Pioneer Day on Navajo Mountain

PIONEER DAYS AT NAVAJO MOUNTAIN IT'S A TIME THE CLANS GATHER TO REMEMBER THEIR TRADITIONS

Or Stella Drake, Navajo Mountain Pioneer Day is more than an occasion to see family and old friends. The day holds special meaning because her late husband, Harold, started it. "First thing in the morning, Harold would pray. For things won't happen, that all things go right. I did that this morning," Stella said. For the past 28 years, Pioneer Day has been held the first Saturday in August at this remote spot in the Navajo Nation in far northern Arizona. Harold, with the help of Rex Neztsosie, Ray Bigman, Joe Manygoats, and other local people, went out to the trading posts seeking donations for prizes. Tears came to Stella's eyes as the memories flooded back. How on the morning of every Pioneer Day, Harold was the first one out to get things ready. And how he'd run in the races and sometimes walk in the parade of the elders.

At first, 50 or 60 people, mostly from Navajo Mountain, attended. Jean De Jolie, a small girl when she went to the first Pioneer Day, remembers her grandparents going on horseback, while she

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came “in a beat-up old truck.” Now the crowd, 500 or more, arrives in pickups from all over the western part of the Navajo Nation. Some from farther: Oklahoma, Illinois, California, even Germany. Everyone, it seems, is related somehow, through marriage or clan ties, which are central to Navajo identity. The trucks begin to gather early in the morning along both sides of a quartermile dirt track, surrounded by nothing but sage and rabbitbrush about to cover the treeless land with yellow bloom. Sunshades and umbrellas pop up, and people settle in for the day. Entrepreneurs sell cold pop, candied apples, and other treats from the tailgates of their trucks. The smell of Navajo tacos and mutton stew fills the air. The announcer up in the reviewing stand maintains a bilingual litany as the various races and competitions take place.

The strongest presence is Navajo Mountain, Naatsis' aan, a sacred, powerful mass looming huge in the background. Navajos came to the rough canyon country surrounding the mountain to hide from Col. Kit Carson, who in 1864 was ordered by his commander to escort more than 8,000 Navajos to a military reservation at Fort Sumner. The torturous journey to Fort Sumner, or Bosque Redondo, on the Pecos River in central New Mexico would become known forever to the Navajos as "the Long Walk." The 300-mile journey itself and the four years of captivity at Bosque Redondo were the result of U.S. military action against the Navajos who had been been raiding and killing in Arizona and New Mexico territories. After four years, the federal government realized that the reservation on the Pecos was a failure. A treaty was arranged that gave the Navajos the heart of their current

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reservation, which has since increased in size to 25 million acres, and allowed the 7,000 surviving Navajos to return to their traditional homelands in the Four Corners area. Nonetheless, the forced relocation remains one of the darkest moments in Navajo history, one that few Navajos today have forgotten. (See Arizona Highways, January '88.) It is to honor those elders and their descendants that Harold Drake started Pioneer Day. The main focus, explained organizer and emcee Leo Manheimer, is to recognize those who "started and made the Navajo Mountain community what it is today.

A highlight of the celebration is the parade of the elders. Toward noontime, the older people gather for the Little Long Walk. Dressed in their finest traditional clothes, the men in green velvet shirts, the women in burgundy satin skirts, all with their best turquoise and silver, walk as a group down the dirt track. One grandmother, stooped and moving slowly with the help of a cane, leaves the shade of the juniper-covered ramada and joins them midway. Before the stand, flags are posted and the war veterans recognized. The men remove their black hats and all bow their heads for a prayer, spoken in Navajo. They stand patiently in the sun, faces weathered like the canyons around Navajo Mountain, while other speeches are given. The crowd watches and listens with reverence and respect.

Jean De Jolie translates for me: "This is in remembrance of our old ways, our grandparents; this is in their memory... now we go back to remember how they used to live." Then the oldest among them receive gifts: a fine Pendleton blanket, a new hat, watermelons, and bags of sugar, potatoes, and Blue Bird flour. Earlier Jean had introduced me to some of the grandmothers. I extended my hand in the gentle way Navajos greet one another. "Ya' at' eeh," I said, the one Navajo word I feel any confidence uttering. I cast my eyes to the ground, hoping to accord the great respect I felt in meeting them.

The Navajo Mountain community (both in Arizona and just across the border in Utah) today numbers about a thousand families. Their names are like music. Smallcanyon, Onesalt, Greyeyes, Laughter.

It remains one of the smallest and most isolated communities on the reservation. A telephone is hard to come by; mail is delivered a few days a week from 60 miles away at Tonalea. A doctor comes once a week from Inscription House for a clinic.

A 20-mile sandy washboard road provides access to the rest of the reservation and towns such as Kayenta and Blanding. The road is being surveyed with the intent of paving it, something certain to bring big changes to Navajo Mountain, but which most people seemed to welcome. They are tired of spending all their money on new tires and shock absorbers.

Once the trading post was the center of the community, but it has closed. Too hard to get gasoline trucks in on the road, said trader Dick Johnson, and too many regulations to meet. Now, a few miles away from the post, a modern school and subdivision of new houses with television satellite dishes and hollyhocks and horses grazing in the yards comprise what is called Rainbow City. Other Navajos live in traditional hogans scattered around the base of the mountain, and Paiute people, including some expert basketmakers, also live here.

Many young people have left Navajo Mountain to seek an education and to find jobs. But Pioneer Day weekend gives families a chance to reunite, maybe butcher and roast a goat, catch up on everyone's news, and celebrate a graduation or a wedding.

As Stella Drake and I talked, people hugged each other and children scrambled for fluorescent yellow tennis balls, which Danny Davey threw out from the back of a big U-Haul. For the last dozen years, Davey, a non-Indian, and his friends have driven a truck from California, stacked to the roof with boxes of blankets, pots and pans, purses, umbrellas, sewing ma-chines, yard goods, and untold other items to be given out as prizes for the var-ious events.

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Davey is a story himself. Former President George Bush honored him as one of the country's Thousand Points of Light for his volunteer efforts. He also was a subject of Ralph Edwards' television show, "This Is Your Life." At his home in South-ern California, Davey, a retired UPS carrier, spends the better part of the year collecting used goods to bring to Navajo Mountain in August.

Why does he do it? "Because it makes people laugh," Davey answered simply. "It's like opening a bottle of champagne. I get a warm heart out of doing this." Some personal brushes with death, he said, made him decide he wanted to help people, specifically Southwest Indians. Besides the Pioneer Day prizes, he gives scholarships, cooks turkey dinners, plays Santa Claus, helps set up sewing clubs, and represents Indian artists and craftspeople. "The Indians call me The Roadrunner," Davey said, laughing, "because I stay on the move so much."

Footraces, horse races, tugs-of-war, and a steady stream of fun and games continue throughout Pioneer Day. Races run by children as young as three years start first thing in the morning. Anyone can participate, no registration or fee required, and everybody wins a prize.

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In the 10K run, Leo Manheimer's wife, Sara, a community health worker at Navajo Mountain, runs alongside her mother, Rose. I recognized Rose as the woman I had watched herd sheep out on the road the day before. This morning Rose is dressed in traditional skirt and blouse with a blue baseball hat and run-ning shoes. Her race number is tucked under her silver concha belt. When she finishes the run, she takes a healthy swig of Gatorade.

The horse races are awesome. Mostly young Navajo men thunder down the track, driving their horses at a full run, hell-bent for the finish line. Anyone in their way risks bodily injury. In another display of their prowess, they engage in the "chicken pull." A string extends from a bag of sand that is buried in the middle of the track. One at a time, the agile riders sweep past and try to dip down and grab the string and retrieve the "chicken." It's a tough contest and few succeed. Some fall off their horses. They just get up, dust themselves off, and walk away grinning.

And then there are the events Danny Davey loves: the races for his blankets, purses, and pots and pans. He passes down the boxes from the U-Haul, and they're spread out at one end of the track. At the other end, the racers take their places. In a great free-for-all, the men barrel toward the boxes of blankets, grabbing them and carrying them off with glee.

Then the women line up for the pots and pans. Those in the 50-year-and-older class gather at the starting line. Some have removed their jewelry. I see Rose among them, poised and ready. The announcer warns the crowd to move back so they won't get run over. After a false start, the women charge down the track. They walk away swinging teakettles, toasters, skillets, and cheese graters.

From the back of his truck, Danny Davey lets out an exuberant cheer for the racers. Stella Drake stands nearby, watching it all, remembering the years and honoring the elders, as she knows Harold Drake would have wished. On a clear day, Flagstaff-based Rose Houk can see Navajo Mountain from the top of the San Francisco Peaks. LeRoy De Jolie lives on the Navajo Indian Reservation in the community of LeChee. He specializes in photographing landscapes and Native Americans.