Christmas Comes to the Navajos

TO ME there has always been something akin between the shepherds of old Judea and the Navajo people watching their flocks.

And yet, it was given to those shepherds around the hills of Bethlehem to receive the angels' announcement of the birth of our Christ, two thousand years ago, and even today there are many thousand Navajos who have never heard the name Christ, nor the beautiful story of His birth in the land across the seas.

“What's Kishmus?” That pathetic inquiry from a Navajo child goes straight to the heart of the worker among this primitive people. Can it be possible that thousands of human beings living right in the United States, most of them in Arizona, know nothing of the Birthday of Christ! It's painfully true.

The group of loyal friends of the Navajos stationed at Sage Memorial Hospital and Ganado Mission have left no stone unturned in their effort to carry the joy of the Holiday Season into every little Navajo heart and into each hidden away hogan within their reach. At least forty-five hundred of these Indians will hear about Christmas this year, if the labor and planning carried on throughout the year take form. And it surely will. For many years groups have gone to certain designated places where word had been sent ahead and met hundreds of Indians waiting to share the Christmas Dinner and receive the gifts brought out into the forbidding hills by these unselfish people.

At first, fear of the white people, and the more urgent fear of their own medicine men kept the older men and women from joining the crowd that gathered at the community centers or school houses to share in the feast and gifts. But now no white man or woman can pass through the Navajo Reservation after frost has turned the leaves from green to yellow without having to answer time and again the question: “When is Kishmus?” turned the leaves from green to yellow without having to answer time and again the question: “When is Kishmus?” Just how much of the Christmas Story of Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men is understood or believed by the Navajos is hard to say, but sometimes they embarrass the story teller by asking: “Are the people who fight each other across the water white men? Do they know about this Christmas you speak of?” Practically every tribe of Indians on the North American continent has a legend dealing with creation, and most of them know about the flood that came and left such havoc in its wake, but no story of the birth of a common Savior seems to have been handed down from father to son during the centuries.

Each year more and more Navajo Indians are reached with the Christmas celebration. And because the meeting points are so widely scattered over the rough huge reservation, and because snows come sudden and heavy in the higher portions, Christmas has a habit of being most any day between the 15th and the 31st of December! Always two or three days ahead of time, a Navajo who speaks both English and his own language, is sent out to tell the families that on such and such a date, so many suns off, it will be Christmas in that section. To be quite frank, Christmas means, more than anything else, food and warm things to wear brought by these white people who sing songs and will number anywhere from two to fivehundred, the dinner is served. That dinner has cost at least two days hard work. Sheep have to be butchered and dressed and cut up ready for the roast and stew. Wood must he hauled and split, and literally tons of bread either baked in the ovens or fried in deep fat by the helping Navajos. Corn by the bushel is cooked in underground pits, and the Indians as they arrive donate hominy ready to add to the stew or great yellow squash and pumpkin to be baked in the pits. Many of them bring corn bread already cooked. All the food is served in dishes belonging to the day school or community center, and as theFrom far off in the wilderness of Navajo come the Navajo people for the Christmas line is formed families are kept totree party at Ganado Mission and at Sage Memorial Hospital.

tell stories in between the eating and getting of gifts. It's only necessary to tell one or two families in each community, and then by that mystic means of communication of which the white race is entirely ignorant, the news filters into every remote native dwelling within a radious of fifty miles. Whether there are smoke signals invisible to white eyes, measured thump of tom-toms, or certain symbols left beside the trail, I wouldn't venture to say, but our modern telephone is a failure compared to this native mode of news distribution. Few of the Indains have watches or clocks and the hour of meeting is set at "dinnertime." Now, a Navajo is always hungry and dinner time may be anywhere from daylight to dawn, so the gathering is usually done early in the day. Knowing this, one of the workers from the Mission was quite distressed when noon came and the tubs of mutton stew were simmering beside the wash boilers of Arbuckles Best coffee, and not more than a score of visitors had arrived. Worse still, the original messenger was not to be found. She had visions of her Christmas Meeting being almost a failure, when from every hillside Navajo wagons arrived, and literally dozens of dashing young men and women galloped into the campsite. More and more kept coming, and from somewhere in the depths of her bewildered brain this distorted version of Wordsworth came forth: "It is not raining rain to me, It's raining Navajos! From every road and bridle path They come in hordes and droves! It is not raining rain to me,It's raining Navajos!"

The horse of the Navajo invitation carrier had stepped in a gopher hole and broken a leg, and so he was about twentyfour hours late with the Christmas Dinner news. He had walked about thirty miles before he found a friend who supplied him with another pony and helped distribute the invitations. When it becomes known that a Christmas party is in the offing, there is real excitement at the hogan. First of all the one to be left at home with the sheep has to be chosen. That's always a heart breaking thing, being left at home when nice things to eat are sure to be served and gifts are given. It is usually the old grandmother that stays and watches the sheep, and as the family wagon loaded with its happy holiday makers and followed by the dogs, pulls away there are shouted promise to bring back a share of the feast and some nice gift. That helps, but after all, one of the chief joys of going is to see old friends and share in the general excite-ment and joy of feasting and visiting. Once the crowd has gathered, and it gathers together as much as possible so that groups may visit while the food is consumed. There are usually seconds for the older people and the children, and after the coffee is gone, the tin cups are brought back to the serving benches to be filled with canned tomatos or canned peaches, either of which just about means the finest to be had to any Navajo lucky enough to have a serving.

When the feast is finished and the dishes collected and washed and replaced neatly on shelves by the younger Navajos, then the crowd somehow manages to get itself into the biggest room of the building, the men and boys seating themselves on the floor on one side of the room and the women on the other. This is an age-old custom of the Navajos not questioned by their white hosts. Once seated all eyes turn toward the gayly decorated Christmas Tree colorful with popcorn strings and cranberry festoons made by the school children. Under the tree are the gifts made or bought by the school children themselves, who all year through are planning what they'll do with the money they are permitted to earn. Under the tree are packages that hold a few yards of calico or a bright comb or warm gloves. Each little school boy or girl remembers the things most cherished in their hogan (Turn to Page 46)

By Norman G. Wallace