Kelvin Long fears Navajo culture is slowly becoming frozen.
Navajo Nation tribal member Kelvin Long, 36, chuckles at
the memory: He’d taken a year off from work, and a would-be
co-worker lured him back by inviting him to a meeting in
Flagstaff, Arizona—with the promise that there would be lots
of beautiful women. “I went, and I fell in love. There were
all these brilliant, beautiful, determined women.
Unfortunately, it turned out they were all related to me
through clan.”
When babies are born in the Navajo tribe, they become
members of their mother’s clans. Traditional Navajo people
introduce themselves by identifying the clans on both their
mother’s and father’s sides. This allows clan relations like
brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles to recognize one
another, even if they’ve never met. It also helps
marriageable youth avoid partners who share the same clan as
their own mother or father, a traditional safeguard against
inbreeding. Long was born into the Bitterwater clan, which
is one of the original four clans created by the Navajo
matriarch White Shell Woman, or Changing Woman. It also
happens that it’s one of the largest clans. As a result,
“I’m related to everyone,” Long says, adding that he almost
always assumes a love interest is out-of-bounds. “A lot of
times I don’t even date Navajo women.”
Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly has been expressing
concerns lately about that very reality. He says the tribe’s
clan system is on the verge of becoming too restrictive. By
most counts there are now about 130 clans, largely because
new clans have been created through marriages between tribal
and nontribal members. Shelly says as the clans grow, it’s
getting harder and harder to avoid running into—and
marrying—relations.
Shelly has been floating the idea that intertribal
marriages should be encouraged, to widen the options for
tribal members. He points out that leaders of smaller Indian
tribes, where membership often hovers around 200 or 300
people, are in even more precarious positions than the
Navajo Nation. “They also know that they are losing their
membership and their full-blooded tribal members,” he says.
“These smaller tribe leaders…instead of losing out to
members of another nationality, are saying maybe we should
open our doors to each other, our nation, our civilization,
and welcome them Native to Native.”
Shelly recognizes that intertribal marriages will also
result in the loss of members for some tribes, because
people must choose membership in a single tribe. He
emphasizes that he’s not pushing people to leave the Navajo
Nation—but he insists even that’s better than the
alternative, when it comes to the bigger picture of Native
people. “We want to stay in existence,” he says. “We don’t
want to lose that.”
Although Long and other traditionalists aren’t opposed to
that approach, they are reluctant to abandon the clan system
that is a foundational part of being Navajo. They’re
advocating a path forward where the traditional clan system
is restored to a place of honor in the tribe’s cultural
identity, as it’s opened up to allow for marriages with
people outside the tribe.
Shelly favors intertribal marriages.
Shelly worries that within the clan system confines, clan
brothers and sisters will eventually have no choice but to
marry. He points to sickness and weakness among the Nation’s
youth, and suspects already that close intermarriages could
be a cause. “We are mammals,” he says. And Navajo people
know better than most how to keep mammalian offspring their
healthiest: “The maximum you can use a bull is four years.
That way, the cattle or sheep are healthy, bigger.” He
worries the people aren’t applying that same standard to
their own lives.
“You see a lot of weakness in the young kids. They get
sick more. Talk to some health-care people, they would tell
you there’s an increase in a lot of the health problems,” he
says. “In the past it never used to be that way. That
concerns me.”
There are no studies documenting genetic diversity or the
effects of intermarriage on the Navajo Nation. In fact,
those sorts of studies are forbidden, says Ronald Maldonado,
program manager in the Cultural Resource Compliance Section
of the
Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department.
“There is a moratorium prohibiting genetic research on
the Navajo Reservation,” he says. “This has been going on,
to the best of my knowledge, for at least 10 years. The
tests have not been done to my knowledge and would not be
allowed under current rules.”
Philmer Bluehouse, a Navajo peacemaker and
traditionalist, says there’s an alarming and fundamental
shift that underlies the worries about inbreeding—and it has
more to do with disconnection from culture than any inherent
limits in the clan system. He refers to unwritten rules
governing Navajo people, also called Natural Law. “Our
traditional practice to prevent genetic corruption was to
determine, through our clan system, by asking our parents,
who and which clans to marry,” he says. “This shows respect
and understanding for self and others in these serious
matters. In this contemporary world, it is sad to know that
many cultures do not understand or appreciate how to
interpret and apply these laws. I see many of us simply
following what the greater society is practicing without
consideration as to the real intent of why the unwritten
laws were created.”
He says most Navajo people understand the risks of
inbreeding, given their experience as shepherds. And he’s
not opposed to using modern methods to protect the tenets of
natural law: “When I married my wife, I made certain—I had a
genetic blood test.”
At the same time, Bluehouse isn’t against the idea of
encouraging marriages outside the Navajo tribe: “We have to
allow that to happen to keep the blood clean,” he says. But
he also hopes people will go about it in a reasoned way.
“This is something that the Diné really need to open up and
have some intelligent discussion on. We need to not be
lazy.”
Long thinks he has solution. He’s the executive director
of the Flagstaff-based organization Educating Communities
while Healing and Offering Environmental Support (ECHOES),
and through that group he’s gathering funds for a series of
conferences and a book, all under the title Ké Bíká. Ké is a
Navajo word referring to an understanding or relationship,
of interconnectedness. And bíká means a reasoning, or
purpose. “When you put them together it’s like a journey,
toward an understanding of how we’re connected—an
understanding of our culture, ceremony, history,” he
explains.
He wants to gather experts on the Navajo clan system for
the conferences; the book will document their knowledge. He
wants to give it as a gift to his people. “We’re at a point
where I feel like our culture is frozen,” he says, adding
that social ills like alcoholism and diabetes are some of
the results of that stagnation. “I feel like it’s because
people are disconnected from their own identity. They’re not
in control of their own lives.”
Long says he went through a process, early in his 30s,
where he had to overcome parts of his past in order to
reconnect with his own identity. And he feels the same thing
needs to happen on a societal scale. He laments that the
most commonly held impressions of the Navajo were created by
scholars and historians during one of the lowest points in
the history of the tribe. “Histories record of a people
traumatized, emotionally disconnected, starving. We were
taught in boarding schools that’s what we are,” he says. But
Long feels there’s no reason those views should be
perpetuated—and it’s damaging for them to be ingrained in
the tribal consciousness.
He sees his book as an antidote. “It’s a toolkit,” he
says. “It’s a historical gift to the people. People are
hurting. By giving them this book, showing them who they are
and where they came from, it’s a way to provide that map, if
they choose to go down that road. It’s a way to heal.”
No one’s claiming there will be a quick fix for the
issues facing the Navajo clan system. Long’s conferences
aren’t even set to begin until the middle of 2013. As for
Shelly’s idea of opening the door to more intertribal
marriages, even tribal law will have to change to
accommodate those plans. For example, right now, tribal
jurisdictions don’t cover nontribal in-laws living on the
reservation, he says.
“When I was running for this office,” he adds, “A lot of
nontribal members came to me and said, ‘You need to change
the law so we can vote in the elections and be citizens.’ We
are looking into that.”
COMMENT:
It bothers me that we are still the only people on earth
that are counted in percentages, and numbers in order to
call ourselves a people, a little bit dehumanizing.
If it was merely clanship based then we could all marry
whomever we wanted outside our tribes, and nations. Our
ancestors created new clans and adopted people for non
tribal members not based on a percentage on American
government Indian Blood.
Navajos originally had four clans. The fact that the
story mentions 130 clans (and historically, the number’s
been up to 146), indicates that the Navajo have married
outside the tribe and integrated other Native Nations into
the clan system as a matter of course. The story overstates
the lack of viable life partner options for most Navajo folk
Mr. Shelly states his concerns for “…weakness in the
young kids. They get sick more.” Shelly urges us to
“Talk to some health-care people, they would tell you
there’s an increase in a lot of the health problems,”
and further states, “In the past it never used to be
that way. That concerns me.”
Is Shelly so willing to scapegoat our own culture as
the culprit to the poor health of Dine’ youth rather
look to his own Nation’s unsustainable energy practices
and policies?
The Navajo Nation still holds nearly 1,000 abandoned
uranium mines. Well water is documented by the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as undrinkable due
to uranium contamination in at least 22 Dine’
communities. Additionally, uranium mining has been
linked to reproductive cancers among very young Dine’
women still in their teens, at rates up to 17 times the
national average.
Shelly has stated that new uranium mines are not out of
the question for future Navajo Nation energy policy.
Three coal fired power plants continue to seriously
threaten public health and the environment. The Four
Corners Power Plant alone is the is the largest source
of nitrogen oxide gases in the United States. According
to the Clean Air Task Force the power plant annually
contributes to 44 premature deaths, 800 asthma attacks,
42 asthma-related emergency room visits, and other
health impacts.
Rather than address these critical health threats to
the people of his Nation, Shelly is negotiating ways to
further unsustainable resource extraction and pollution,
including compromising the water rights of his own
people. The recently proposed S. 2109: Navajo-Hopi
Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Act of
2012 includes provisions to ensure continuance of Navajo
Generating Station and Peabody Coal.
Shelly also seems oblivious to nutritional issues and
diabetes which are also grave health threats in our
reservation communities.
Indeed Shelly should look more responsibly at his Ke’
and determine what future we will have if he continues
this current path.
- Klee Benally
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Mr. Shelly states his concerns for “…weakness in the young kids. They get sick more.” Shelly urges us to “Talk to some health-care people, they would tell you there’s an increase in a lot of the health problems,” and further states, “In the past it never used to be that way. That concerns me.”
Is Shelly so willing to scapegoat our own culture as the culprit to the poor health of Dine’ youth rather look to his own Nation’s unsustainable energy practices and policies?
The Navajo Nation still holds nearly 1,000 abandoned uranium mines. Well water is documented by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as undrinkable due to uranium contamination in at least 22 Dine’ communities. Additionally, uranium mining has been linked to reproductive cancers among very young Dine’ women still in their teens, at rates up to 17 times the national average.
Shelly has stated that new uranium mines are not out of the question for future Navajo Nation energy policy.
Three coal fired power plants continue to seriously threaten public health and the environment. The Four Corners Power Plant alone is the is the largest source of nitrogen oxide gases in the United States. According to the Clean Air Task Force the power plant annually contributes to 44 premature deaths, 800 asthma attacks, 42 asthma-related emergency room visits, and other health impacts.
Rather than address these critical health threats to the people of his Nation, Shelly is negotiating ways to further unsustainable resource extraction and pollution, including compromising the water rights of his own people. The recently proposed S. 2109: Navajo-Hopi Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Act of 2012 includes provisions to ensure continuance of Navajo Generating Station and Peabody Coal.
Shelly also seems oblivious to nutritional issues and diabetes which are also grave health threats in our reservation communities.
Indeed Shelly should look more responsibly at his Ke’ and determine what future we will have if he continues this current path.
- Klee Benally