Navajo Studies

Introduction to Kiva Fall 2021 special issue focused on Diné (Navajo) archaeology. Discusses key themes within the area of study, as well as a short discussion of the five research articles (Weiner & Kelley 2021; Campbell 2021; Lee 2021; Two Bears 2021; and Wero & Martin 2021) that make up the issue. The other articles cover topics ranging from: Navajo insights about Chaco Canyon, reservation-era pastoralism, weaving craft traditions, boarding school ethnohistory, and the historical archaeology of uranium mining.

Even as American ethnology in the late-nineteenth century continued to accumulate data about indigenous groups for comparative study, the surgeon-turned-eth-nographer Washington Matthews found standardized documentary methods constricting, unable to reflect the complexity of a community's spiritual practices. Through studies of Navajo Indians in the 1880s and 90s, Matthews experimented with documentation techniques to capture the multisensorial and ephemeral elements of Navajo healing ceremonialism, such as the design of sandpaintings that were later destroyed as the rites concluded. Investigating his ethnographic strategies and his relationships with Navajo knowledge stewards, this article charts Matthews' emerging conviction in social immersion and bonding with indigenous infor-mants, tenets that predated the rise of cultural relativism in anthropology. The article argues that his experience among and tutelage from Navajo medicine "singers" reshaped Matthews' documentary practices to emphasize the irreducibility of cultural facets to tabular columns, raising doubts about then-dominant theories of social evolution.

In the summer of 1966, seven Navajo community members from Pine Springs, AZ were the subjects of one of the most provocative experiments in cognitive and visual anthropology, the Navajo Film Project, resulting in Sol Worth and John Adair’s seminal work Through Navajo Eyes and seven short films produced by Navajo filmmakers that garnered worldwide attention.  In 2011, the films were repaired and returned to the Navajo Nation for public screenings, the first step in a process of repatriation and resignification that mirrors the repatriation of other visual media to Navajo and indigenous communities.  The return of the films offers a unique opportunity to reexamine the meanings of the films and the project, reframing the discussion in terms of their role in context of visual sovereignty, community reengagements, and “reclaiming” Diné/Navajo histories.

The scale and intensity of Navajo (Diné) sheepherding in the American
Southwest has varied substantially over the centuries. In the 150 years since the signing of the Navajo Treaty of 1868, a variety of internal and external pressures have impacted the traditional pastoral practices of Diné communities. Phase 1 of the Early Navajo Pastoral Landscape Project focused on ethnoarchaeological investigations of the history, settlement patterns, and pastoral land usage of one Navajo family in Black Mesa Chapter, Arizona, Navajo Nation. This article presents the project’s findings and discusses their implications within the context of local and regional events, as well as methodological concerns relevant to the identification of sheepherding sites across the Navajo Nation and beyond.

The theoretical frameworks of the treadmill of production and the treadmill of destruction are used to explore how the expansionary dynamics of capitalism and militarism, along with a complicit state apparatus, harm the environment and human health. The treadmill analysis is extended beyond a structural explanation of the occurrence of environmental inequality by showing how elite shareholders interact with marginalised stakeholders. A historical-comparative study of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation's lands and the toxic contamination of the North Carolina military base, Camp Lejeune, is carried out to explore claims-making strategies, to understand how each claimant negotiates their position, and to unearth power differences among multiple interests. Secondary data analysis is conducted on government documents, journalists’ accounts, public health records, and scholarly research to elucidate resistance to these treadmills, and bridge the role that the economy, the state, and the military play in degrading human health and the natural environment.

Pernicious threats to tribal sovereignty and Indigenous empowerment at local scales of governance have often evaded the scrutiny applied to other formations of the settler state. To illustrate this point, I draw on recent attempts to divide and redistrict county jurisdictions that overlap with the Navajo Nation. I argue that such efforts become a pretext to treat Navajo citizens as an economic liability and to exclude them from upwardly mobile settler polities in historically racialized ways. As a result, rural politics becomes a crucial site for understanding the contemporary struggles of the 573 federally recognized tribal nations in the United States. I conclude that considerations of rurality must be attentive to how histories of dispossession continue to surface in and permeate the present political moment.

Like many Indigenous nations, the Navajo Nation has worked to develop its human and economic potential. It has provided scholarships and other supports to enable its members to pursue post-secondary education. However, relatively few of these college-educated members return to the reservation to contribute directly to its development. This phenomenon has been termed a brain drain. This study explored the experiences of 28 college-educated Navajos who, while raised on the reservation, were living off the reservation after completing their post-secondary education. Participants indicated a number of factors that went into their decision to live off the reservation. These included:

Navajo livestock reduction illuminates the gendered politics of conservation and the crucial contribution of women in resisting environmental injustice. In developing programs to halt soil erosion on the Navajo Reservation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Soil Conservation Service made matters worse, largely because they ignored the importance of women as livestock owners. Women's resistance helped bring an end to stock reduction and the
conservation program.

Navajo pastoralism arose early in the eighteenth century from the semi- arid canyons of the Colorado Plateau, where women and men incorporated Spanish livestock into their world and gave them indigenous meanings. Before long, burgeoning flocks spurred families to spread out across the region and promoted the adoption of an ancient pastoral pattern known as transhumance, the seasonal migrations from one ecological zone to
another that made herding in this arid land possible.

Building upon Philip Deloria’s notion of “Indians in unexpected places,” this paper explores the ideologies and practices involved as Navajo cultural producers make films in the Navajo language.  For some contemporary Navajo filmmakers, there is a compulsion to produce films in Navajo, although neither the director nor the actors may consider themselves to be fluent speakers of the language.  The filmic site, on-set, during casting, rehearsals, and shooting, is where cultural producers often have a heightened awareness of representational practices and their implications, especially linguistic representations.  Film is the medium and impetus for language learning as filmmakers negotiate their cultural productions with an eye towards linguistic authenticity and shared sociality for themselves, their Navajo speaking audiences, and for historical accuracy.

This essay reviews the environmental justice documentary, The Return of the Navajo Boy, and explores its use of imagery to create a compelling story about the unhappy history of uranium mining on the Navajo Reservation. It includes a discussion of an industrial film promoting uranium mining, A Navajo Journey.

This paper examines the roles of culture in the principles of biomedical ethics. Drawing on examples from African, Navajo and Western cultures, the paper maintains that various elements of culture are indispensable to the application of the principles of biomedical ethics.

Resiliency and adaptation are increasingly prevalent in climate change policy as well as scholarship, yet scholars have brought forward several critiques of these concepts along analytical as well as political lines. Pressing questions include: who resiliency is for, what it takes to maintain it, and the scale at which it takes place. The concept of "perverse resilience", for example, proposes that resiliency for one subsystem may threaten the well-being of the overall system. In this article, I propose the related concept of "perverse adaptation", where one actor or institution's adaptation to climate change in fact produces aftershocks and secondary impacts upon other groups. Drawing on ethnographic and sociolinguistic research in northern Arizona regarding artificial snowmaking at a ski resort on a sacred mountain, I elucidate resort supporters' and others' attempts to frame snowmaking as a sustainable adaptation to drought (and, implicitly, climate change). I counterpoise these framings with narratives from local activists as well as Diné (Navajo) individuals regarding the significant impacts of snowmaking on water supply and quality, sacred lands and ceremony, public health, and, ironically, carbon emissions. In so doing, I argue that we must interrogate resilience policies for their unexpected "victims of adaptation." Résumé La résilience et l'adaptation sont de plus en plus répandues dans la politique sur le changement climatique et dans les études sur ces questions, mais les universitaires ont avancé plusieurs critiques de ces concepts selon des lignes analytiques et politiques. Les questions pressantes comprennent: à qui s'adresse la résilience, ce qu'il faut pour la maintenir et l'échelle à laquelle elle se déroule. Le concept de «résilience perverse», par exemple, propose que la résilience pour un sous-système puisse menacer le bien-être du système global. Dans cet article, je propose le concept d '«adaptation perverse», où l'adaptation d'un acteur ou d'une institution au changement climatique produit en fait des répliques et des impacts secondaires sur d'autres groupes. En m'appuyant sur des recherches ethnographiques et sociolinguistiques dans le nord de l'Arizona concernant l'enneigement artificiel dans une station de ski sur une montagne sacrée, j'explique les tentatives des partisans de la station et d'autres pour concevoir l'enneigement comme une adaptation durable à la sécheresse (et, implicitement, au changement climatique). Je contrebalance ces cadrages avec des récits d'activistes locaux ainsi que de personnes Diné (Navajo) concernant les impacts importants de l'enneigement sur la qualité et l'approvisionnement en eau, les terres sacrées et les cérémonies, la santé publique et, ironiquement, les émissions de carbone. Ce faisant, je soutiens que nous devons interroger les politiques de résilience pour leurs "victimes d'adaptation" inattendues. Resumen Resiliencia y adaptación se han vuelto cada vez más comunes tanto en política sobre cambio climático como en su estudio. Sin embargo, académicos han formulado diversas críticas de estos conceptos con argumentos tanto analíticos como políticos. Entre las cuestiones más apremiantes están: para quién es la resiliencia, qué se requiere para mantenerla, y la escala en la que se presenta. El concepto de "resiliencia perversa", por ejemplo, propone que la resiliencia para un subsistema puede amenazar el bienestar del sistema completo. En este artículo propongo el concepto relacionado de "adaptación perversa", donde la adaptación de un actor o institución al cambio climático produce, de hecho, réplicas e impactos secundarios sobre otros grupos. Con base en trabajo etnográfico y sociolingüístico sobre la producción artificial de nieve en un centro de esquí, en una montaña sagrada en el norte de Arizona, ilustro los intentos por parte de los partidarios del centro, así como de otros actores, por plantear la fabricación de nieve como adaptación sustentable a la sequía (e implícitamente, al cambio climático). Luego, pongo en contrapeso estos planteamientos con las narrativas de activistas locales, así como de individuos Diné (Navajos), con respecto a los fuertes impactos de la fabricación de nieve sobre el suministro y calidad del agua, las tierras sagradas y ceremoniales, salud pública y, de manera irónica, las emisiones de carbono. De este modo, discuto que debemos interrogar las políticas de resiliencia por sus inesperadas "víctimas de la adaptación". Palabras clave: política en materia de cambio climático, adaptación, resiliencia perversa, sitios sagrados, Diné (Navajo)

War waits for any scholar of the Civil War Era who ventures into the North American West or Southwest Borderlands. It is, however, an error to simply interpret any conflict encountered as the Civil War. Rather a borderland “ethic” is encouraged that privileges the local over the national. It is explored through the deeper histories surrounding the Battle of Apache Pass in Arizona in 1862 between California Volunteers and Chiricahua Apaches and the Massacre at Fort Fauntleroy in New
Mexico in 1861 by New Mexico Volunteers on Navajos. Both of these engagements had far more to do with local borderland conditions, particularly raiding for captives and livestock, than the national Civil War. Scholars thus need to incorporate the national into the local.

Hopi and Navajo oral traditions describing the formation of Meteor "Barringer" Crater in Arizona are reported in early 20 th century news media, but some scholars claim these traditions are deliberate fabrications or misidentified stories about more recent volcanic events. This paper critically analyses these accounts and examines explanations for the apparent traditions and the history of associated research at the crater. We show that Native American traditions about the crater were misappropriated and altered to generate interest in the structure's impact hypothesis. This was driven by financial interests that sought investments to mine for meteoritic iron falsely believed to be buried under the crater.

Haley Laughter is a Diné (Navajo) yoga instructor and the founder of Hózhó Total Wellness and the Indigenous Yoga Instructors Association. In this interview, she and Dr. Tria Blu Wakpa, Race and Yoga journal co-founder and co-editor-in-chief, discuss how Laughter’s perspective as a Diné woman informs her yoga practice and teaching.

This article focuses on the efforts of Farina King, a scholar and citizen of the Navajo Nation, who gathers and shares stories of her family and people’s boarding school memories and experiences at Crownpoint, New Mexico, from the 1930s to the 1970s. The narrative does not only dwell on the victimization and trauma but also the intimacies, fondness, and empowerment that former students experienced. The author emphasizes oral histories with students who attended the Crownpoint Boarding School between the 1960s and 1970s to illuminate the intergenerational connections of Navajo schooling experiences.

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The Grolier Codex is discussed in the context of the archaeoastronomy of the ancient Americas on pages 98-99 of the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson. One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of the planet Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. A numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depictes the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Other photos: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.