indians

Concha Belts

Navajos Come Attired in Their Best for a Song and Dance

and Cowboy Boots

Text by Susan Hazen-Hammond Photographs by Monty Roessel The driveway leading into the chapter house at Klagetoh was muddy from two days of rain. So I parked on a wide clearing across the road, checked at a nearby store to make sure that was allowed, and arrived at the chapter house door with two inches of mud on my boots.

Beneath a sign that said "$2 adults, $1 children," a bulky white sweater lay at the entrance for a doormat. Inside, women mopped, pushed open folding chairs, and prepared sign-up sheets for the Song and Dance.

This fund-raising event takes place in Navajoland most Saturdays and Sundays. A Navajo acquaintance had told me that anyone, including non-Navajos, is welcome. As an afterthought, he added, "We do have a lot of conflict about whether it's a good idea to have Song and Dance. Some people say it's like secularizing something sacred."

A short woman with serious eyes introduced herself as Nancy Chee, Head Start teacher and chapter president. "A Song and Dance like we're having today, mostly older people come. We're raising money to go to a Head Start workshop in Mesa tomorrow." She looked at the clock. Sign-up was scheduled for 10 A.M. It was after 11. "I guess everyone's still in church."

On the walls hung a velvet likeness of John F. Kennedy, an advertisement about how to use livestock to pay for a new pickup, and posters about diabetes, dysentery, hantavirus, and safe sex. A hand-lettered sign said, "Notice. This is a local community office. Not a bank or a loan office. So please! Don't ask. Thank you."

Nancy Chee assigned remaining tasks to her staff: Someone had to carry in a dozen 25-pound sacks of Bluebird Flour for prizes. Someone had to watch the mutton stew. Someone had to drive to town - Gallup, 75 miles away - to buy a dozen red jackets, at $12.95 each, for first-place prizes.

Gray-haired Navajo men and women wiped their feet on the white sweater, paid their money, and got their hands stamped. Many women wore traditional attire: long full skirts, velveteen blouses, silver concha belts, turquoise jewelry, moccasins, and white leather leggings. Men wore cowboy boots, jeans, big silver belt buckles, Western shirts, turquoise jewelry, and black or white cowboy hats.

People shook hands with each other, with me. Each new arrival exchanged a ripple of Navajo words with the ticket taker,

interspersed with the English "Arizona Highways." More looks. More smiles.

The ticket taker pointed to a tall man in a red shirt, black hat, and silver-clasped bola tie who was heading outdoors. "Ned Tsosie Clark," she said. "Talk to him."

Outside, we looked across the juniper-covered hills. In the distance stood St. Anne's Catholic Church and its attached hogan. In the other direction sat a small Mennonite church. A few trailers, houses, and hogans rose above the junipers, but Klagetoh, like many Navajo communities, is rural; most of its 3,000 residents live isolated among the hills.

Ned Tsosie Clark nodded his black hat toward the hills, then turned a gentle face to me. "I was born here way back long time. 1924," he said. "I spent California nine years and come back in 1958. May 26. Ever since I don't go nowhere."

In 1968, he said, the preschool needed money for a trip, so he organized the first Song and Dance fund-raiser. "Now they got it all over."

Arizona and New Mexico. All he thought about was making money for the kids. Now he's slowed down."

Nancy Chee made an announcement in Navajo that ended with the English words, "Arizona Highways. Susan, please stand up." People smiled. Some clapped. The ticket taker whispered, "She told them, if you ask them questions, they should answer." Then Nancy Chee gave a prayer in which the only English words were "God," "Jesus," and "Amen."

Ned Tsosie Clark and three other behatted men, the Klagetoh Swingers, went to the microphone. One of them wore a bag that dangled from a strap around his neck. He pulled out a stick and beat on something inside the bag. It was a drum, booming across the room.

The singers chanted in Navajo on an even pitch that rose occasionally then slid back to the original tone. The sounds soothed some ancient part of my brain.

A man and woman from the audience stood up. Arm in arm, they circled the dance floor clockwise, shuffling their feet. Another couple joined them, and another.

"It's skip dancing," my neighbor said. "Later on they'll do two-step. But other places they call skip dancing two-step and two-step they call skip dancing." The crowd watched, munched fry bread, sipped soft drinks,bought Head Start raffle tickets. The men slipped the tickets behind their hatbands. The drum thundered. The dancers' feet moved back and forth. The singers chanted in the same rising and falling pattern as medicine people singing sacred songs. It was easy to imagine that the words spoke of Earth and sky, harmony and healing, and Changing Woman.

'Song and Dance events are important. They're a way of showing the young people our traditions. They're also good for mental health. You get your tensions out.'

"Is it okay to ask what the songs are about?" I asked Nancy Chee.

"Of course," she said.

When the singers finished, I asked Ned Tsosie Clark to translate his song.

He thought. "We singing about the flag. Uncle Sam. It say, 'Uncle Sam put this flag up for us. Uncle Sam put this flag up for us. The colors red and white stripes, and they put the blue and the stars in. We keep in memory our flag for everybody. I'm standing up for soldiers, for the flag."

More people arrived, including families with children. By 3 P.M., 100 people had gathered, all Navajos except me, some with a child or grandmother beside them. Ten couples danced, Several times I asked what the songs were about. One woman replied, "Love songs," but didn't elaborate. Others just giggled and said, "I don't know."

Nancy Chee came over. "You ready for some stew?" she asked. She led me into the kitchen, where, for $3.50, I bought a piece of fry bread, a soda, and a bowl of mutton stew. Among corn kernels swam a thick piece of tender meat with a vigorous taste.

The cook watched me devouring the soup.

"It's delicious," I said. "What's in it?"

"Mutton. Water. Hominy."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Back in the main room, a couple in their early 60s came in and sat beside me. They were Nina Begay, a retired nurse in a purple velveteen blouse and long print skirt, and her husband, Thomas, a former Navajo code talker.

"Song and Dance events are important in a lot of ways," Nina Begay said. "They're a way of showing the young people our traditions. They're also good for mental health. You get your tensions out.

"When the Navajos went to Bosque Redondo in the 1860s, this is what they did to comfort one another. When I was a little girl, they used to dance, too. That's how I met my husband. They called it Squaw Dance. It was more sacred than this. Only certain ones could dance, but this is for everybody. We do the Song and Dance events all year except in the summer. That's because they have the original Squaw Dance then." The Squaw Dance comes from the Enemyway, a powerful healing ceremony that purifies Navajos who have been in contact with an enemy.

By now it was late afternoon, and 150 people had crowded into the room. The Begays and some friends signed up to sing, as Group 27, the Jones Ranch Seniors. Other groups ahead of them included Many Farms Swinger, Piñon Maiden Singer, Rough Rock Sundowner, Shonto Singer, and Beclabito Valley Singer.

"You want to get up and sing with us?" Nina whispered.

"I don't know the words."

"You can just hum along."

I looked at the eight women standing around the microphone, one of them pounding a small drum. “I’d like that,” I said.

About 4:30 I decided to go out to my car for a break. More than a hundred vehicles, mostly pickups, were squeezed into the muddy parking lot at all angles. I was glad I’d parked across the road.

At the car, I poured myself some water and looked out over the landscape. The sky had cleared to broken white clouds, splattering the hills with sun and shadows. From the chapter house came the sound of chanting and drumming.

A moment of beauty and peace. I felt lucky to be alive, lucky to be in one of my favorite places, Navajoland.

Back inside, the Jones Ranch Seniors had already sung. I settled back in to watch the dancing. Three hundred people jammed the room. Clumps of mud and dirt from moccasins and boots had transformed the linoleum dance floor into a dirt floor. There were so many dancers that they had doubled into four lines, circling slowly. I was still the only non-Navajo. The skip dancing had ended, and the two-step dances had begun.

Nina Begay said, “You should join the dance.” “I’m not sure I can move my feet right,” I said.

“That’s okay,” Thomas Begay said.

When the next group of singers stood up, he held out his arm.

All around the room, people smiled at me, clapped encouragement.

By the second song, I had it. Slide your foot forward, pull it back with a slight stamp. Slide your other foot forward, pull it back with a slight stamp. My calves tingled. I sweated. But my steps matched my partners. “You’re doing fine,” he said. “Just like it’s supposed to be. The woman stays a little behind the man.” sweated. But my steps matched my partners. “You’re doing fine,” he said. “Just like it’s supposed to be. The woman stays a little behind the man.” The third dance ended, and we returned to our seats.

Nancy Chee called a man over and asked him to translate the songs for me.

He laughed, changed the subject, showed me photographs of his grandchildren.

I waited. Five gray-haired women stood around the microphone in velveteen blouses and long full skirts.

“They’re singing a song called, 'Bye, Bye, Love,” he said.

Words I had taken for Navajo emerged as English: “Bye, Bye, Love.” My informant, a mustachioed man in a red T-shirt who asked me not to reveal his name or where he lived, said, “All these songs talk about girlfriends, Zuni, Anglo, Hopi. Some are very funny.” A new group began chanting, and he translated. “A blue-eyed girl, yellow hair. Blue-eyed girl with yellow hair. You come from far away. When the dance is over, I’ll wait for you outside. And when the dance is over, I’ll take you home with me.” “You don’t sing about Navajo women?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “because this is from the Enemyway.” For a long time, I sat quietly next to Nina Begay, watching white leather leggings and cowboy boots moving up and down on the dance floor. A haze of dust rose in the room. I looked at Nina. She was watching the singers.

Nancy Chee leaned over and told me that the admission fees, raffle tickets, and food had netted more than $1,000. That meant she and the other Head Start staff would drive to the students' homes the next day to tell parents there would be no school for a week. Then they'd head for the Mesa workshop.

About 10 o'clock, the two-step dances ended. For the next 20 minutes, an old woman prayed softly into the microphone. Three hundred people sat in silence.

Afterward Nina Begay translated. “She said, 'What a blessing we have in our culture, that we all support one another. We had some singing, dancing, and enjoying ourselves under Your guidance, and You always look after our well-being. May we all go in peace and safety and see our kids and grandkids and get them ready for what they're going to do tomorrow.'” Nina stopped to explain, “It takes one word in English for a whole paragraph in Navajo.” Then she continued translating the prayer, “For this I ask You to protect us. For this that we may be happy.” Nancy Chee and her crew passed out prizes. Ned Tsosie Clark received a set of dishes. Thomas Begay got a basket of fruit. The dancers who'd won first place tried on their red jackets. The crowd clapped.

The Begays invited me to visit them in Window Rock. Nancy Chee asked me to come back to Klagetoh someday. I promised I would.

People dawdled, then drove away.

Now it was colder, muddier, and so dark I could barely see where I was driving, even with the headlights on. I felt a thousand miles from home.

But then the feeling passed, and I was driving south through the night with the sound of the chants and the drums in my ears. With the rhythm of the dance in my legs.