The Navajo in Literature

THE Navajo IN LITERATURE BY JOSEPH MILLER

TO HAVE experienced the rare beauty of the Navajo Country its golden sand-swept plateaus, its great rock-strewn regions studded with red and brown hills and purple mountains-torn by gullies and deep colorful canyons its glorious sunsets and rainbows, vapor-carpeted mornings and star-studded nights is a privilege unsurpassed. And to know something of its people their way of life, their customs and traditions, their fine horsemen, flocks of sheep and goats; the products of their looms and of their silversmiths, is to give added impetus to one's enthusiasm and appreciation for the country. This great region, the Navajo Reservation, covers sixteen million acres some twenty-five thousand square miles, and upon it live fifty thousand of their people. One might say, and correctly, that the Navajos live in a world all their own, for anyone visiting the Navajo country is immediately impressed with a feeling that he has entered a far different world.

Navajoland presents a glorious kaleidoscope of nature's riotous handiwork, and yet, there is a reflection of quietude and dignity such as the quiet of a horseman streaking across the distant horizon, or just jogging lazily along the roadside or across the mesa. The quiet of a weaver busy at her loom, or of a sleeping child. Navajoland, the land of the sun and the wind and the clouds, the land of ethereal loveliness, the land of the proud and good people known as the Navajos.

Almost every phase and type of literature has been employed to express the spirit of the Navajo country short stories, tales of adventure, novels, poetry, description and legends. Only through having lived among the Navajos and having learned something of the Diné, or The People, as they call themselves, can a writer hope to convey the "feel" of this land and its people, and only the literature carrying this stamp of authenticity can hope to survive.

Dr. Washington Matthews, an authority on the Navajos, resided in their land for eight years until 1880, and thereafter devoted his spare time for twenty-one years to the study of the material he had collected. The most important of his works are the "Navajo Legends." He left a great number of publications as well as a mass of unpublished matter from which numerous writers have gleaned much of their authentic material.

Edgar Lee Hewett noted archaeologist, authority on Indians is quoted by Coolidge in "The Rain Makers" as follows: "In his Southwest the Indian is a harmonious element in a landscape that is incomparable in the nobility of color and mass and feeling of the unchangeable. He never dominates it. he belongs there as do the mesas, skies, sunshine, spaces, and other living creatures. He takes his part in it with the clouds, winds, rocks, plants, birds and beasts, with drum beat and chant and symbolic gesture, keeping time with the seasons, moving in orderly procession with nature, holding to the unity of life in all things, seeking no superior place for himself but merely a state of harmony with all created things the most rhythmic life as far as I know, that is lived among the races of men. The native American viewed nature as the great source of all existences. Vast spaces and solitudes, the play of thought induced by desert, prairies, mountains, forests, skies and elemental forces."

Mary R. Coolidge in "The Rain Makers," published by Houghton-Mifflin of Boston, writes, "According to their own origin legends they were created about 500 years ago and wandered in Arizona and New Mexico in small groups until they were strong enough to attract the neighboring tribes. At the time the Spaniards came they were living largely by raiding and looting the settlements of their Pueblo neighbors. Whatever they wanted they took The Spaniards brought in horses as well as sheep, and these the Navajo stole, and within a century became a nation of horsemen as they are today. When he needed transportation, he stole horses and bred them. When he wanted cloth, he stole or captured Pueblo weavers, and his women learned to make the crude loom and to weave wool as well as cotton. He bartered for, or stole, the Mexican silver coins from which he has developed an elaborate and characteristic type of silverwork, different from the Mexican."

One of the more dramatic events in connection with the history of the Navajos a story told and re-told in many writings is the Kit Carson Expedition into the Canyon de Chelly country. Alarmed at the incessant raiding by the Navajos, the government finally decided they must be subdued. Several treaties had been signed after various military groups had gone into their country, but these were broken again and again. In her book, "The Unvanishing Navajo," published by Dorrance and Co. of Philadelphia, Belle Shafer Sullivan tells of this incident.

"Even after the conquest of New Mexico by the United States forces in 1840, followed by the establishment of military posts throughout the Southwest, this ever alert tribe of Indians, though having been wards of the United States as an outcome of the Mexican War, continued their raids at intervals. Expeditions led against them proved of no avail in keeping the plundering in check, until 1863, when many troops of hard-riding soldiers under the leadership of Kit Carson, began combing the haunts and hiding places of these raiders. By the close of 1864, with most of their flocks and herds either taken for military use or slain, this on-going tribe that had never before really met a master was finally subdued, thought it well known that all the Navajos were not taken captive during Kit Carson's invasion.

"Many of these Indians, herded from protective canyons and desert retreats, as well as others, destitute and half starved who had voluntarily surrendered, were transferred to a military reservation in eastern New Mexico known as Bosque Redondo (now Fort Sumner). There, more than eight thousand transplanted members of the tribe strove to become peaceful tillers of the soil. But the undertaking at Bosque Redondo proved ill-adapted to the life of the roving Navajo. So in 1868, after the death of about a thousand of them and the escape of others, the government, now realizing the pastoral tendency of its wards sent the remainder back to their old country after four years of confinement." They were given a few sheep by the government which enabled them to start life anew in their own way and in their own land.

In their book "The Navajo Indians," published by Houghton Mifflin of Boston, Dane and Mary R. Coolidge, who traveled the length and breadth of the Navajo country, learning from trader, Indian and government official alike, the story of the Diné, say "They have a religion so involved, a mythology so intricate, that no man in his lifetime could record a tenth of it. Nor can we penetrate far, through the veil of ancient ritual, to the mysticism that lies hidden behind." In this fine book much of the legend and history, life and customs, arts and crafts, mythology and ceremony, and of their government is told.

Writing of Navajo taboos and superstitions, George Wharton James in his volume, "The Indians of the Painted Desert Region," published by Little & Brown of Boston, notes, "The taboo is in existence in all its force among the Navajo. The most singular of these is that which forbids a man ever to look upon the face of his mother-in-law. Each believes that serious consequence will follow if they see each other." In "Navajo Omens and Taboos," by Franc Johnson Newcomb, a great number of the known Navajo taboos are covered.

Turquoise plays an important social, religious and economic role with the Navajo. He believes in charms, witchcraft, taboo, magic, and all the wondrous things he can conceive. For the gambler, his talisman is a piece of fine turquoise.

In "Use of Turquoise Among the Navajo," Gertrude Frances Hill relates, "From the very beginning turquoise has been a part of their life. There is scarcely a single part of their Origin Legend that does not contain a reference to it.

"Ceremonially, turquoise is of infinite importance to the Navajo. Soft turquoise is pulverized and mixed with water to form blue paint for the prayer sticks. Powdered turquoise is almost always used in sand paintings, as well as for coloring masks. A charm of turquoise is often fastened to the forelock of a patient during some ceremonies. "The Navajos always wear turquoise somewhere, if only a tiny bead fastened to the hair. Seldom are the people seen without necklaces, ear pendants and rings of turquoise."

There are quite a number of medicine men among the Navajos. They are the high priests of the tribe. He professes to know how to cure all the ills of mind and body. In fact, to the Navajos disease is nothing more than the working of evil spirits. He believes if this evil spirit can be driven out of his body he will speedily recover. To the Navajo all things that work injury to him are bad medicine. Death among the Navajos brings many problems conflicting with their beliefs. When one dies within a hogan the hogan is deserted. If at all possible and practical, a sick person is removed from the hogan before death occurs. The Navajo will go miles to get a trader or an agency employee or missionary to take the body away for burial. When a death occurs, the hogan is immediately deserted and generally burned. After abandoning the hogan, it is thereafter avoided. In a certain instance, a trail through the Indian country makes a sharp, seemingly unnecessary detour around a certain spot. Inquiring of the accompanying trader he advised that the reason for the detour was to avoid going too near a spot where a hogan, in which a death occurred, once stood. Like all Indians, the Navajos are intensely religious, and his religion evolves in his great rites and ceremonials, commonly called dances. Their ceremonials are long, elaborate, poetic and ritualistic, abounding in long chants. They sometimes last several days and nights. None of his great religious ceremonies have ever been thoroughly understood by the white man and doubtless never will be as the white man doesn't think alike with the Indian.

Mrs. White Mountain Smith, in her book, "Indian Tribes of the Southwest," published by Stanford University Press in California, says.

"Perhaps the rarest and most costly dance given by the Navajo is the Fire Dance.

"A young mother with three sick babies under five years of age left them sleeping in her log hogan and walked three miles to the hogan of her mother to obtain food for them. She fastened the door from the outside so that the children could not wake and crawl outside have appealed in the traveler. Their lives, their religion, their myths, their customs have been subjects of careful studies.

where a cold wind was blowing. When she returned with a brother the hogan was a smouldering heap of ashes, and she fought free from her brother's restraining hands and rushed into the ashes searching for the bodies of her babies. She was badly burned and the wounds would not heal. Her clan decided upon a Fire Dance to cure the burns and bring her poor grief-sodden brain back to normal.

"Inside a great corral of piñon boughs woven into a tight fence the huge bonfire was built. Nine days were spent in various ceremonies, and the last night ended the dance in a blaze of glory. From a fire inside the Medicine Hogan coal was carried for lighting the big pile, after which the mother was assisted to a place very near it. The medicine man touched her head, her poor burned hands and feet, her ears and lips, with a bough of juniper, which he immediaely cast upon the fire. At the same instant at least a dozen naked Navajos appeared, completely smeared with a soapy white clay, even their hair being plastered with the mixture. Each man carried a long bundle of finely shredded cedar bark. They raced madly around the inclosure, leaping and shrieking, coming nearer and nearer the fire until at the same moment every actor lighted his torch in the flames. Then came the wildest, maddest, performance of all. They lashed one another over their bare bodies with the flaming fagots. At times they whipped themselves with the burning brands, and as the torch burned too low to hold longer it was flung upon the hard earth and the dancer darted away in the darkness, followed by the jeering taunts of his hardier companions. When the end of the torch landed it was instantly covered with a fighting mob of Navajos, each seeking to obtain a shred of the scorched cedar to place in his hogan to safeguard it from fire and to use in the treatments of burns, which are all too many, what with open fires and full-flowing calico skirts. When the last torch burned low the dance was ended."

Many of the Navajo legends are very beautiful in thought, imagination and in telling. Perhaps more loved by both the men and the women of the tribe, next to their families, are their horses. In "The Indian Book," written by Natalie Curtis in 1907, "The Song of the Horse" as sung and told by the Navajos gives some indication of their great admiration and feeling toward these faithful companions.

"Johano-ai starts each day from his hogan, in the east, and rides across the skies to his hogan in the west, carrying the shining golden disk, the sun. He has five horses a horse of turquoise, a horse of white shell, a horse of pearl shell, a horse of red shell and a horse of coal. When the skies are blue and the weather is fair, Johano-ai is riding his turquoise horse or his horse of white shell or of pearl; but when the heavens are dark with storm, he has mounted the red horse or the horse of coal.

"Beneath the hoofs of the horse are spread precious hides of all kinds, and beautiful woven blankets, richly decorated, called 'naskan.' In olden times the Navajos used to wear such blankets, and men say they were first found in the home of the sun-god.

"Johano-ai pastures his herds on flower blossoms and gives them to drink of the mingled waters. These are holy waters, waters of all kinds, spring-water, snow-water, hail-water and water from the four quarters of the world. The Navajos use such waters in their rites. When the horse of the sun-god goes, he raises not dust, but "Pitistchi," glittering grains of mineral such as are used in religious ceremonies. And when he rolls, and shakes himself, it is shining 'pitistchi' that flies from him. When he runs, the sacred pollen offered to the sun-god is all about him, like dust, so that he looks like mist; for the Navajos sometimes say that the mist on the horizon is the pollen that has been offered to the gods.

"The Navajo sings of the horses of Johano-ai in order that he, too, may have beautiful horses like those of the sun-god. Standing among his herd he scatters holy pollen, and sings for the blessing and protection of his animals."

In the "Pulse of the Pueblo, Personal Glimpses of Indian Life," published by Seton Village Press in Santa Fe, Julia M. Seton relates an interesting sidelight on the Navajo woman and the horse. "There was a wonderful dance scheduled to take place at the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico. We were anxious to attend the dance . . .

"As we crossed Arizona, we met many Navajos on horseback, making the long trek to Laguna too. Their own homes were far from the scene of the dance; some had to ride three hundred miles, but they never miss a ceremony of this kind if they can help it. This one seemed more worth while than many, for it was to last three days.

"The Navajos, especially the women, are unusual riders. We watched them with pleasure as we passed at intervals. Their proud and erect bearing, their graceful carriage, made us think of the old legend of the Centaur.

"Unexpectedly, we were delayed for a while the day before our arrival; so that when we got there, the festival had been going on for some time. In the plaza of the Pueblo was being performed the age-old dance for rain. It was a glorious sight, an inspiring ritual.

"There were many onlookers present, both white and red. Among our numerous friends we saw a good many Navajos, but all men. The women seemed to have disappeared, and we wondered what it meant. During an interval of the dance, we wandered about the Pueblo...

"At the far end . . . was a merry-go-round of the old circus type. The circle of dummy horses enclosed the usual calliope, with the attendant in charge, to collect the five-cent fare for each ride . . .

"Here, on every wooden horse of the circle, sat a Navajo woman, her full skirts draped across the dummy, her eyes fixed staringly ahead, but with a beatific expression on her usually stolid face.

"On inquiry, we were told by the attendant that ever since the Navajos had arrived yesterday, he had had no vacant horse on a single ride. The women the very ones we had seen riding like queens on their beautiful steeds, alive and quick to respond to every thought of their riders had even sold some of their bracelets and earrings to turn into nickels, so they might ride to their heart's content on thes sordid imitations and this after some three-hundred miles of steady trot-trot over the wild free desert sands.

"The ways of man are passing strange but those of women are stranger."

Frances Gillmor and Louisa Wade Wetherill collaborated in producing "Traders to the Navajos," the story of the Wetherills of Kayenta. According to an account in Book Review Digest, published by H. W. Wilson Company, New York: It begins with an account of the coming of two pioneer families, the Wades and the Wetherills, into the Southwest some seventy years ago, and memories of the life in early primitive surroundings. Later comes the story of the Wetherill brothers who were among the first to become seekers for the prehistoric relics of the Southwestern Indians. Finally there is the story of Louisa Wade Wetherill, who as wife of an Indian trader learned to know and understand not only the language and ways of living of the Navajos but their thoughts and feelings, and ancient traditions. Of this book the New York Herald Tribune says, "It is full of hot sand and the wild loneliness and romantic mystery of that land of jagged rock and thick sand, and of stories of the native people."

Gladys Amanda Reichard, an anthropologist connected with Barnard College, has spent much time among the Navajo Indians, and she has been responsible for many of the finest works on these people. In her very popular "Dezba; Woman of the Desert," she tells a story of a Navajo family. According to Book Review Digest, Dezba, the central character, is a synthetic portrait of a Navajo woman; wife, mother, and grandmother, and the experiences which she encounters are the usual happenings in the daily lives of these Southwestern Indians.

In her “Spider Woman,” Book Review Digest says, Gladys Reichard tells of how, during the several summers she lived among the Navajos and learned the art of weaving Navajo rugs from three women. She also tells of the intimate ways of Indian life, their weddings, war dances, death customs, and the mystically complicated medicine chants. The “Shooting Chant” offered by Red Point for the cure of Marie and Ninaba’s illness lasts nine days, four days of cleansing and preparations for sacrifices; four more when the sacred sand paintings are made, and the final ceremony, after which “all has been restored in beauty.” The book portrays the simplicity and steadfastness of Indian character, and it gives some insight into the Indian’s profound peace and calm acceptance of life.

Other important contributions of Gladys Reichard are “Navajo Medicine Man,” “The Social Life of the Navajo Indians,” and “Navajo Shepherd and Weaver.” Perhaps the most important contribution to the arts coming out of the Navajo country are the beautiful rugs woven by the women. Unlike their neighbors, the Hopi, from whom this art was adopted, the Navajo weavers are all women, while among the Hopi, the men do the weaving. There has been much written about the Navajo rug and its weavers. One excellent book on the subject is by Charles Avery Amsden, titled, “Navajo Weaving, its Technic and History,” published by the Fine Arts Press, Santa Ana, Calif. In a foreword it states, “A comprehensive study of Navajo weaving from other than the purely esthetic aspect—the technical point of view. The volume presents the technic of the weaver’s craft and a resume of our archaeological knowledge of the long career of the loom and its prototypes in the prehistoric Southwest, describes and illustrates in detail (with magnificent color plates) the various weaves used by the Navajos, and records the process employed in making their native dyes.” Navajo silverwork is treated in a booklet by Gertrude F. Hill, “The Art of the Navajo Silversmith.” Another interesting book is “A Brief History of Navajo Silversmithing,” by Arthur Woodward.

In the fiction field, a few extraordinary novels have been written on the Navajo and their land. Oliver La Farge, who came to Arizona as an archaeologist, traversed hundreds of miles of Indian country and made extensive observations of Indian manners and customs before writing his Pulitzer Prize Winner, “Laughing Boy.” Of it the Book Review Digest says, “The story of the life and ideals of a young Navajo, Laughing Boy, and his mate, Slim Girl. The Navajo ceremonial dances, Laugh ing Boy’s work in the fashioning of silver and turquoise bracelets and his wife’s rug weaving, Contact with other Indian tribes and with traders and a more evil contact with the white man’s civilization, form the background of this novel of modern Indian life.” Book List calls the novel an almost perfect specimen of the sustained and tempered; the lyrical, romantic idyll. It moves along among conceptions of life so foreign to those of our naturalistic faction that it would seem to belong to a different kind of writing. It is filled with love, with nature; it is also filled with morals and religion. The love and nature are ours, as they are anybody’s; the morals and religion are those of the Indian. We are thus trans ported into a strange foreign and rather pleas ant civilization. La Farge has written a book about Indians that is, and that is likely to be so called ten and twenty years from now, real literature. Another important novel by La Farge is “Enemy Gods.” Mrs. Laura Adams Armer won the New berry Prize for her children’s story, “Waterless Mountain,” the story of Younger Brother, a sensitive, beauty-loving Navajo boy of the present day, who is in training under his uncle for the office of Medicine Priest. Interwoven, with the story of Younger Brother’s life are stories of mystery and magic which form part of the religion of these Navajo Indians. Noth ing in the book is finer than the author’s pre sentation of the poet of a primitive people and his response to the beauty and mystery with which he feels himself surrounded, says Book Review Digest. Two other delightful stories on the Navajo by Mrs. Armer are "Dark Circle of Branches," and "Southwest."

"INDUSTRY"

Jonreed Lauritzen's "Arrows Into the Sun," published by Knopf, New York City, N. Y., is set in the Navajo country about the Grand Canyon in the 1860's. It is the beautiful story of Sigor, the son of a white father and a part Navajo mother. When Sigor's beloved mother was killed by a band of slave hunters from Mexico, the boy joins his white father. The struggle for his white heritage was a long one, but with the help of a beautiful and spir ited Mormon girl, he won out. (Book Review Digest). Of the book, critics says it is a beautiful book because of the exquisite precision of the style in registering landscape, atmosphere effects, and the like physical elements of the Great West. It blazes with vignettes of the true West a picture obscured, for so many readers, by a generation of horse operas. From the first page it is obvious that the author has his country and his people at his finger-tips; his book contains some of the purest descriptive writing. (Book Review Digest). It is a first novel.

"Windsinger," by Frances Gillmor, is the story of Windsinger, the Navajo prophet who was orphaned at an early age, became leader of the tribal chants, married a beautiful girl, but never forgot the high destiny to which he believed he had been called. The Indian's spiritual life and his awareness of beauty predominates this fine story. (Book Review Digest).

Mrs. Florence Means, in her "Tangled Waters," tells of Altolie, a young Navajo girl whose brief glimpses of the ways of the white folks has given her a vague longing for cleanliness and order though she still loves the seminomadic life of her people. In spite of opposition and poverty, she goes one winter to a mission school, and then, with the aid of her friend, a Navajo boy, and the help of her mother, she finally is strong enough to defy the old grandmother who would prevent her return to school. (Book Review Digest).

"Little Navajo Bluebird," by Ann Nolan Clark, is a charming new book for juveniles. It relates the slow hot days of herding sheep with Hobah, the Elder Sister, important trips to the trading post, the hands of mother at the loom, father hammering his dreams into silver and turquoise, the friendly fire and the hogan cat-these were Dobi's world, and it was good. Home was beautiful.

"Only deep down she felt a longing for Big Brother who had gone into the White Man's world, to the school, and had not returned. Her small heart bore the burden of the Navajo, the bitter problems of an age-old people whose Ways have been broken and whose trail has crossed that of the enemy.

"The recognition that this enemy had become a friend, that the White Man's ways need not alter the life of the people but only enrich it and make it easier, forms the story of Doli's growing up in the Red Rocks Country."

Even in poetry, the beauty of the ways of the Navajo takes on an added charm. Cecil Richardson, a trader at Tonalea in the Navajo country gives authentic expression in his "Navajo Medicine Sing," of which the following is a sample; (From Arizona in Literature, by Mary Boyer, and published by the Arthur H. Clark Co.) Beneath a starry sky a hogan stands, Emblazoned on the skyline's painted bands. And now in front the Singers sway and chant; A song of life of death-an ancient kant, To drive away the Evil Spirits' charm, So that the sick will suffer yet no harm.

O little breeze, blow softly, softly now; Caress with care, and cool a fev'rish brow. Beneath a paling sky a hogan looms, A sleepy morning bird with sadness croons, Awakened by this pagan band; Still faithful to its Gods in Painted Land. But now, a figure steals from darkened door; The singing stops its echoes are no more.

O little breeze, blow softly, softly now; Caress with care, and warm a lifeless brow!