"When I was a boy my parents, my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles would tell me of life. Life is where the sheeps are. It will be up to me to tend them, and through that I could get what I need and what I want. Then they told of a home, so I built a hogan. Then more stocks like cattle and horses. Then I needed transportation to carry things around, so I bought a wagon; Then I got a cornfield. By then I needed help so my folks suggested I get a wife and have children. That is part of life. All this made me think of the land, water, and grazing for livestock. I needed all that to survive. Then besides that there are offerings needed along the way. There are songs and prayers needed to help me along, so they taught me some songs and I learned prayers. I learned of sacred places where I go to and make my offerings and give my thanks. Up to this day it has helped me this far. I still am living that life. The land, the grasses, waters, what the sheep needs, and through that I get what I need by selling them. We're used to this land we're living at. I am. My folks have told me that the land is where all my memories are, and where my children, my grandchildren will carry on. And we know the land, we know the sacred places, we know where all the waters are, and the land knows us. And so will my children. We will know it and the land knows us." Diné Yázhí, Age 59 89-810 0 - 88 - 12 at home for well-being and protection and blessings received that must be learned. Children come to understand more deeply through ceremonies that are given for them. Some become medicine men or women and help their people in that way, others' lives are simply enriched and given meaning. There is a strong obligation to pass the lessons of how to live on to your children and grandchildren, because of your responsiblity as a parent and a grandparent, and out of respect for your parents and grandparents. Now, children and grandchildren are at school, usually far away from home. Before stock reduction, parents and grandparents sold lambs and wool to buy school clothes and supplies for the children. "Every year we do the same thing for them so they keep on thinking they have something for themselves and they own something. That is the way it was, but now there's hardly anything. We have only one horse left". Children and grandchildren return on weekends and during holidays. When they are home, they participate in the traditional way of life and worship. "I still talk to my grandchildren. It's different now that they have to go to school. I looked at them now and they are still living a good life and they are happy, maybe because they are still here with me. I still tell them. This is my granddaughter (the one that is staying with her). I am getting old. She will have to continue carrying on the tradition of what I taught her and make our place a strong place to live here". Sacred Places The concept of a place that is hallowed or holy from its associations may be expressed several ways in the Navajo language. For example: dahodisin (they consider it holy); hodiyingo haz' (a place that is holy); hodiyingo baa ntsáhakees (a place considered to be holy); and ayeel al'figi (where offering is made habitually) (Irvy W. Goossen, personal communication). All the land within the four sacred mountains is hallowed land, of course. And, "Around here (Big Mountain) we always remember our mountains the four different directions". However, the relationship between land and religion at Big Mountain also has a local and regional dimension that is part of the uniqueness of the area. Sacred place is commonly expressed as a place of offering in the Big Mountain community. A place is sacred because it is possible to communicate there with the Holy People through prayer and offering. The Holy People cannot be seen, but their presence is known through air movements and vibrations, a certain kind of light, pictographs, noises, some kinds of ruins, and through legends. Winds, nítch'f (which also may be translated as air or spirit), carry the prayers and offerings to the Holy People; thus, winds provide access to power and assistance. There are several consistent qualitative associations, such as kinds of places, atmospheric conditions, or times, that provide needed access to the Holy People. For example: the early morning hours are thought by some people to be a time when the Holy People are around to be petitioned. Mountains, watercourses, springs, hills, flat areas, at young trees, at lightning-struck trees, and at home are common places where offerings and prayers are made. There are also several "shrines". Some of these places are regular basis, and some of the same places are used regionally. We used by local were told that the families living close to priority. families on a a sacred place have first The kind If you know the appropriate prayers and offerings, you may make them yourself. Otherwise, a medicine man may make them for you with you. Offerings are usually jewels such as chips of white shell, turquoise, abalone, and obsidian, and pollen or corn meal. of offering, prayer, and ritual depends upon the purpose. If a person has bad dreams or there are bad omens, they may be interpreted by hand trembler who will direct the person to use a certain sacred place with a medicine man. Also blessings are asked for and thanks given at sacred places. Blessings are asked for long journeys, soldiers going into the armed services, livestock, rain, grass and crops, and health well-being and protection. Families have songs, prayers, offering, and legends that are passed down from generation to generation. When they are passed on the obligation to keep them up is passed along too. "If we don't do that; if we don't carry on these rituals for protection, I know for myself that I am usually sick. P.H.S. hospital does not know what is wrong with me. If I go and offer my prayers, then my mind is clear and I feel better after that, and I go on raising my family". There are some places, usually those used regionally, that are "most respected". Two of these that we have knowledge of are Big Mountain itself and Red Willow Spring, a few miles from Big Mountain to the northwest. and Big Mountain is said to be in the shape of a person or head. "That's the way it is, so we pray to it. Inside, it has breath (air). It breathes, so we pray to it. Its name is Be'goochídí Hastiin. He is the one that created man. The air in the mountain knows each every one of us. He knows all that we carry, all that we do and all that we have. That is why we have to sacrifice some of what we have to it; like cows, horses, sheep. That's the way the stories have always been told". one On Big Mountain there are two shrines; one is for livestock and is for gambling and magic. You have to go with one or the other. The grandfathers of the people at Big Mountain stayed with livestock. In the beginning of the universe, the Holy People set one hill aside for livestock. There used to be a sea then that covered the area except for high ridges and mountaintops. At that time, the Wind People put the shrine at Big Mountain and said: "that's where you will make your sacrifice"; "there are going to be people here". After the sea was drained out the Colorado River, squirrels and birds planted trees here and elsewhere. The shrine still exists today visited it. It is a circle of rock slabs placed horizontally with a doorway to the east and a "fireplace" in the middle where offerings are placed. - we The shrine is the place of Be'goochfdf who has four colors just like the four sacred mountains. Be'goochídí is a wind a man and a woman -- that came down there. And, Talking God is the caretaker for the Holy People that dwell at Big Mountain. Be'goochídf is an extremely important Holy Person, mentioned frequently in the literature of Navajo religion (see Wood and Vannette 1979), most often in a creative role. And, the identification of Big " Mountain as ...like the Wind of the Holy People" is highly significant. According to McNeley, "...the Navajo concept of nitch'i, "wind", is the primary intellectual instrument by means of which life, behavior and other events in the Navajo universe are explained and integrated into a consistent system of thought (1975:iii)". The winds, the Be'goochídí's in this case, carry the prayers and offerings on. The winds there know everything that goes on, previously, and they presumably can carry that on too. as cited As far as anyone knows, the first use of the wind shrine goes back at least four or five generations. "After coming back from Fort Sumner, these elders go over there to offer prayer for their own family. From all areas they would come and then they would go back and ask blessing for their family, whatever few families they had, and whatever sheep the government gave them.... Those prayers were answered." The first people to go up there were special people, like "chief priests", who had to observe special behaviors so they could communicate with the Holy People. "The other tribe (Hopi), they don't have a prayer over there like the way we understand the prayers that we had that is passed down to us. We asked them, but they said they can't go over there". Several people from the Big Mountain community know the ceremonies that are held there, and many people we talked to had had a ceremony given for them at the shrine: two people briefly described the ceremony they had there. People from Pinon, Black Mesa, and Forest Lake also use the shrine on a timely basis, every two or four years. One can pray, too, in arroyos where soil from the mountain washes down. since the "...same prayer goes up to the mountain". Red Willow Spring is another place of great significance in the Big Mountain area (although for reasons to be discussed later on, some of its significance is lost). There was, in addition to the pool of water: a place with light from a hole in the rock where vibrations of air blew out; another place for offering communication between the earth and subsurface because air came through the rock; __a "little house" in the cliff with a path to it ("Grandfather knew Holy People dwelled there because of the path"); and pictographs and hand prints. There is still a pictograph of a yé'ii (Holy Person) on the wall of the spring, where a long time ago a yeibichett ceremony was given and the yé'ii went into the rock. There are several major ceremonies that pertain to the area. During the yeibicheii, medicine me from the region came to get water at the spring and to perform healing ritual before ending the sacred dance. Blessingway and a rain ceremony were held here, and special offerings were made to help people regain their hearing and eyesight. Burial Grounds Most families' roots in the Big Mountain area go back at least four generations. The parents, grandparents, and greatgrandparents who taught their children and grandchildren how to live and passed on the responsibility for the care of the land, "...are put back into the earth." There are family burial grounds in the family grazing areas. "It's part of the sacredness we have here". In one family: "We have a memorial day in the Anglo way. We go over there and see them with flowers". |