MEET ME AT THE FAIR

POWWOW DANCERS, RODEO, MUTTΟΝ, AND FRY BREAD ACCENT THE NAVAJO NATION FAIR

The big powwow drum speaks in lulling murmurs, then with throbbing urgency. My feet on the red dirt of the dancing circle discover the rhythm.

Dancing with me, before mostly Navajo spectators, are warriors of several tribes who earned their eagle feathers in real battles. We dance on, in the ritual motions of the gourd societies, making things spiritually ready for the powwow performers in jingle dress who will perform next for bigmoney prizes in the annual Navajo Nation Fair.

Six Navajos pound a four-foot-wide kettledrum. BOOM-boom, BOOM-boom. I hear Virgil Gatewood of Gallup, New Mexico, a Navajo who fought in Vietnam, call out, "The drums sound different out here, don't they?"

I nod in agreement. The drums shout a primitive language at us. We mark the beat with the shurshur sound from our shot-filled tin can "gourds."

Larry Anderson of Fort Defiance, a member of the Black Water Gourd Society, clutching eagle feathers earned as a marine in Vietnam, gives himself up to the beat. He yelps, whirls, yelps again. We dance up a storm.

By the time the gourd dancers lead the powwow grand march into the dance circle, 30 minutes later, rain falls, stirring the red earth of Navajo-land into a thin syrup of mud; then it makes a noisy departure, with lightning flicking at the stony outcrops behind Window Rock, capital of the Navajo Nation, in far northeastern Arizona.

As the dancers take cover, I dash for a strip of concessions the Navajos humorously call "Mutton Alley" and treat myself to roast mutton and fry bread with roasted green chiles - the Navajo version of a hamburger with the works.

If you want to catch a glimpse of Southwestern Indian life, this is the place to come.

No all-Indian fair is larger. Tribes from all over send dancers and rodeo cowboys to compete for $50,000 in prizes. As many as 200,000 people, mostly Indians, come to see the week-long spectacle every September, a big number for a rural event in fact, a number greater than the entire 175,000 three-state population of the Navajo tribe.

(OPPOSITE PAGE) With her dress providing rhythmic accompaniment, 18-year-old Powwow Princess Frances Kent performs the jingle dance.

(THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM RIGHT) Citlali Arvizu, left, and Ana Torres, both of Los Angeles, prepare costumes for the Aztec dance, a favorite with fairgoers.

A familiar scene at carnivals everywhere: Kids of all ages thrill to a stomach-churning ride.

Women in performance finery relax after the rigors of dancing.

A colorfully clad dancer waits his turn to perform the flashy grass dance.

Spectators arrive in pickups from traditional hogans at the end of dirt roads and by car from the asphalt cities because the event is more than just a fair; it's an annual celebration of homecoming.

It is said the population of Window Rock, which gets its name from a rock cliff with a big hole in it, doubles with the arrival of relatives and friends who come for the fair.

In keeping with Navajo tradition, the houses of Window Rock open to receive them.

Alice Notah, 66, of St. Michaels, introduces me to two of her visiting relatives. "This is my granddaughter and great-granddaughter," she says proudly of Jacqueline Notah, 20, of Farmington, New Mexico, and her 11-month-old daughter, Elena, who is entered in a baby contest.

The grandmother says her home is crammed with relatives, and some friends have set up a tent in the yard. "It's a great joy," she says. "I look forward to my family and friends coming."

As hosts, the Notahs foot the bill. "It's expensive," she concedes good-naturedly. "They want fry bread and stew on the table all the time."

Elmer Milford, the 1997 fair commissioner, was accommodating in-laws from Wheatfield. "They come every year and stay at my house," he says. "It's nice to have relatives. About half the people in Window Rock during fair week are from somewhere else, visiting."

An elected member of the Navajo Nation Council, the tribe's natural resources commissioner, and a talented jewelry maker besides, Milford says additional money had been allocated for the fair to make it even larger. The fairground was expanded, and a parking area was given over to a doubling of concessions. To make more room, horse racing was moved to a track at Chinle, an hour's drive northwest of Window Rock.

"The fair is a social event," Milford affirms, "and we want to see it continue thatway. It can't make a lot of money. But it's something of our own. We see it happen every year, and we want to continue to have it for the Navajos." The fair you'll experience today is a bit more commercialized than in years past. But the Miss Navajo contest retains its traditional challenges. Each candidate is judged on how well she can butcher a sheep, as well as her knowledge of the Navajo language.

On the evening of the Miss Navajo fashion show, I ask 1997 Queen Josephine Tracey, 21, of Tsilani Springs, about the butchering event.

"When you grow up here," she says, "you learn to butcher sheep." And just in case a candidate is out of practice, "We make the girls go to boot camp [to learn traditional culture and proper butchering technique]."

Leo Watchman, a five-time New Mexico state representative from Navajo, New Mexico, and the tribe's assistant director of parks and recreation, takes time out to talk about the business of running the fair. As fair manager, he is attempting to calculate how much money the event will lose in 1997. Off-and-on rain the first two days already has shrunk the $8 per person gate receipts.

The Navajo Nation, he explains, loaned the fair about $400,000 "up front." The remainder of operating income, he said, came from commercial sponsors. The fair was supposed to repay the tribal coffers as much as possible. With bigger cash prizes offered for dancing and professional rodeo events and the expense of big-name entertainment like the Doobie Brothers, Watchman felt certain an operating loss was inevitable again. For that reason, he said, the fair subsidy was becoming an increasingly harder sell before the tribal legislature.

Navajo Fry Bread

Mix 10 cups of flour, four teaspoons of sugar, two teaspoons of salt. Then add water gradually until the dough becomes rubbery but not runny. Let it sit for three to four minutes. Bring two to three cups of shortening to 140° F. Roll batter into round, thin patties four to five inches in diameter, as you would pat out pizza dough. Test the hot grease with a small piece of dough. Now you're all set.

The fair might lose on the one hand, but it is generally viewed as a winner for local businesses on and off the reservation. All the motel beds for miles around are occupied, and they often go for premium prices. I sleep in the bed of a pickup outside Window Rock until a friend lets me camp in his yard. Visiting relatives had even beaten me to the floor space indoors. In Gallup, New Mexico, an Interstate 40 gas stop 30 miles from Window Rock, "Eighty percent of the rooms are rented," Watchman reports. "They don't even come close with any other event."

Business also is brisk on the midway. Lines extend out from the mutton stands, and a steady stream of window-shoppers ogle the silver and turquoise jewelry. To ensure this kind of turnout, the Navajos advertise the fair on the Internet and promote it with ads in magazines.

"We get calls from all over, and a lot of walk-ins," says Lonn Parker, fair coordinator for arts and crafts and a jewelry maker himself.

Prices during the fair for certified Indian work are "moderate," he says. This day judges tie the blue ribbon on a pair of silver earrings and matching necklace trimmed in gold. Price: $4,000.

Weavers demonstrate on a loom in one corner of the arts and crafts building and hawk skeins of naturally dyed yarn sold primarily to traditional rug makers. Rows of paintings, hangings, and pots line walls and fill tables. But I don't see any "dream art" like the blueand pink-spotted deer that hangs on my wall at home.

"We don't allow that stuff in here," Parker says brusquely. "Some people say it's a mix of bad dreams and art. Navajos consider dream art taboo."

I slip away, taking my bad medicine with me, and join a crowd at the fry bread event, where cooking is done the traditional way, over an open juniper fire.

What's the secret for good fry bread? I ask Wanda Nelson of Window Rock, Karen Yazzi of Cameron, and Rita Begay of Teec Nos Pos, the volunteer cooking instructors. Here's what they tell me: Mix 10 cups of flour, four teaspoons of sugar, two teaspoons of salt. Then add water gradually until the dough becomes rubbery but not runny. Let it sit for three to four minutes. Bring two to three cups of shortening to 140° F. Roll batter into round, thin patties four to five inches in diameter, as you would pat out pizza dough. Test the hot grease with a small piece of dough. Now you're all set. "Great fry bread has to be perfectly round and nice and fluffy," Nelson explains. The main secret: "The shortening has to be hot."

Elderly women wearing velveteen dresses and weighted down with silver and turquoise jewelry, perch on the bleachers, silently judging the junior women's cooking techniques. In the "rez" backcountry, where there often is no electricity and flour comes in 25-pound sacks, fry bread is not an ethnic treat but an important staple, and elders are the passers-on of knowledge about how to make it.

The flow of the crowd draws me into a steel-shell pavilion, past a sign offering medicine-man apprenticeships, to where Helen Bluehorse of Fort Defiance is judging canned food entries. Director of the tribe's commodity food program and the Department of Agriculture food distribution to the needy, Bluehorse concentrates on being more watchful for safe canning practices than food appearance. But when she comes to the dried watermelon, she looks bewildered. She turns

NAVAJO NATION FAIR

(OPPOSITE PAGE) Navajo Code Talkers wearing silver concha belts and turquoise bracelets parade their colors. (THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM RIGHT) Wanehewa Taylor-Ceuley puts a wrap on the moccasin of 14-month-old Ganado resident Caleya Allieya. Umbrellas strike a note of incongruity when carried by traditionally dressed dancers; they're practical, though, shielding performers from the rain or hot sun. Competitors must complete three consecutive dances, a feat requiring top physical conditioning.

the plastic bag over and around and gives the fruit a squeeze. "I wonder how it would taste?" she muses aloud. Bluehorse decides it's an experience that can wait and moves on to the peaches. I move on to the livestock pens, where 4-H judging is under way. Livestock judging turns out to be a pan-Indian event entered by neighboring Apaches, Zunis, Hopis, and even Comanches from Oklahoma. Non-Indians lean on the rails as youngsters parade their critters before the judges. Offreservation dealers are invited to bid on the 4-H livestock to create a market for junior beef, swine, and sheep, fair publicity manager Steward C. Burton III tells me. Recorded drums and song drift my way. The low monotone beat of the two-step and the circle dance drum sound gently, like a pulse beating. An old man, his long gray hair tied with ribbon in a traditional bun, steps out, clasping the hand of a granddaughter, dancing for the joy of it. The sight jogs a memory. Once, while visiting friends near White Cone, I came upon a circle dance of neighbors in a shallow valley near Star Mountain. They danced, two-stepping sideways, arms linked in a circle, to the same slow bump, bump, bump of the drum, and as they danced, they gossiped. Here and there on the midway, Navajo elders huddle under shade trees in their finery: the women in traditional dresses with ground-length hems, the men with hair tied, wearing leather vests and boot jeans. "We encourage young people to bring their grandfathers and grandmothers to the fair," Burton says. "They sit around all day, talking to friends they haven't seen in a long time." A spot of burgundy triggers my curiosity and leads me to Janet Thompson Eden, a 70-year-old retired commercial artist from Des Plaines, Illinois, and a non-Indian. She is a standout in traditional Navajo dress and turquoise jewelry topped by a trading post-style hat she made for this, her third time at the Navajo Nation Fair. "They don't notice me anymore," she says. Hesitant at first, she had asked and was told no one would be offended by her wearing Navajo dress. For her, also, the fair now is a social event looked forward to. She has made friends and exchanges Christmas cards. "It's like going abroad to a foreign country, only nicer," she says.

In 1999 the 53rd Annual Navajo Nation Fair will be held Wednesday through Sunday, September 8-12. The fairgrounds open every day at 8 A.M. and close at midnight. The rodeo takes place Wednesday and Thursday nights and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons. The Miss Navajo Pageant begins Wednesday, September 1 and ends with the crowning at the Saturday night performance, the biggest event of the week. On Saturday morning there's a parade, and concerts are planned for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Except for the concerts, one admission price gains access to all livestock exhibits, artists' booths, stages, and the intertribal powwow. For more information on the Navajo Nation Fair, call (520) 871-6478; for general visitors information, call Navajoland Tourism, (520) 871-6436; for camping permits, Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation, (520) 871-6647.