The Navajo Puberty Ceremony

KINAALDÁ Coming of Age in the Navajo Nation

Few non-Navajos ever witness Kinaalda, the people's traditional puberty ceremony. But one morning a Navajo acquaintance telephoned to say that if I drove 370 miles from my New Mexico home to Arizona's Tuba City on the west side of the Navajo Indian Reservation that very day, I could attend Kinaalda for a young girl named Dawn Begaye the following day.Early the next morning, I joined a procession of pickups and vans that shimmied down the rutted road leading to the Begaye family hogan near Coal Mine Mesa, east of Tuba City. Made of timbers and concrete, the 10-sided hogan sat on a rise overlooking yucca-covered grasslands.

East of the hogan, Dawn's father, Glenmore Begaye, was digging a fire pit. He waved his shovel toward chunks of coal the size of sheep and a pile of cedar logs. "We'll burn those all day. Then her cake will bake all night under the coals. That's why some people call Kinaaldá 'making her cake."

Dawn, a tall girl with oval eyes, beautiful white teeth, and black hair that flowed down to her waist, introduced herself. "Really, we were supposed to celebrate Kinaaldá as soon as I got my first period," she said. "But I was in the middle of final exams down at Orme School in Mayer, and it made more sense to wait until school was out."

Her long full skirt rustled against the wild grasses as we walked toward the hogan. "Most of the time my parents live in town, where there's electricity and water. But it's better to have Kinaaldá here," she said.

Dawn's mother, Mary Frances Begaye, a petite schoolteacher in a red blouse and print skirt, hoisted a long-handled ax and chopped at the base of a yucca plant for several minutes. Then she knelt and shook chunks of root away from the dirt. "Here," she said to Dawn, "this is for the bath." To me she added, "Since I'm Tuscarora and not Navajo, the medicine woman's sister will be the one who does what a maternal grandmother would usually do."

Two graying women in traditional long print skirts arrived: the medicine woman and her sister. Dawn's father unloaded several shovels of sand onto the hogan's concrete floor to symbolize a dirt floor. The medicine woman's sister spread a blanket over the sand, and Dawn knelt on it. Relatives took their places on mattresses and cushions along the walls. Dawn's paternal grandmother, Sadie Zahnie Yazzie, motioned me, the only outsider, to sit beside her.

The medicine woman's sister applied corn pollen to the walls in each of the four directions to bless the hogan. The medicine woman chanted. Kinaaldá had begun.

Outside, an old ewe lay tied up and quivering in the dirt. The animal bleated as one of Dawn's relatives picked up a knife and a stainless steel bowl. With one hand the woman slit the ewe's throat in an arc. With the other she caught the blood in the bowl.

Inside, Dawn wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. Barefoot, she walked clockwise around the cast-iron stove that stood between the doorway and the center of the room. Then the women washed her skin and her hair with yucca root and rubbed corn pollen on her. "Don't say exactly what they're doing," Sadie whispered to me. "It's too sacred to write down."

The medicine woman's sister picked up a brush made of stiff dried grasses and combed Dawn's long black hair. I looked at Sadie. She smiled and made a writing motion with her hand.

Over the sound of the chanting, the medicine woman's sister said to Dawn's mother, "You need to keep this brush in better condition."

Mary Frances nodded.

The medicine woman passed around a pouch of corn pollen. "Do this," Sadie whispered. She took a pinch of pollen, touched some to her tongue and her hairline, then scattered the rest in a line in front of her as an offering. "The pollen brings harmony and beauty."

The pollen felt powdery. It tasted gritty and sweet. It made my forehead itch, but no one else was scratching. I didn't either.

The medicine woman stopped chanting and talked with her sister. Among the Navajo words came the English, "before noon."

The medicine woman's sister turned to Dawn. "It's almost time to run," she said. Covered with corn pollen, Dawn put on a black velvet blouse trimmed with old dimes. The women wrapped leather leggings around her ankles and calves and a handwoven sash around her waist. They piled turquoise, silver, and coral jewelry on her, ending with a concha belt. Sitting against the wall, Dawn's father looked at her happily.

"That belt belongs to him," Sadie whispered. "She will wear it to run, and it will be a blessing to them both."

"Remember," the medicine woman's sister advised Dawn, "whatever you do, don't look back at the people behind you. Be sure the bush you turn around is healthy. Go clockwise around it and start back." She opened the door to the hogan. The smell of roasting mutton entered the room. Then Dawn left the hogan and ran toward the east, trailed by her long black hair and her younger sisters, Jessie, 11, and Bijiibah, four. Sadie and I stood and watched. "People used to say that the farther a young woman ran, the longer she would live."

Another woman said, "Her sisters have to stay behind her. Otherwise, they'll age faster than she does."

KINAALDÁ

DAWN LEFT THE HOGAN AND RAN TOWARD THE EAST... PEOPLE USED TO SAY THAT THE FARTHER A YOUNG WOMAN RAN, THE LONGER SHE WOULD LIVE.' Another said, "Long time ago, the neighbors always come and help. They want a piece of that cake."

Laughing and panting, Dawn and her sisters returned, and we ate lunch: mutton, tortillas, melons.

By late afternoon, it was time to start the cake. Dawn and the medicine woman's sister dropped handfuls of sprouted wheat kernels into an old-fashioned meat grinder and turned the crank. The medicine woman looked at the powdered wheat. "Oh. Too much."

The women spread a clean sheet on the floor in front of the stove, where Dawn had sat for her bath. They shook out sacks and sacks of ground white corn -80 pounds in all until the cornmeal rose in a mountain that resembled the sacred San Francisco Peaks. Ten pounds of wheat flour joined the corn. The medicine woman ordered a handful of ashes brought in to leaven the cake. The stirring began. First the women took turns blending hot water, caramel-colored sugar water, and a portion of the cornmeal mixture in plastic buckets. Once the medicine woman and her sister decided the right consistency had been reached, the bucket of batter went into a large zinc tub, and Dawn did the second-stage stirring with a bundle of greasewood sticks.

"Used to be, when Kinaaldá lasted four days, the girl had to grind all her own corn by hand," one woman commented. "I've seen girls grinding corn until they cried because their fingers and arms hurt so much."

"Used to be, a girl ran all four directions," another said.

"That's what Changing Woman did," said the medicine woman's sister, referring to one of the Holy People of Navajo belief. "She kept two directions for herself and gave the other two to Navajo women."

"There's so much you can't do when you're having Kinaaldá," complained Dawn's sister Jessie.

"You can't joke with the opposite sex," said one woman. "Or touch the opposite sex. Because then the ceremony is notworth all you put into it. You can't scratch yourself. You can't complain or look in a mirror or wash yourself for four days afterward. You can't eat any sugar. You can't eat any salt.

JUST AS THE SUN SET, DAWN SPRINKLED WHITE CORNMEAL OVER THE CAKE TO BLESS IT. EAST, WEST, NORTH, SOUTH.

"What happens if you eat sugar or salt?" asked Jessie.

Another woman answered, "Your teeth will rot and fall out before you're 20.' "The cake is very sensitive. You can't joke around the cake," said the medicine woman's sister.

"Mom, how does your tribe celebrate when a girl gets her period?" asked Dawn. Mary Frances paused in her stirring, and I took her place.

"We just starve you for four days, let you sit there all alone."

"I wouldn't want to starve. That's mean," said Jessie.

"This is going to be like a giant birthday cake," someone said. The younger girls giggled.

"No tease. No tease," said Sadie. She used pot holders to cushion her knees against the concrete floor as she stirred.

By now Dawn had been moving the greasewood sticks round and round through the batter in the oblong zinc tub for more than two hours. Dough spattered her jewelry, her green skirt, her black velvet blouse, but she continued to stir calmly and steadily.

I had begun stirring only five minutes earlier. Already my face had turned red from the effort of pushing the sticks through the thick batter. Sweat trickled down my back.

I looked up. The medicine woman, who until now had avoided looking at me, was watching. I smiled. She smiled back. I felt as if I could stir all night.

Finally Dawn paused and sewed two corn husks together in the shape of a cross. Then she returned to her stirring, and one of the women continued sewing moistened husks together in a clockwise design that resembled the spiraling ceiling logs of a traditional hogan.

KINAALDÁ

The medicine woman went out to check the fire pit. "Too big," she pronounced. The men pulled out the coals, reshaped the hole with their shovels until it had shrunk to about three feet in diameter, and lined it with aluminum foil. Even with the coals gone, the earth radiated heat.

The medicine woman arranged the mat of corn husks in the pit. Then she supervised as Sadie and others poured the batter in. Just as the sun set, Dawn sprinkled white cornmeal over the cake to bless it. East, west, north, south. Her long hair blew in the wind. "Let your dad and everyone bless it, too," the medicine woman's sister said.

New layers of corn husks and aluminum foil went down on top of the batter. The men shoveled earth onto the cake and topped it with hot coals.

After a dinner of mutton stew, we rested on mattresses on the hogan floor. I listened to the melodic snores of the sleepers and the whispers of a couple lying entwined. I heard someone outside say my name: the Woman with the Pen.

Just after midnight everyone sat up. "The first song is the Hogan Song," the medicine woman's sister announced. "No one may leave. No one may sleep."

The kerosene lamp threw a light so dim that the other people in the hogan became movements and shapes. The medicine woman sang in low tones that occasionally leapt higher and fell back.

Over the next several hours, she chanted songs in Navajo about creation, about the Earth and sky, the sun and moon, about the beauty and harmony that bring blessings to all. Once the medicine woman's sister announced, "Now everyone must sing," and even I sang the repetitive syllables of the medicine woman's song.

Just after four o'clock, it was time for Dawn to run again. It was still completely dark. Glenmore turned the car headlights on to light a path between the yucca plants. Dawn ran to the east and back to the west with Jessie stumbling behind her. Then Dawn and her family stood outside the hogan, facing east. She lifted her hands toward the horizon to take the approaching sun inside her.

The smell of baking cornmeal rose from the earth. As the sky grew light, Dawn's father shoveled away the coals and the dirt, and we gathered beside the steaming cake. "Go put your blanket on," the medicine woman's sister told Dawn. Dawn returned, carrying a basket. The medicine woman's sister knelt down to cut out pieces from the cardinal points of the circular cake. Dawn carried the warm, dense pieces of corn cake into the hogan and presented them to the medicine woman.

Dawn had made her cake. She had become a woman.

We climbed into our vehicles and bumped off down the ruts. According to custom, Dawn would spend the next four days at the hogan, thinking about herself and her culture, her people and her life. And I, the Woman with the Pen, would do the same for myself and my culture, my people and my life.