Among the Navajo
A Journey into the In Between
by
Egon Koch
Translation
Birgit Buss
Cast
Narrator
Commentator
Voice over
Duration: 55 minutes
Production:
German Version
Norddeutscher Rundfunk
Hamburg, 2003
Atmo / Music 1: (Leroy Nelson & Son)
Navajo Song:
(1´)
Directions: Voice over Atmo/Music 1
Voice over:
“I came a long way. Today that's where I am; a lot of goodness is
surrounding me, I want to grow from here. I want to grow, I want
to continue life. This way forward into the future life exists for me;
I want things better for me,” this is what the song says. It's a
travel song, it helps you to travel in a good way.
(0´20´´)
Announcement:
Among the Navajo
A Journey into the In Between
By Egon Koch
Atmo 1: Car (inside recording: car driving on dirtroad)
Car door slams, engine starts, sounds of controls, shifting, driving,
bumping, violent bumping...
(0´15´´)
Directions: Narrator and following original sound over Atmo 1 car
Narrator:
On a hot day in July, a man stands on the Colorado Plateau at an
elevation of 6000 feet. In the wide open landscape with its
sagebrush and desert shrubs from which the semicircular
volcanic craters Sunset Crater, Merriam Crater, and North and
Sheba Craters arise, he searches for the access to the Navajo
Reservation. He came to Northern Arizona to find out how the
Navajos live and has gotten lost on a dirt road in the parched land
not far from Flagstaff. Now he discovers an open gate in the cattle
fence that has been put up parallel to Route 15. He begins his
journey into a strange world.
(0´45´´)
Atmo 2: KTNN
Paul Jones gives the weather forecast in Navajo.
2
(0´10´´).
Voice over:
On the Colorado plateau today we have mostly cloudy skies, with
highs up into the mid-eighties and to the lower nineties. Tonight’s
weather forecast asks for partly cloudy skies and lows in the midfifties. On Independence Day it’ll be mostly sunny, with highs in
the upper eighties and even to the upper nineties. Friday night
we’ll have partly cloudy skies, lows into the low fifties and to the
lower sixties.
(0´25´´)
Narrator:
“Welcome to the Navajo Reservation,” says a green sign by the side
of the road. Wide open and desolate is how the Painted Desert
welcomes the traveler. Only later will this desert disclose its hues
of reds, pinks, and purples. On both sides of the road cattle graze
on meager plants; nothing shelters them from the burning sun. In
the small town of Leupp the traveler searches in vain for the
traditional
dwelling
of
the
Navajo,
the
octagonal
hogan.
Nondescript houses, satellite dishes, power lines, a church, and a
gas station lend the town its character.
(0´40´´)
Atmo 3: car: (outside recording)
Silence... car approaching... cars passing by.... car approaching ....
bus/truck passing by ....
(0´10´´)
Directions: Narrator and following original sounds over atmo 3 car
Narrator:
Pickups approach the gas station, with children in the truck bed.
In the supermarket by the gas station the smell of bleach stings in
the nose. Navajos buy bags of ice there; next door others do their
laundry in one of the many red washers. There are no
headdresses to be seen; the men wear cowboy hats or baseball
caps, jeans and sneakers. Walking along the shelves filled with
canned goods the traveler struggles to overcome his strangeness.
Finally he approaches a gray-haired man with a reddish face.
(0´35´´)
3
O-sound 1: Sam Winkler
My name is Sam Winkler, I am a professor of photography and also a
photographer here in Northern Arizona. And I work at Northern Arizona
University, in Flagstaff, Arizona. (...) And a lot of Native Americans and a
lot of Indian people or indigenous cultures have this clash of values, like
if they become Christians and yet still come from a traditional
background . . . it's all inside you, who are you, so you have identity
crises.
(0´10´´)
Narrator:
Sam Winkler is on his way to the northern part of the Navajo
Reservation, to the Black Mesa Plateau, to the place where he
grew up more than fifty years ago. Every once in a while, when he
experiences the beginnings of an identity crisis, he has to return
to his roots.
(0´15´´)
O-sound 2: Sam Winkler
The greatest influence are probably my grandparents, because they kind
of raised me. And I was brought up in traditional ways. We had to cook
with fire, we cut our own wood, we hauled water. We didn't have
running water; we lived in hogans, which are log dwellings that are
circular and they face east and we put adobe on it.(…) On the inside it's
cedar, but on the outside it's adobe. So I always was running horses a
lot, sheep, you know; we milked the sheep, we milked goats, we
butchered sheep for meat.
(0´45´´)
Narrator:
The barren landscape has shaped the Navajo. It shaped their
culture and their believes
(0´05´´)
O-sound 3: Sam Winkler
When I was young, I was raised on the reservation with no amenities
such as water. We used to melt snow in the wintertime for water. And
we used to chop ice, cut the ice with an axe so that the animals could
drink, everything was much less technology. You accepted the wind, the
snow, mud, the heat, the sandstorms, those are all part of living with
the earth. We didn't have air conditioning; you didn't feel that you have
to control the temperature … You adapted to comfort, I guess, yourself
with the natural ways. And you didn't feel that you have to control it. In
our way it's more of a blur, you don't have to have specific facts. The
idea, to communicate the idea is important. And one of the main
strongest idea probably that Navajos have is the idea of well-being, to
have a balance and to know about hózhó, which is the beauty way and
that's to live with the earth.
(1´10´´)
4
Narrator:
What was is alive for the Navajos in the now; the space has no
borders. Sam developed trust and now tells the story of his life. In
the oral tradition of his people he always returns to his childhood
in a circular fashion, repeats what is most important and
complements it with new information. His visual impressions of
Black Mesa turned him into a photographer.
(0´25´´)
O-sound 4: Sam Winkler
When I was a little kid, we used to live under a tree. In the summertime
we would just move under a tree, we would move out of the hogan and
we would live by the mountain, the edge of the Mesa; it was very
wooded. And we would always move under this big tree. (…) If it rained,
of course we’d go back to the hogan, but then we also had a tent, a
white tent, canvas tent, that was portable. We could move there too in
the windy days. I remember one time when my grandparents were
outside and I was inside the tent, there must have been a little hole in
the tent, because this little hole cast an image inside and what it was is
the camera obscura. As a little kid I saw that, it was an optical
phenomenal experience for me. Wow, I said, my grandparents are
upside down on the other side on the wall. Actually I see this as one of
my first experiences of being a photographer, because I was inside this
camera.
(1´)
Music 1: (Traditional Navajo Song)
(0´15´´)
Directions: Narrator, O-sounds und commentator over music.
Narrator:
Sam Winkler has some time and accompanies the traveler across
the Navajo Reservation, which, at over 16,500 square miles is
about the size of of West-Virginia. Water is sparse in its deserts
and steppes, on its plateaus and mesas. For the people here it’s
about survival. Indian Route 15 crosses the dried-out riverbed of
the Little Colorado River and heads straight east. Behind the small
town of Dilkon, prehistoric mounds rise out of the flat, reddishbrown soil, one in the shape of a cone, the Hopi Buttes. The wide
open space reflects the traveler back onto himself.
(0´45´´)
Music 1: (see above)
(0´10´´)
5
Narrator:
Behind Indian Wells a red hill covered with a tender green layer
rises: Bita Hochee, Red Rand. At the foot of the hill, the Bita
Hochee Trading Post is in a state of decay. Two out-of-use gas
pumps in front of the red building tell about a lively past. The
former warehouse is now the studio of the artist Redwing Ted Nez.
The tall Navajo ties his long black hair into a braid. His face has
Mexican features. He says that in his family are Mexican
decendants. He's painting an impressionistic oil picture. The
topic: Navajos and American officers seal the treaty of 1868.
(0´45´´)
O-sound 5: Redwing Ted Nez
I am the owner of the Bita Hochee Trading Post. Back in 1968 I started
drawing with pencil. I don't have a TV, I had no television, no movies, I
had a lot of comic books, I used to buy them here. I’d herd sheep by the
valley, by that little hill right there, then I’d run over here and look for
coins, bottles, deposit bottles, take it inside and get an ice cream cone.
And I just sat on that step and said to myself, one day, when I grow up
to be a man I will buy all the ice cream. And I grew up and now I own
the building; I have a lease for 30 years. My ambition now is not ice
cream anymore; I think the history should be available.
(1´)
Narrator:
Attracted by the crumpling trading post visitor after visitor enters
Redwing’s studio. First to arrive is the author Scott Thybony from
Flagstaff. He knows the history of the Navajos.
(0´10´´)
O-sound 6: Scott Thybony
If you go far enough into the past, they would have been truly nomadic.
They began to settle down into set areas, some groups were more
dependent on farming than others, others were almost totally dependent
on herding, which was introduced by the Spanish. But they also
developed this warlike culture, depending on raiding these Spanish
communities on the Rio Grande in New Mexico. Then those Spaniards
will raid them back and capture slaves and capture livestock.
(0´35´´)
6
Commentator:
According to General Carleton’s opinion there was no other option
but to drive the Navajo out of the mesas and canyons, to relocate
them at a secure, far-away place, so they would not have the
opportunity any more to cause harm. Kit Carson‘s soldiers
destroyed the harvests and chopped down fruit trees; they drove
away the sheep, killed the animals they couldn’t drive away,
burned down the hogans and broke the resistance of the few
warriors who did not surrender. The basis of their existence was
taken away from these people who'd been attacked.
(0´40´´)
O-sound 7: Redwing
My clan is Bitterwater on my mother’s side, and on my father’s side is
Mini Goat clan. And on my father’s side, my ancestors on my father’s
side never went on the “Long Walk”.
(0´10´´)
Commentator
By March of 1864, 6,000 men, women, and children had
surrendered. Accompanied and guarded by the soldiers, the first
2,500 of them, with their 3,000 sheep and goats and 400 horses
started on their long march to Bosque Redondo, about 250 miles
away. It was the beginning of the unforgotten Long Walk, the
forced exodus of this people. By the end of the year 1864, 8,000
Navajos had surrendered. Only Manuelito, along with 4,000
followers, remained in hiding in the rugged country.
(0´35´´)
O-sound 8: Redwing
Our family had fled up to the Navajo Mountain; Navajo Mountain was
considered a last refuge. It was a difficult time for people to live. (…) A
lot of new settlers started coming in this region and then the railroad, I
think the railroad was the main purpose that's why they had the Kit
Carson campaign. His job was to chastise the Navajos.
(0´25´´)
7
Commentator:
On June 1, 1868, 18 prominent Navajos placed their Xs on a
treaty in which they solemnly swore to not attack any neighboring
Indian settlements nor Mexican or American ranches in the
future. As a reward for the „good intentions", they were allowed to
return to their homeland.
(0´25´´)
O-sound 9: Leroy Nelson
“Ya-tei”, “Ya” is like unreachable, it's way up there, it's like in the sky,
“Ya-tei” I guess you would say, this world, this nature is in balance with
me, I am in charge of it and he, it's in charge of me. “Ya-tei sche”
meaning me, “sche-ei-ya” that's the way I walk, that's the way I live, this
is the way I talk, this is the way I express myself, “sche-ei-ya- Leroy
Nelson yinch ye”, this is who I am, my name is Leroy Nelson.
(0´25´´)
Narrator:
With his woven blanket around his shoulders and his long hair in
two braids, Leroy Nelson is the epitome of a proud, traditional
Diné to the traveler. Diné, people, is what the Navajo call
themselves. It was the Spanish conquistadors who gave this
people the name Navajo, which means „planted fields.“ Redwing‘s
oil about the signing of the treaty awakens bitterness in Leroy
Nelson.
(0´25´´)
O-sound 10: Leroy Nelson
The treaty of 1868, that's where the government and the Navajos . . .
they came together. And we went under the government, that's where
our land was taken, that's where our land . . . there was a border,
statelines, countylines came in. Some of these sacred sites they do exist,
but we don't have access, it was taken away from us.
(0´25´´)
Music 2: (Traditional Navajo Song)
(0´15´´ )
Directions: Narrator over music 2.
8
Narrator:
The Long Walk and the founding of the reservations have not
remained the only steps by the US government to subdue the
Navajo. In the middle of the twentieth century they placed Navajo
children into boarding schools for reeducation--without any
regard for their well-being.
(0´15´´)
O-sound 11: Sam Winkler
I was born in 1950. (…) The policies right around that time were to move
Native Americans. They wanted to try to assimilate the Native Americans
into mainstream American ways. So education was promised to us in
the 1868 treaty. But really it didn't come until about the late 40s and
the 50s. And all the education . . . people had to move to the offreservation boarding schools.
(0´25´´)
Narrator:
It was especially painful for the Native Americans that their
language, their culture, and their religion was not accepted.
(0´05´´)
O-sound 12: Leroy Nelson
I myself went to boarding school. (…) Over there my language was taken
away. I was abused in such a way that, if I spoke my Native tongue, my
indigenous language, if I used it there was soap put into my mouth. I
can't speak my language and my hair was cut. And then I had to learn
the secondary language, this I had to use. So over there is a lot of people
that went through that abuse, who . . . that's why a lot of people in
certain areas …they are being traumatized like some of our individuals
they went to war.
(0´40´´)
O-sound 13: Shonto Begay
It was like prison, being in prison, at 4 years old, 5, 6 years old. It's a
very sad place where the child . . . they take the language, the culture,
the heart of the religion, the heart … everything, they rip it out of you.
In fact there were signs everywhere that said: “Tradition is the enemy of
progress."
(0´20´´)
Narrator:
The man, who came into Redwing’s studio a few minutes ago, has
shoulder-length, black hair; a moustache; and turquoise jewelry
in his ear. The artist Shonto Begay gives the impression of being
stressed. He currently works through his painful experiences in
boarding school by writing a book.
9
(0´20´´)
Commentator:
White Americans gave the Indians an alternative: Eat our culture
or die; we won’t come your way, not even a bit—it’s up to you to
come to us, all the way.
(0´10´´)
O-sound 14: Redwing
Yeah, in the boarding school you were told to pray, you were forced to
pray. From what I understood as a child, we all were supposed to go to
heaven, and meet, rejoice in heaven; and we were supposed to be saved.
I always had a question about that as a child, I always worried about it-if God was a another white man or the Son of God was another white
man, that question always went in my head, would I be treated better in
heaven than here or I might be better of here than in heaven.
(0´35´´)
O-sound 15: Shonto Begay
One of the constant sounds that I grew up with in boarding school,
every night when the lights went out in the middle of the night, there
was always a little sound of some little boy whimpering, a cry; that was
one thing that was constant.
(0´15´´)
Music 3: (Peyote; Leroy Nelson)
(0´15´´)
Directions: Narrator over music 3.
Narrator:
Like Shonto Begay, many Navajos suffer from the consequences of
their
boarding school education. Of his thirteen classmates,
eleven have killed themselves with alcohol over the years. But still,
the US government did not succeed in taking the Navajos'
tradition away from them. In the 1960s of the twentieth century,
the school system was liberalized. Today, christianized Navajos
such as Redwing Nez or Leroy Nelson turn more and more toward
the belief and culture of their people.
(0´35´´)
O-sound 16: Redwing
I am 43 years old now. I made a choice about 15 years ago. I am
studying my tradition, I am studying the Night Way, the Beauty Way …
also the Enemy Way … we are learning the chants, the prayer, how to
use . . . the conduct, the skill. It's a difficult faith, because there is just
a few of us, a handful of young people that will hang on to Navajo
original faith.
(0´25´´)
10
Narrator:
Navajos don’t separate between their visible surroundings, the
activities of every day, and the practicing of their religion. This
means that their original world was filled with supernatural
powers, beings, good and bad ghosts. (. . . ) All natural events and
appearances--such as growth, thunderstorms, snow, rain, hail-were directed by these supernatural powers. All plants, animals,
even rocks, springs, caves, mountains, and canyons were
ensouled. Through certain, precisely dictated rituals it was
possible for humans to positively influence the ghosts and their
actions.
(0´50´´)
Music 3: (see above)
(0´10´´)
O-sound 17: Leroy Nelson
I have the old way, we say, the old way. (…) I have mentors, people that
tell me stories, …that taught me the way to sing, the way to go about
music. Today there is indigenous old ceremonial songs that we have,
that's passed on to us, generation to generation to generation … and
some of these songs are sung, they are sung, they are practiced in
ceremonial settings only. We have a lot of ceremonies that still exist
today. And some of those ceremonies they are extinct, they no longer
exist. (…) I compose myself some music within the ceremonial
terminology that we are using, stating medicine, stating herbs, stating
this …Today we say peyote, we call it (Navajo expression) we say, this is
an herb, Mother Earth is medicine.
(0´50´´)
Atmo 4: Dogs
A dog barks right in the foreground, a second one in the background,
additionally the flapping of the flag, steps, barking . . . steps . . .
growling, barking, then silence.
(0´15´´)
Directions: Narrator and following O-sounds over atmo 4/dogs
Narrator:
To learn more about peyote, the traveler follows Sam Winkler and
Leroy Nelson north out of Indian Wells on Indepence Day. Where
the plateau drops suddenly behind the white, regularly shaped
mountain cone White Cone, they find a certain piece of land in the
wide valley.
11
(Narrator)
Junk cars form the fencing; a hogan is in approximately the
center. The wooden walls are insulated with tar paper, the roof is
weighed down with tires. From the door, which faces to the east,
the holy direction, wafts the strong scent of herbs. Behind the
spread-out herbs a man with a headband sits on the floor, a
hatchet in his hand. He wears jeans and a blue undershirt.
Serious brown eyes scrutinize the visitors. Kee Wagner is a
medicine man.
(1´)
O-sound 18: Kee Wagner
My name is Kee Wagner. I am a Navajo medicine man, a traditionalist.
We are on a place called Greasewood, Arizona.(…) My grandfather on my
mother’s side, he was an herbalist, he had a lot of stories that pertain to
plantlife. You know, I asked him about this peyote, how about that one?
(…) He sat there for a while and looked at me, with a kind of a smile,
and then he said: (…)“You look at that peyote," he said, “you look at that
peyote. (…) There is two different kinds," he said, “there is a female kind
and there is a male kind. The female kind," he says, ”the holy people,
the way they fixed it and the way they put it over there, they said, it's
gonna be found, it's gonna be brought back one of these days, way in
the future time. It's gonna be the kind of medicine that makes people
think. Just like Adam and Eve, when they were in the Garden of Eden,
they were naked, said, this is the forbidden fruit, the apple, they looked
at themselves and they hid themselves. This is the kind of medicine, this
is gonna be that way; people gonna be aware of themselves, they look at
themselves and try to better themselves.”
(1´15´´)
O-sound 19: Leroy Nelson
The peyote, we use that peyote. … It's one of the most significant
wonders of mankind …The way my elders talked about it is: “There was
a lot of bad substance abuse that happened in time somewhere. So at
that time Jesus was born and was sent to the other side of the world for
white people, for Anglo people, for them to reason, to come back
together, to pray, to understand. On the other hand this peyote was sent
this way, the other way, which is into the United States of America,
North America. …This peyote was sent this way, because there was
animosity, there was killing among tribes.”
(0´55´´)
Music 4: (Peyote)
(0´15´´)
Directions: Following commentator over Music 4.
12
Commentator:
Peyote, a cactus, contains mescaline, among other substances.
Mescaline is a drug that leads to
consciousness.
a mild expansion of
The faithful believe that it protects them from
witchcraft, heals both physical and mental ailments, increases
well-being, offers some consolation and optimism. The ceremony
lasts from sunrise to sunset. The smoke from the cedar wood
cleanses the faithful; they spontaneously say prayers, sing songs.
One after the other drums—and ever so often the peyote buttons
are passed around.
(0´40´´)
O-sound 20: Leroy Nelson
Peyote ceremony, that ceremony is very unique. And then the goodness
of the family, like even the family is spelled F-A-M-I-L-Y: “Father and
mother, I love you,” that’s the foundation. “Father and mother, I love
you,” is expressed within that dimension of love, faith, hope, and
charity, the foundation of that ceremony. Coming together as a family,
family that stays together and prays together. Yes, we participate like in
the NAC, Native American Church.
(0´30´´)
Commentator:
Currently, about half the Navajos are members of the Native
American Church of North America. (...) This church—once fought
against by the Anglos—plays a major role in at least slowing down
the decline of the traditional values.
(0´15´´)
Music 4: (see above)
(0´15´´)
Directions: Stop the peyote music abruptly, continue without
atmo/music.
O-sound 21: Kee Wagner
“And then the male, they took on to the west. If they ever find that one,
that’s gonna be different. If they take up and start eating them ther=y
will be warlike again, that will violate people again, that's what its gonna
do," he said.
(0´20´´)
Atmo / Music 2: (Veteran Song)
(0´15´´)
Man on loudspeaker: …
Navajo music (vocals and drums): “Eieieiei Yayayaya ... we love you ...
World War 2 … we thank you …."
13
Directions: Narrator over atmo / music 2
Narrator:
On Independenc Day, while the medicine man chops herbs in his
hogan to later brew a tea for the treatment of AIDS and cancer,
veterans march into the arena at Window Rock, the Navajo
nation’s capital, a little over 40 miles to the east, close to the New
Mexian border. The traveler does not understand why Navajos join
an army that once defeated their people; the traveler does not
understand why Navajos adopt the goals of the white governments
in Washington, which have suppressed their people. The traveler
has heard only that the military offers the Navajos an education
and an income.
(0´50´´)
Atmo 5: Larry Anderson 1:
Larry Anderson on loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentleman, we are here
today to celebrate the Fourth of July. Not only are we celebrating our
nation’s freedom … all children …. warriors … troops who are in Iraq
and Afghanistan …represent you so we could have freedom …. Mother
Earth … Mothers and Fathers who marched with us …welcome you.
Thank you very much.”
(0´15´´)
Directions: Following O-sounds and commentator over atmo / Larry
Anderson
O-sound 22: Tom White JR.
The Navajos have a tradition of serving in the armed forces, all
branches. We have the famous Navajo Code Talkers … back in World
War 2, they devised a code that was never broken by the Japanese. The
Navajo people had been famous for participating in all conflicts. We have
our kids and relatives that participated over in Iraq back in 1991; they
served with Desert Storm. One of the things, we lost a Hopi woman
…she is a Hopi Indian from Tuba City. And she was the only female lost
over in Iraq, she was killed and we are very proud of her. She is the one
that brought her name and the intention of the Native American people
to the world.
(0´50´´)
Commentator:
The Navajos filled up on self-confidence; they were equals or,
because of their warlike qualities, they were even favored. They
learned English, discipline, and many skills, which later made
them competitive against the Anglos in the fight for good jobs.
(0´20´´)
14
Narrator:
However, the Navajo veterans‘ pride has its dark side.
(0´05´´)
O-sound 23: Leroy Nelson
And somewhere along the way they came across to some unhealthy
existence to the memory. Through that they get into the PTSD, we call it
post-stress disorder.
(0´10´´)
Atmo / Music 2: (Veteran Song)
(0´15´´)
Cheering, clapping …Man on loudspeaker: „OK, Morning Star ...Veteran
Song ...Thank you very much ...“
Atmo 6: Larry Anderson 2
Larry Anderson on loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentlemen, our marchers
and .... tell: Huh … you are now dismissed” …clapping
Atmo 7: Wind
(0´10´´)
Directions: Narrator, O-sounds and commentator over Atmo 7 / Wind
Narrator:
More and more the Navajos are exposed to Western influences.
More often than before Kee Wagner is asked for help. In the
evening, the medicine man takes the traveler with him, following
winding sand tracks, to an Enemy Way ceremony. It takes place
on a mesa, Antelope Mesa..
(0´20´´)
O-sound 24: Kee Wagner
Towards the 1960s, that´s where everything changed, when people
started getting around much more, starting with the World War 1, World
War 2 areas and then the Korean War areas, and then the Vietnam, and
then with the Desert Storm and now with the Persian Golf. In these
different places that people go to, they encounter … different races of
people. It's not the live people that they do the ceremony against, it's the
ones that are dead, that are killed in wars. They say, if you (…) were
smeared with in a different race of people's blood that's how it will affect
you. (…) It can bother you physically; it can bother you mentally; it can
bother you spiritually; and that is what this Enemy Way ceremony is all
about.
(1´)
15
Narrator:
Someone moves the white cloth at the entrance to the side. In the
semidarkness of the hogan the traveler discerns an old man in a
camping chair and an old woman sitting on the bed. A cast-iron
stove is in the center. Mattresses are on the floor along the eight
walls. On one of them sits a middle-aged man; a headband holds
his long, gray hair back, out of his face. A second medicine man
takes a seat next to Kee Wagner on a mattress; low voices talk and
joke in the circle.
(0´35´´)
Commentator:
To really help the sick person, the medicine man had to bring the
whole family into a state of hózhó. Everything was connected with
everything. Only when the group lived in harmony with the
universe could the individual be in balance.
(0´15´´)
Narrator:
The family is complete when a woman in shorts and T-shirt enters
the hogan. The second medicine man pours water into an earthen
pitcher and ties a piece of animal skin over the opening. To drive
away the evil spirits who bring illnesses, the medicine man beats
this drum he just cobbled together with the picher several times in
front of the man with the headband. Then everybody stands
outside the hogan, along with the patient, looks toward the east,
and accompanies the beat of the drum with the falling and rising
sounds of holy songs.
(0´40´´)
Commentator:
O Almighty!
Don your mocassins and stride over the
dark cloud so the thunder may accompany you.
Come to us!
Step over the rainclouds by your feet
Rainclouds follow your path
Illuminated by the flashes of lightning
Come to us!
16
(Commentator)
We have an offering for you
I dedicate the smoke of the fire to you
Give new strength to his feet
Give new strength to his thighs
Give new strength to his body
Strengthen and renew his spirit.
Remove the illness from him.
(0´25´´)
O-sound 25: Kee Wagner
The last day in the ceremony, and that's really crucial, (…) they mask
his face with paints and stuff, just like in the war days--they used to put
warpaint on the face and on the body, even on their horses. (…) The
reason behind the masking, the coloring and everything is to disguise
oneself. (…) And with that disguise they will not recognize him, pretty
soon they will say: “Ah, he is gone, I don't know where you went."
(0´25´´)
Atmo / Music 3: (Song and Dance)
(0´15´´)
Navajo music (drums and singing): ....Yanga .... sanga ali toat ... sanga
ali ... cheers in the background, chains rattling... cheers in the
background... Yanga ... change in the rhythm, laughter...
Directions: Atmo/Music 3 under following narrator.
Narrator:
The following morning—the Enemy Way ceremony lasts four days
and nights—many locals gather around the ceremonial hogan for
the social part of the ceremony, the Squaw Dance. The women
wear shimmering velvet dresses, the men glittering cowboy outfits.
While couples slowly dance in a circle, the traveler, accompanied
by Sam Winkler and Leroy Nelson, returns into the reality of every
day in Window Rock, happy to have experienced the healing
powers of the Navajo.
Along State Highway 624, Burger King advertises clean restrooms
on a large sign. In the parking lot, which is much too big, between
fast food restaurants and supermarket, a slightly drunk Navajo
approaches the traveler. A black baseball cap with Stars and
Stripes and the American eagle on his head he begs for money.
17
O-sound 26: Jonathan Dixon
I started drinking till after I got divorced. I guess, you know, heartaches,
you go to sleep by yourself at night and you can't go to sleep, think
about your wife. What is gonna happen to me from now on? How am I
gonna take care of myself? Worries like that, you know. I started
drinking.
(0´25´´)
O-sound 27: Sam Winkler
Alcohol in history was used to fight the Indians, to give them alcohol, a
long time ago. (…) It's a weapon, I think, it's a chemical weapon against
humanity.
(0´12´´)
O-sound 28: Leroy Nelson
We have a lot of negative, unhealthy, evil things that exist within our
people, which number one is killing our people is alcohol. Alcohol is
number one problem. (…) If an individual had witnessed domestic
violence, and I witnessed domestic violence, then he or she abuses
alcohol. Or if he was the perpetrator, or if he was the abuser, or if he
was abused … that is our problem too, domestic violence. People don't
reason, there is always an argument, there is always an unhealthy
situation within a relationship, so it's a relationship problem. …So
that's one problem we are expressing this: take care of your family, take
care of your relationship.
(1´)
Atmo 8: Wind
Flapping ropes at the flagpole: voices in the background, steps,
squeaking door, every once in a while wind!! Car, car starting, steps, car
starting . . . car leaving, squeaking door,. . . squeaking door , car (0´15´´)
Directions: Narrator over atmo 8: wind
Narrator:
Not far from Window Rock’s non-descript center with a mall,
Chevron gas statop, and the Motel Navajo Nation Inn along State
Highway 264, is the „government sector“ below a reddish-brown
sandstone rock with a circular hole, which gave the small town its
name. Next to the parliament, built in the shape of a hogan, are
the president's offices, built with natural stone; otherwise, there
are mainly wooden barracks. President Joe Shirley Jr. has been in
office only a short time. A former social worker, he knows about
the relationship between alcohol consumption and the 70%
unemployment rate on the reservation.
18
(0´45´´)
O-sound 29: President Joe Shirley Jr.
People not having anything to do out there, they just get out there and
do whatever, they can get their hands on drinking, carousing, killing
people. But if they have something to do, going to work every day, five
days a week, every day a week, they have some to do, that's more
constructive.
(0´20´´)
Narrator:
The tribal government has an extremely hard time creating jobs.
By law, no private property is allowed on the reservation. Sam
Winkler—he accompanied the traveler to the president—knows
the background behind this.
(0´15´´)
O-sound 30: Sam Winkler
Before 1938 the Indian citizen, they were half citizens. If you own
private land, you had to be a full citizen and if you were just half
citizenship, like slaves where like that, they couldn't own land. So even
today we don't have private ownership, but we have reservations, which
are federal lands, we really don’t have title to the land, it's federal land,
but federal Indian land put in trust, that's the conflict.
(0´30´´)
O-sound 32: President Joe shirley Jr.
We are trying to revise the regulation that establishes business site
leasing, which is a mechanism by which businesses get established
here. We're trying to get compatible to a city like Flagstaff, Gallup, our
border towns, the state of Arizona. … How long does it take for them to
establish businesses. If it takes them two weeks to establish a business
in Flagstaff, I don't see why we can't do the same thing here.
(0´30´´)
Narrator:
Large enterprises don’t settle on the reservation, since by law,
they cannot sue the Navajo Nation. And in a referendum the
Navajo twice voted down casinos, which is a lucrative business for
quite a few tribes.
(0´15´´)
O-sound 33: Arvin Trujillo
My name is Arvin Trujillo, I am the Executive Director for the Division of
Natural Resources for the Navajo Nation.
19
(O-sound 33: Arvin Trujillo)
I would say that we are about 40, 50 years behind everybody else. And
that makes it difficult for us. Because all around us, if you look at the 7
states in the western portion of the U.S., they've met much of their
development needs, that was done in the 30s, 40s, 50s, with the
constructions of dams and power grids, getting land available and doing
all that groundwork, …for better or for worse, depending on who you
talk to, you know, you see the Phoenixes, the Denvers, the
Albuquerques, the Las Vegases developing. … Will the Nation get to that
point?
(0´40´´)
Atmo 9: conveyor belt transporting coal
(0´05´´)
Directions: Atmo under O-sounds, narrator, and commentator.
O-sound 34: Sam Winkler
They gave us the worse lands, Navajo tribe, they thought they were
giving Indians desert, bad lands. Turns out it has oil on it, has natural
gas on it, has water and has coal. And now the energy crisis what is
important is coal and natural resources.
(0´15´´)
Narrator:
They have come a long way. Hundreds of miles has the traveler
driven with Sam Winkler, across barren plateaus and through
green canyons. They came over the three mesas where the Hopi
founded villages such as Oraibi or Walpi 1000 years ago, through
the Navajo towns Ganado, Keams Canyon, Tuba City, to reach the
rim of Black Mesa in the north of the reservation, just before the
Utah border. Here, not far from the town of Kayenta, 2,500square-mile, reddish-yellow plateau drops down to Monument
Valley with its primeval reddish-brown rock formations, which
have served as backdrop for many Western movies. The hogan of
Sam Winkler’s grandparents is not standing any more. On Black
Mesa coal is mined. Here, where a conveyor belt with coal runs
down the hillside of the plateau, the traveler and Sam Winkler
meet Shonto Begay again, at the Exxon gas station. His daughter
Enei is with him. Both are from the nearby village Shonto, the
„Glistening Water“.
(1´10´´)
20
O-Ton 35: Enei Begaye
On Black Mesa we have one of the largest strip mine, coal mines in the
U.S. A company called Peabody Coal Company has been operating since
1965 on Black Mesa. And what they are doing is stripping off hundreds
of layers of rock and earth and trees to get at the coal, that … produces
electricity and pretty much powers Southern California and Nevada. The
other thing that Peabody Coal Company is doing, (…) they are also
pumping up our groundwater. What they are using the groundwater for
is basically to transport coal, it's called a slurry-operation. And they
take the coal and they crush it up very fine and then they mix it up with
our groundwater and they send it in a pipeline 275 miles to Nevada, to
the power plant in Nevada.
(0´50´´)
O-Ton 36: Arvin Trujillo
Arizona is really starting to grow and it's in a desert area. (…) Here on
the Navajo Reservation you are seeing growth, too. In the 60s we had
around 60,000-70,000 Navajos, now we are pushing close to 300,000,
with about 170,000 here on the reservation. (…) And it comes back to a
basic question: How do you develop? Our focus … is how we balance
our resources with the fact that we also are wanting to develop base
infrastructure or base jobs, so we can employ people here on the
reservation. And of course that takes water, that takes land, that takes
electricity.
(0´50´´)
Narrator:
The mounds of coal, conveyor belts, power shovels, and oil tanks
of Peabody Coal Company are a familiar sight for the traveler who
comes from an industrialized country. However, in this largely
untouched landscape the black strip mines give the impression of
the earth being raped.
(0´15´´)
O-sound 37: Sam Winkler
You see that's a conflict for me, that's a conflict with American ideas.
They betrayed me, "You become a better person by being educated and
you come work for us." If I bought that and I go to work in a coal field
and make lots of money, so I could have a good life, but I am destroying
the land, I am a part of them, you know.
(0´20´´)
Atmo 10: Rainstick
Directions: Atmo 10 under narrator.
21
Narrator:
Since she was little Enei Begaye has known of the balancing act
between tradition and modernization, has known about the
importance of water. She studied geology and hydrology in
California and is now an environmental activist with the Black
Mesa Water Coalition.
(0´15´´)
O-sound 38: Enei Begaye
My grandfather is a medicine man, and he told us, when we were
growing up, that Black Mesa is a female, that her body is there on Black
Mesa and her head is to the north, Navajo Mountain. And her arms and
legs are the little mesas of the Hopi Mesas. And where Peabody is
digging is her heart. And they are digging out her heart and they are
pumping up her lifeblood. And I think about the taste of that water, I
grew up drinking that water. (…) And it's sweet. And one time I was
thinking about: What will happen if this water is gone? How am I going
to describe to my kids the taste of that water?
(0´50´´)
Narrator:
In the U.S., the only place where coal is transported by using
water is on Black Mesa. This makes transportation cheap. Up
until the 1960s, up until the coal deposits were discovered, Hopis
and Navajos lived together in harmony on Black Mesa..A border
was drawn between the tribes to determine the respective
properties so that Peybody Company could purchase the mining
licenses for next to nothing. This lead to the Navajo-Hopi land
dispute. Using federal law as a basis, ten thousand Navajos and a
number of Hopis were relocated—for the Navajos this was the
second Long Walk. Members of the Council of Elders wrote a
resolution.
(0´50´´)
Commentator:
The government of the United States and the tribal council of the
Navajo have violated the holy laws of the Diné . . . dividing the
peoples of Native Americans through political boundries, Angloamerican education, modernization, and Christianity. Mother
Earth was raped by the mining of coal, uranium, natural gas, and
helium…
(0´25´´)
22
Narrator:
All that to supply Phoenix and Las Vegas with cheap energy.
Although coal mining brings economic benefits for the people, it
also leads to a significant dependency on one single enterprise.
Today, the Navajo Nation draws 40 percent of its income from
Peabody Coal Company; seven hundred Navajos are employed
with the company.
(0´25´´)
O-sound 39: President Joe Shirley Jr.
We need the mine, we need the jobs, we need the revenues, that's all
there is to it.
(0´05´´)
Commentator:
Whites and tribal leaders indirectly committed a second genocide
(…) By declaring progress, prosperity, and monetary economy the
holy trinity and by banning spiritual considerations from politics,
they drove innumerable Navajos to the psychological sidelines.
(0´20´´)
O-sound 40: Sam Winkler
Those who sell out realize that they are trying to do good by raising
money, by having tribal revenues, increasing tribal revenues, making
the quality of life better for everybody else, it's good intentions, you
know, but then also these people are saying, well, those people are
selling out.
(0´20´´)
Commentator:
We don't strive for a change in our way of life, since living with
nature is the only form of survival we know, and it is our holy law.
-- Members of the Council of Elders.
(0´10´´)
O-sound 41 Shonto Begay
Today the Indian war continues and the future is gonna be about water,
the water rights, and that's where we need the world's attention.
Because this is the next gold rush in the American West.
(0´10´´)
23
Atmo 11: Water station
(0´10´´)
Filling the tank on the pickup with water. .... Water stops...... dropping
coins into the machine and filling again . . .again dropping coins into the
machine... .... .again dropping coins into the machine filling . . . water. .
. until . . again dropping coins into the machine... filling water (softer)
Directions: Put following o-sounds over atmo
O-sound 42: Shonto Begay
Our set of issues is very much land-based, water, water issue, where do
we gonna get the next barrel of water? Are we gonna have enough water
for the community? Are we gonna have enough water for the life stock?
(…) That's one thing that I find among Navajos when I go home: It's a
laughing culture, no matter how sad and bad things seem to get, there
is always something funny to laugh at in there.
(0´25´´)
O-sound 43: Leroy Nelson
We are living in two worlds today. Two worlds, we are living in the
modern time of technology.
(0´05´´)
Narrator:
Navajos such as Shonto Begay, Leroy Nelson, or Sam Winkler live
in a world between tradition and modern times. Within, they have
to reconcile conflicting cultures. Even when they try very hard to
reach a state of hózhó, of harmony, they are still confronted with
the dominant world of the Anglos on a daily basis--a world that is
oriented toward an accumulation of material goods and
consumerism, a world that wants more and more.
(0´30´´)
O-sound 44: Sam Winkler
No matter how much the white man, the American Western man says,
"Be educated, learn to speak English right, buy this, live like this," but
yeah you accept those and buy into that, but then when you come out
here, in the white man's society they still don't accept you.
(0´20´´)
Narrator:
Although it is impossible for the younger generation of Navajos to
find a place in the American society, their path still leads them
away from their traditions.
(0´10´´)
O-sound 45: Leroy Nelson
The children, their interest is otherwise music, other music, foreign
music, other religion or other lifestyle, other dress codes, they want to
be otherwise, they don't want to be indigenous natives, they don't want
to be Indian.
(0´20´´)
24
Commentator:
The bridge to their ancestors' lives was burned. Many seemed to
consciously avoid learning from their elders and pulling parts of
their way of life into the present. Gathering medicinal herbs,
farming, cleaning out the irrigation ditches: that was a joke; after
all, you could buy everything in the store.
(0´25´´)
O-sound 46: Sam Winkler:
There is a constant conflict, for me even, you know. I like having a DVD,
I like CDs, I like computers, I like the internet, I like a cell phone, I like a
BMW. (…) I could live in Malibu on a beach, I could fly to Hamburg and
eat in a restaurant and fly back, yeah, I could do that, I really could, I
am tempted, see, that's the temptation of the dream and the luxury and
the lights …But that means leaving something, it means leaving your
quiet ways, you're leaving your hard life for a soft life. It's of course false,
because if you do that you're contributing to the whole industry. (0´40´´)
Music 3: (Peyote; Leroy Nelson)
(0´10´´)
O-sound 47: Leroy Nelson:
Where we are going with life today? Where are we at with life today? The
year 2075 how we gonna be, where are we gonna be at, our children
how are they gonna live? Will they have the uniqueness of an individual
as we are today? Will our language still exist? Our teaching? Our
tradition? Our lifestyle? Our stories? …Is it gonna be extinct? Who
knows. So time will show itself.
(0´25´´)
O-sound 48: Jonathan Dixon
We want life to be like it used to be. We are getting into all this
sophisticated vehicles, stuff like that. I think a lot of us, we would like
go horseback riding again, wagon days. I wish I was still 8 years old, I
miss my ponies, you know.
(0´15´´)
O-sound 49: Redwing
I guess there is no turning back … we are all going to get modernized,
we are all going to have a high school diploma, maybe then a college
degree, that's the direction that we will go ahead.
(0´10´´)
O-sound 50: Sam Winkler
We need to keep separate from the American, like not to become too
American, or like Western ideas. Because America needs that, the world
needs it. The world needs to see the positiveness of our cultures, small
or big, there is positiveness.
(0´20´´)
25
Atmo / Music 6: (Kee Wagner)
Navajo song about Talking God
(0´30´´)
Directions: Voice over Atmo/Music 6
Voice over:
“I am the Talking God”, he says, “I am over in the east side, I am
always where the black clouds are, I am always where there is
rain, I am over there where there is always a rainbow, where there
is lightning to take care of me, to protect me from anything. With
beauty from behind me I am there for you. My grandkids," he
says. That's what the song is all about.
(0´25´´)
O-sound 51: Sam Winkler
The traditional voice is that mythical voice, the mythical feeling, the
spirit of Navajo, you know, that's important.
(0´05´´)
Atmo 12: car (inside recording: driving the car over the dirtroad)
Stopping, sounds of controls, pulling key out of ignition, doors
slamming
(0´15´´)
Directions: Put following narrator and o-sound 52 over atmo 12, the
end should be the slamming of the door
Narrator:
"You are leaving the Navajo Reservation." On the drive from the
reservation back to Flagstaff the traveler gets the impression that
he slowly returns from the depths of a world in between, where
myths and reality are closely connected, to the surface of the
earth.
(0´15´´)
O-sound 51: Shonto Begay
You say (Navajo expression) which means, which is approval, “later,
until I see you again”, there is no word for simply just “goodbye,"
because nothing is just final, everything happens in a cycle. (Navajo
expression) “Until I see you again." (soft clapping)
(0´15´´)
End
26