of wood and called hogan.
A hogan has to be on a round plan because ceremonies that are
sometimes celebrated in it require a round floor. It is easy to build
wherever trees grow. The Navajos build their hogans wherever they
move, and they move constantly as they follow their sheep high up the
mountains in summer and down to the plains in winter.
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| Ruins in Canyon de Chelly |
The
Navajos and Apaches treated the peoples who cultivated maize very
much like the Spaniards did: they robbed them of maize and women and
ran away to their mountains. Of course there was a difference: the
Spaniards invaded once and built their city they called Holy Faith
(Santa Fe) and told the settled Indians to bring their maize and
women to that city if they don't want to be robbed. The settled
Indians lived in villages, a village is called pueblo
in Spanish, so they were called "Pueblo Indians". The
Spaniards were also a settled people, they set up their haciendas
and... were robbed by Navajos, who afterwards ran away and hid in the
labyrinthine Canyon de Chelly. The Spaniards chased them there,
killed a few Indians and returned, but those Navajos who weren't
killed wanted revenge, so robbed some more haciendas and... so on.
The Pueblo Indians, who lived in villages, were easier
to control but it they weren't necessarily more docile. In 1680 they
made a big uprising and drove all Spaniards from New Mexico. The
Spaniards returned ten years later and pacified the rebels. Some of
the rebels didn't like the idea of being pacified, escaped towards
Chuska Mountains and nobody knows what happened to them. We do know,
however, that the Navajo learned things that the Pueblo Indians
practised earlier. They learned to cultivate maize, to make
decorative pottery, to weave pretty blankets and to breed sheep to
get wool for the blankets. They also learned how to breed horses.
Using horses they could travel far into Mexico to rob haciendas.
After those raids the Spaniards would send a punitive expedition...
and so on.
In the meantime in a far away country events took place
that did not appear to have anything to do with what happened in
Arizona. In 1776 several thousands miles from Canyon de Chelly, on
the eastern coast of the continent, a new independent country was
created. Would anybody expect then that barely 70 years later Canyon
de Chelly would be within the borders of this country? This is
exactly what happened: in 1848 a peace treaty ending a war between
Mexico and the United States was signed and as a result Arizona
became a U.S. territory. Of course nobody asked the Navajo if they
wanted their country to be within anybody's borders. One can guess
that if anybody did ask them they would be rather surprised as that
never gave their country to anybody. The Spaniards claimed that the
country was theirs because once a discoverer furled out a flag and
took possession of it in the name of the Spanish king. They never
managed to persuade the Navajos to accept this fact. The Americans
took possession of the land because somewhere in a distant city
somebody signed a piece of paper. Unlike the Spaniards, the Americans
were determined to make the Navajos accept this fact.
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| Hogan new style |
The Americans wouldn't mind mind the Navajos grazing
their sheep in their remote country, if they could do this in peace.
However, the Navajos had a tradition of raids to steal horses or
sheep from Mexicans. They did not understand why the Americans should
have a problem with that, after all they themselves fought the
Mexicans only recently. A peace treaty was not a concept the Navajos
could easily understand. Even less comprehensible was an idea that
some Mexicans, those who lived in the city of Holy Faith, were now
American citizens and the U.S. Army was supposed to protect them.
Anyway the Navajos didn't have any central government that could sign
anything like a peace treaty. Great chiefs had respect but no more
than this, they couldn't impose their will on anybody. If a group of
youngsters wanted to steal some horses nobody could stop them, they
didn't ask anybody's permission anyway. In this situation the
Americans decided to force the Navajos to move to a reservation in a
distant country, where they wouldn't feel at home. Maybe then they
would understand that it is better to give up raiding.
The commander of the U.S. troops in Santa Fe at the time
was gen. Carleton. He decided to settle the Apaches and Navajos on a
reservation called Bosque Redondo on the shores of Rio Pecos. The
first to be settled there were the Mescalero Apaches, Navajos were to
be next. In the summer of 1863 col. Kit Carson led a detachment of
volunteers, as the regular army was busy fighting the civil war in
the east. Kit Carson grew up in Missouri and knew Indians well, he
certainly knew how to talk to them. He declared that by June 1863 all
Navajos are to surrender and move to the reservation. He promised
that at first the government would feed the Indians but later they
would have to rely on their own harvests.
The Navajos didn't want to move anywhere. They had
enough food in their own country. They ignored the call to surrender.
Carson then entered their country with the volunteers, who were much
better armed than the Navajos. The Indians realised this so they fled
whenever his detachment approached. Carson did not chase the Indians,
he just killed their sheep which were left behind, burned corn, cut
down orchards. In the autumn the Indians suddenly realised that they
don't have enough food for winter after all. They started
surrendering, first in small groups, but when the word leaked out
that the Americans don't torture prisoners but feed them - more
people gave themselves up. In the end most of the Navajos decided
that the American rations are better than starvation and agreed to
move to the reservation. In April 1864 they started the long march to
Rio Pecos.
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| Window Rock |
The Navajos remember their exile in Bosque Redondo as
the Jews remember Babylon. Even today one can hear stories how old
people couldn't walk fast enough and stayed behind, how the rapid
current of Rio Grande (which had to be crossed) carried away babies,
how there was not enough wood for heating in Bosque Redondo, how the
harvest were poor because the soil was not good. Most important the
medicine men couldn't celebrate ceremonies because the ones that the
Navajo knew had their power between the sacred mountain ranges that
surrounded their country. The white people not only didn't understand
ceremonies, they didn't even know they existed and it was difficult
to explain to them that ceremonies may influence the harvests.
It was a difficult time for the Navajos but also the
time of big changes. Until then they never had any central authority.
In Bosque Redondo the American officers were the superior authority
but they let the traditional chiefs run internal affairs. Today one
can hear stories how chiefs Manuelito and Barboncito negotiated a
possibility of returning to their old country. With each passing year
the Americans were more likely to consider this. At Bosque Redondo
the Navajos were fed by the goverment whereas the Navajos claimed
they knew how to breed sheep in Chuska Mountains and how to grow
maize in Canyon de Chelly. In the end in 1968 the Americans agreed on
the condition that the raids stop definitely.
For the Navajos this was not the end but the beginning.
They were given a reservation that contained the Chuska Mountains and
Canyon de Chelly. The Reservation Council was established under the
leadership of chiefs Manuelito and Barboncito. The Navajos returned
from their exile with only the remnants of their old flocks but they
didn't loose the knowledge how to breed them. Most of all the
ceremonies could be conducted in a proper way.
The
Navajos also learned a few things from their white oppressors. They
for example learned how to build log houses. They didn't build them
on a plan of a rectangle because ceremonies could not be conducted in
a rectangular house. They built their new houses on an octagonal plan
and called them hogan,
as always. The iron stove was in the middle, where the fireplace used
to be. The iron stoves were bought from money raised from raising
sheep. The first years after their return to the old country were
difficult but soon the flocks multiplied and there was surplus that
could be sold. American traders that specialised in Indian trade set
up trading posts on the reservation. They bought colourful rugs for
which the Navajos became famous. The flocks grew, there was not
enough pastures in Chuska Mountains but the chiefs managed to
negotiate expansion of the reservation. Little buy little bits were
added until the Navajoland became the biggest Indian reservation in
the U.S. All this was happening when Geronimo became famous for
evading the U.S. Army. Geronimo was on the front pages of newspapers.
Manuelito was not, but the Navajo Reservation is still the biggest in
the U.S.
The Navajo Reservation borders with the Grand Canyon
National Park and some of the tourists cross the Navajoland to get
there. They sometimes stop at Indian stands that sell arts and
crafts. The tourists usually don't realise that they could also visit
Window Rock, the capital of Navajoland. They could enter the Navajo
Parliament and listen what they talk about.
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| Jerry Manuelito |
Window Rock is not a
tourist attraction but it has some charm. It is placed on the
southern slopes of Chuska Mountains among fantastically shaped rocks.
One of the rocks has a huge round hole right through the middle,
hence the name.
One could actually wonder why the capital of the
reservation is so far from Canyon de Chelly, which is considered the
heartland of Navajoland. However, I am writing these words with a pen
with words "Navajo Technical University" written on it. It
is a school which has a campus in Chinle, right at the mouth of the
Canyon. I received this pen from a lecturer of this school. He also
gave me his business card. I saw the name: Jerry Manuelito. I asked
if he was a descendant of the great chief.
"Yes," he said. "The great chief always
stressed the importance of education. He said that this is the way
for the nation to be reborn, not running with a gun around the
mountains."
Indeed, one who runs with a gun in the mountains evading
cavalry can get to the headlines of newspapers printed somewhere far,
at the other side of the continent. One can get to the headlines
without knowing that these newspapers exist and without even knowing
what a newspaper actually is. However, if one understands what is
written in those newspapers, even not knowing that those papers
exist, one can rebuild a country between four mountain ranges.
* * *
Window Rock is a capital, but not a city or even a
village. There is a parliament there, the laws of the reservation are
discussed in it. There is the office of the chief, ministries, a
library, a supermarket and a MacDonald, but there are no houses.
Nobody lives there. Navajos in general don't live in cities, they are
scattered around the reservation, most of them only come to Window
Rock for a yearly fair.
We were in Navajoland at the time of the fair and wanted
to see it. The fair was planned to last a week, but do we need to be
there for the whole of it? A week before the fair, while on the Hopi
reservation, I saw the weekly paper "Navajo Times" and
checked the program. In the beginning of the week there were to be
elections of Miss Navajo and gardening competitions (who will grow
the biggest pumpkin and the like), at the end of the week there was
to be more exciting stuff, like a powwow and a rodeo. We decided that
we didn't come to an Indian Reservation to watch a boob competition
so we decided to come to the fair later.
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| Inside the Navajo Parliament |
When we arrived there, the things were still being
organised. For example an art exhibition. There was a special
pavilion for artists to show their work. There certainly is no
shortage of artists among the Navajo. There were some modern
"artists" showing some strange objects which did not
attract my attention, but the traditional arts certainly did. For
example pottery. One can say that Indian pottery of New Mexico and
Arizona is a separate genre of art. Each pueblo has its own style and
Navajo pottery presents itself very well in this company. It is true
that today it is mostly produced for tourist market but this fact
does not diminish its quality. Once the pots were used to carry water
but today they are like canvass for a masterpiece. Among the Navajo
it is mostly women who are potters. The weavers are also usually
women even though among the Pueblo Indians it is usually a male
occupation. There were also some sand paintings on the exhibition.
Sand painting is probably a Navajo speciality, I have never heard of
anyone else doing this. Admittedly I had never heard of the Navajo
sand painting before I came to Navajoland, but I did read a bit about
it since then.
I can hear a question of my readers: what is sand
painting? It sounds like something that would be blown away rather
easily.
Of
course it would be blown away. Normally sand paintings are created on
a floor of a hogan for a ceremony and are not very durable. They are
made in the morning and swept in the evening. These are medicine
ceremonies, they are supposed to heal illnesses physical or
psychical, like hate, envy, anger, fear. Or they are supposed to
bring blessings for the task at hand, like a war or exams. A ceremony
is conducted by a hataali,
a priest (this word is sometimes translated as "shaman",
which is misleading, as a hataali
is supposed to know how to conduct a ceremony correctly, how to
create the sand painting and how to sing the songs; he is not
supposed to get into trance, like Siberian shamans). In the Navajo
language the sand painting is called ikaah,
which can be translated as 'calling gods". The image is created
so the gods come and are present during the ceremony. A sand painting
made correctly is a bit like the correct words spoken by a Catholic
priest over unleavened bread. Of course a sand painting is just as
sacred as the unleavened bread after the consecration.
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| Sandpainding designs on Navajo pots |
However, it turned out that tourists would like to buy
sand paintings just as they buy pots and rugs. Somebody has found a
way to make a sand painting on a board covered with glue. Nowadays
sand paintings are a trade item, just like pots and rugs. Moreover,
sand painting designs are nowadays woven into elaborate rugs, which
of course are more expensive because such a design is far more
difficult to weave than a geometric pattern. I have seen sand
painting designs on pots, too. If there is demand, there will be
supply as well. Something that used to be holy because it caused
divine presence to come - became a souvenir to hang in a living room.
Perhaps this is the spirit of the age.
The
spirit of the age is also present in the pavilion where various
institutions try to recruit candidates. For example the Indian police
that serves on the reservation, National Park Service (Monument
Valley is actually on the reservation whereas the Grand Canyon is
just outside), or schools, like the Navajo Technical University.
There I meet Jerry Manuelito, a lecturer. He says it is a great
school that also takes students from overseas. We chat for a while
and I ask him about many things, like the sand paintings. He says
there was a big controversy about it. Some people say that these
images are sacred and should never be even created outside the
ceremony, let alone sold as souvenirs. Others say that if there are
potential buyers then why not earn a few bucks? In the end it was
agreed that the sand paintings for sale will always be made so that
something is not quite right, so it is not the actual mythical scene.
The sand paintings used for ceremony have to be swept in the evening
and the sand taken to a maize field. Why maize? Because it is a
sacred plant. There are many different ceremonies. Like blackening,
when the patient to be cured is painted completely black. Sometimes
the patient has to lie down on the sand painting. I ask whether these
ceremonies have any connection with peyote cult but my interlocutor
says no, there is no connection. Sand paintings are a part of the
traditional Navajo religion whereas peyote is propagated by the
American Indian Church, really a new religion. The peyote priests are
called roadmen,
they don't know how to make correct sand paintings. Peyote ceremonies
are prayers that last all night. They should be held in a tipi but
sometimes they are in a hogan. It is better in a hogan because one
can sit by a wall and lean on it, in a tipi there is nowhere to lean
and one has to sit cross legged all night.
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| Traditional Navajo costume |
The art exhibition is really a minor thing, far more
important are exhibitions of cattle and especially sheep, always a
pride of the Navajos. There are also musical events, like a powwow.
Dancers dressed in outfits full of feathers and jingles, musicians
singing in high falsettos to the rhythm of drums - exactly as we
imagine the Sioux. In fact a powwow is a colourful event derived in a
big part from traditions of the Sioux. In recent years it became kind
of pan-Indian, but for the Navajos it is quite new. The traditional
Navajo music and dance can also be seen at the fair but at a
different corner of the grounds. Having seen a powwow a few times I
go to see the Navajo traditional dance. Dancers are dressed in a
traditional way, but a traditional Navajo dress has nothing to do
with what we imagine as an Indian dress. Long skirts made of fabric,
velvet shirts, cowboy hats and boots, turquoise and silver jewellery,
bracelets, earrings, necklaces, all worn by both men and women.
Fethers are nowhere to be seen. The music is sung, a few voices
accompanied only by a little drum. The melodic line is (to my
European ear) not that different from the powwow chant but here it is
sung with a normal voice, not falsetto. Everything is much less
showy, less exotic, but does it matter? This is not for tourists.
Here the Navajos dance and play for themselves.
Of course there is also a rodeo, a national sport in
Navajoland. There are a few disciplines during a rodeo, like lassoing
a calf or catching a calf by the horns from the saddle. I could guess
these are normal work for cowboys (by the way all cowboys here are
Indians), but there are also absurd disciplines, like bull riding.
The point is to get on a bull's back and stay there for more than
eight seconds. I guess in Europe this discipline would not be legal
because of health and safety regulations. The cowboy of course always
falls of the bull and to make sure the bull is no more interested in
him - there are other guys in the ring shaking rags at the bull. The
bull starts chasing them and the cowboy can pick himself up and walk
away. When the bull feels nobody on his back, he calms down and is
driven from the ring.
Everybody comes with tents to the fair because there
otherwise there is nowhere to stay in Window Rock. Thank God there is
a supermarket where one can find food and the latest issue of Navajo
Times. I have bought it and I saw pictures from... you won't believe
it - Miss Navajo competition. Do you think I learned whether Navajo
girls have big or small boobs? Not at all! This is not the point of
this competition. The ladies come to the competition fully dressed in
a Navajo traditional costume (which itself is a surprise, as I
explained above). Miss Navajo had to prove that she can do well what
Navajo women are supposed to do. Of course she has to be a fluent
Navajo speaker, without it she cannot even enter. She has to prove
that she can bake bread on a camp fire. She has to prove also that
she can change a sheep into mutton. She has to cut its throat, skin
it and roast it. There were some pictures from it in the paper.
Well, it looks like I missed a good photo opportunity.
* * *
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| Falling off a bull |
Our neighbours in the camp site are bullfighters
employed at the rodeo. These are the guys who run around the ring
trying to attract attention of the bull after the rider has been
thrown off his back. They are a friendly bunch, come for a cup of
coffee and a chat every morning and every evening. Hearing my
questions about the life on the rez one of them, named Theron, says:
"You should stay on the reservation for some time.
I can show you around. Then you could see more about real life of the
Indians."
After the fair we drive to his place, following his car.
We drive along the road that runs parallel to the Chuska Mountains,
directly to the north. The Chuska Mountains cut through Navajoland
from north to south like the spine. On both sides of it there is a
plain on which here and there stand fantastically shaped rocks like
huge animals petrified by some magic spell. The Navajos say they they
are indeed animals that were turned into rock long ago so people
could be safe. For example a rock that raises nearly five hundred
metres above the plain, called Shiprock by the whites, is really a
huge bird better to be kept at a distance. Even roads are built far
around it. Even the road that runs right through the reservation from
north to south, parallel to the mountains, most of the time straight
like an arrow, bending only when there is a magic rock animal to keep
at a safe distance. Some bends have names on a map as if it was a
village or something, but there is no village to be seen there, just
a bend of the road. Buffalo Springs, where Theron lives, is such a
named bend of the road. Theron lives in a caravan in the yard of a
western-style house, where his father lives with his young wife.
There are not many western-style houses on the reservation, most
Navajos still live in hogans. This may be because traditionally after
a person's death everything he or she owned is burned, house
included. Perhaps it is easier to burn a hogan than a two-storey
house with several bedrooms.
I ask Theron's father, who after all lives in a big
house, whether the custom of burning the house is still practised. He
says yes, but only if that person dies at home. If he or she dies in
a hospital, then there is no need to burn the house. The house where
he lives with his present wife used to belong to her grandmother, but
she died in a hospital in Gallup and the granddaughter inherited it.
Her parents live in a hogan nearby. There are also hogans where
nobody lives, they are used for ceremonies only.
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| Navajo weaver |
The Navajos have their share of problems that plague our
modern society. Theron lives in a caravan because his wife chucked
him out and he cannot see his daughter. His father also split up with
Theron's mum after many years of marriage and found another wife,
half his age. Theron lives with his father but he takes us to see his
mum as well. She is a traditional Navajo weaver. She does not live in
a hogan but in a little housing estate where a few modern houses have
been built close to each other. They have been funded by the
Reservation Council. Theron's mum says that it is strange to live so
close to other people. When she was little her family didn't live in
one place but moved with the seasons. They had one hogan down on the
plains, one up on high alps and one in between. When she was very
little they had to carry beds from place to place but later the beds
stayed and they only moved mattresses. A hogan would have just one
space indoors but her present home has several rooms.
In her bedroom she has a loom set up. It is an Indian
upright loom so it doesn't take much space. Indian weaving is not a
simple thing. It has many secrets that have to be learned over many
years. When the weaver is ready then there is an initiation ceremony.
She herself was taught and initiated by her grandfather. Recently the
Todlaena Trading Post published a book about some weavers who had
never been initiated. They were probably more accessible to talk to
because the real weavers don't want to reveal their secrets. Now that
the book is published the tourists will but it and will think that
those ladies are the elite of Navajo weavers, but they are not.
I am also shown things that Theron's mum made recently.
For example a birthing belt. In the old days the Navajo women would
give birth kneeling, holding a belt that was tied high above her, for
example to a tree branch. Afterwards the belt would be tightly tied
around her waist so the good figure would be preserved.
Theron's mum started her flow of words as soon as she
heard that I am interested in Navajo culture. I like interviews like
this, when I don't have to ask anything and my interlocutor tells me
what is important to him or her.
She tells me about traditional herbal medicine. There
are plenty of secrets there, too. Not only the knowledge of the
plants is needed, also what to say to the plants while gathering
them. When gathering herbs one has to talk about the patient,
otherwise the plants don't even know whom they are supposed to heal.
The herbs that one can buy at the market in little packets are
useless because when they were gathered they didn't hear whom they
were supposed to heal. Theron's mum is herself a herbalist but her
mum knows much more and if I am interested in it I could go to see
her. She is still alive but doesn't feel well and is now in a care
home. Ever since her husband died she lost her will to live.
Theron says that he has huge respect for his grandmother
and will gladly take us to see her. He says that it was the
grandmother who was his guide in life. He could always trust her
advice. We go to see her the next day in Farmington, a town just
outside the rez. It is actually a hospital, the nurses are Navajo
girls who speak the language. This is important as some patients
don't know English. We go to the room where the grandmother was.
There are also other ladies in that room. One of them doesn't speak
English, which was immaterial because she is completely deaf. Justyna
tries to communicate with her somehow and every so often both of them
burst laughing.
"This is an old cowgirl, she used to be a rodeo
champion", says Theron.
He himself talks long to his grandmother. I can't take
part in the conversation because it is all conducted in Navajo. He
later explains to her why we came but she is not in a good shape and
there is no point asking her about herbs. As we drive back he tells
us what he talked about with the granny: he asked her whether it was
a right time to date another woman.
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| Old cowgirl |
There is one more person to ask about the dating issue,
Theron's uncle who is a roadman of the American Indian Church.
American Indian Church is a new religion that has nothing to do with
healing ceremonies celebrated on sand paintings. Ordinary Indians
nevertheless consider roadmen to be somehow connected to the
supernatural world and go to them if they have problems in life.
Theron wants to show us the life of the rez, but why not ask some
personal question as well? There must be some evil forces involved if
his wife left him, he can't see the children and doesn't have
anybody, doesn't even have a place to live. He doesn't have anybody
and is not sure whether to look for somebody else as it may
complicate matters even more.
The uncle lives in a normal house but just next door
there is a cleanly kept hogan, probably for ceremonies. We are
received not in the hogan but in a kitchen of the house. A kitchen
apparently can be used for ceremonies, too. The uncle has a toolbox
in which one would expect to see a set of wrenches and files, but he
keeps other things in it. There is an eagle feather, a red stone
pipe, a crystal, a little cactus and a few other objects. I have seen
collections like this among the Ojibways in Canada, although they
kept them in their sacred bundles. These sacred bundles nowadays look
like expensive wallets. Apparently in Arizona a toolbox can be used
for the same purpose.
The ceremony itself is short. On a small rug (Navajo
style, of course) a few objects are arranged: a little flute, a
little crystal, a cactus. The uncle says something in Navajo, plays
the flute for a minute, stares into the crystal. I don't even notice
when the ceremony is over because both it and the conversation
between Theron and the uncle are in Navajo. At one point the uncle
asks if I have any questions. I am not prepared for an interview but
I do ask about the little cactus. It is peyote, it doesn't grow in
Arizona. It has to be brought from Texas and it costs a lot of money.
I m given the little cactus to hold for a moment.
"I inherited this one from my father and he
inherited it from his" says the uncle.
On our way back Theron says he couldn't believe I was
given the little cactus to hold.
"It is considered so holy that during ceremonies it
is at the top of the altar and can only be seen from afar".
Theron is fantastic, he does whatever he can to show us
his country - Navajoland - and indeed we can see much more than an
overage tourist would, but we probably will never be able to see it
the way he sees it. Some evil forces are afoot, therefore he lives in
a trailer. The uncle can see something about these forces staring in
his crystal. And how about the huge animals turned into stone? All
over Navajoland there are these rocks that look like huge animals and
for the Navajos this exactly what they are. They have been turned
into stone but better to keep away from them. Even roads are built
around them with an wide arch.
Shiprock is a good example. It may look like a ship to
the white people but the Navajos know: it is a huge bird, better to
be seen from afar. Thank God the road goes around it by a wide
margin.
 |
| Shiprock |
You will find this text,
and many more on the subject,
in my book "DO THEY STILL LIVE IN WIGWAMS?":
