Bringing Navajo Storytelling Practices into Schools: The Importance of Maintaining Cultural Integrity

This article examines storytelling practices among Navajos as one example of a non-Western approach to education. The article discusses two stories—one regarding the perspectives of Navajo storytellers concerning the importance of the context of storytelling practices and the other about the research process that led to these perspectives. Eight storytellers were interviewed about storytelling practices in the past and those they would like to see in the future. Implications of the importance of key storytelling practices for Navajo education as well as for changes in Western approaches to schooling are presented.     

Shonto Revisited: Measures of Social and Economic Change in a Navajo Community, 1955–1971

Between 1954 and 1956 the senior author of this article carried out a detailed social and economic study of the community of Shonto, situated in what was then a particularly remote corner of the Navajo Indian Reservation in northeastern Arizona. In 1972 the junior author returned to do a restudy of the same community. A comparison of the data obtained in the two studies provides unique measures of social and economic change, and also of social and economic persistence, during a period of unprecedented growth and modernization of the Navajo Reservation . [social change, economic change, Navajo]     

Healing and the Human Condition: Scenes from the Present Moment in Navajoland

The encounter of Navajo spirituality and healing practice with modernity in the present moment must be understood within an existential appreciation of temporality, tradition, domination, and immediacy. Examining the practical exigencies and experiential nuances in a performance of the Navajo Nightway ceremony allows us to elaborate this insight.     

Woven by the Grandmothers

Woven by the Grandmothers: Nineteenth-Century Navajo Textiles from the National Museum of the American Indian. The Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, February 1-April 26,1998.
Woven by the Grandmothers: Nineteenth-Century Navajo Textiles from the National Museum of the American Indian. Eulalie H. Bonar. ed. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996. 214 pp.     

Life-course observations of alcohol use among Navajo Indians: natural history or careers?

In this article, I describe changes in patterns of alcohol use and abuse among Navajo Indians from the mid-1960s to the late 1990s. The prevalence of alcohol dependence continues to be higher than in the general U.S. population, but remission is also common, as it was in the 1960s and previously. Men have substantially higher rates of alcohol dependence than women. The former engage in heavy drinking largely in response to the heavy drinking of those around them. The latter drink excessively largely as a response to psychiatric disorders, depression, and abuse by a partner or husband. As increasing numbers of people have moved to reservation and border towns, a youth culture has developed in which alcohol use is initiated by teenagers with their peers rather than, as in the past, with older kinsmen. Alcohol use has thus been freed from the constraints imposed by both isolation and family obligations.     

Anthropological films and the myth of scientific truths

This article describes, analyzes, and interprets various cultural influences on the representational drawings of young Navajo students, in order to understand their changing cultural viewpoint. The data and drawings were gathered from two elementary art classes in one Navajo public school in northeastern Arizona, as part of an ongoing study. This information is compared to anthropological data gathered on adult Navajo drawings nearly 30 years ago, as well as to some dominant theories on child art. Data reveal students are influenced by Navajo traditional images, classroom teachers’ versions of school art, popular art images, pan‐Indian influences, and peer copying. Results reveal the persistence of traditional nature imagery, the incorporation of similar schemas and color use with mainstream children, a keen ability to render realistic images and space, and the incorporation of those American things that the Navajo regard as “good for them.” Keen drawing abilities appear at a young age among the Navajo because of the high status of the arts, traditional education through observation and demonstration, peer imitation, and male drawing competition.     

‘Tell your own story’: manhood,masculinity and racial socialization among black fathers and their sons

This study examines how black fathers and sons in the USA conceptualize manhood and masculinity and the racial socializing practices of black men. Drawing upon data from an ethnography on black male schooling, this paper uses the interviews with fathers and sons to explore how race and gender intersect in how black males make meaning of their gendered performances. Common notions of manhood are articulated, including independence, responsibility and providership. However, race and gender intersect in particular ways for black men. The fathers engaged in particular racial socializing practices preparing their sons for encounters with racism. Both fathers and sons adopted black existentialist perspectives, emphasizing self-determination and resilience as racially and politically motivated acts of resistance. Finally, the paper describes how the fathers modelled to their sons how to navigate racialized spaces as black men.     

Indigenous Studies in the Elementary Curriculum: A Cautionary Hawaiian Example

This article uses a Native Hawaiian example to raise difficult questions about the role and responsibility of non-Indigenous educators in teaching and supporting Indigenous studies. It challenges educators and educational researchers to think closely about how they might serve as allies in Indigenous struggles for self-determination.     

Jesus, peyote, and the holy people: alcohol abuse and the ethos of power in Navajo healing

Of the three religious healing traditions that coexist within the contemporary Navajo health care system, the Native American Church (NAC) and Pentecostal Christianity are more actively involved in the treatment of alcohol and substance abuse than is Traditional Navajo healing. This article examines these two more recent healing traditions as religious responses to the contemporary Navajo crisis of alcohol and substance abuse as well as to socioeconomic changes. These traditions offer new kinds of power, social networks, and personal meaning that facilitate a transformation of self, a revitalized sense of community, and a new vision of the possibilities of the future for Navajo people who suffer. Examining the ethos of power that underlies Navajo healing can complement the theoretical emphasis on harmony and beauty in anthropological research on Navajo culture and religion.     

The HLA loci of the Hopi and Navajo

The purpose of this paper is to present the genetic distribution at the HLA-A,B,C, and DR loci in the Hopi and the Navajo. A sample of 100 outpatients from each tribe was selected at the Public Health Service Indian Hospital in Keam's Canyon, Arizona, and was typed for the antigens at the four loci. The distributions of the alleles and the haplotypes are similar in each tribe. A distance measure, f, confirms the genetic similarity of the two populations. It is concluded that the great cultural diversity of the Hopi and the Navajo is the result of a cultural evolution and diversification that has greatly outstripped the genetic evolution at the major histocompatibility loci over the past 20,000 years.     

Nostalgia and Degeneration: The Moral Economy of Drinking in Navajo Society

This article focuses on how some members of Navajo society use narratives regarding alcohol and drinking to comment on cultural degeneration and the decay of the traditional Navajo moral economy. These narratives drinking are seldom solely about alcohol but refer to a host of distinct yet interrelated concerns involving moral values, individual and collective identities, underdevelopment, imagined histories, psychic conflict, and social contention. This article sheds light on how evaluations of alcohol and drinking problems, as encapsulated in narratives of degeneration, fit into the overall context of contemporary Navajo society. Narratives of degeneration juxtapose a degenerate present to a nostalgic past and in the process direct moral censure toward two primary groups in Navajo society, namely, young people and others who drink to excess, [drinking, Native Americans, Navajo, narrative, alcohol]     

Maintaining abstinence in a northern plains tribe

In this article, we examine how American Indian individuals with a history of alcohol dependence have been able to maintain their abstinence despite strong pressures to return to drinking. This work builds on close collaboration with individual tribal members who have resolved their problems with alcohol and community-based service providers to develop open-ended qualitative interviews. Using these, we explored how former drinkers respond to the twin challenges raised by their former drinking associates and strong feelings that emerge when alcohol is no longer an option for coping with life's difficulties. The resolution of these challenges is central to abstinence, given the strong ties between drinking and sociality in some American Indian communities (including the one where this study was conducted) and underscores the ways in which alternate relations to alcohol can be established even within a heavy drinking cultural context. Interviews were conducted with 133 individuals from a northern plains tribe who were identified in a previous epidemiological study as having a lifetime history of alcohol dependence. Inquiry into the processes involved in the meaningful constitution of abstinence for these men and women highlights the role of religion and spirituality for some, but by no means all of these individuals and, more broadly, the emergence of what Bea Medicine has characterized as "new ways of coping," which force us to expand on leading conceptualizations of coping in the literature on problems with alcohol.     

Prospects for the Survival of the Navajo Language: A Reconsideration

What is the role of schools in the loss of indigenous languages? A study 25 years ago of prospects for the survival of Navajo placed most of the blame for the spread of English on increasing access to schools. Reconsidering that evidence and recent developments, the central role of the introduction of Western schooling is seen still to be highly relevant. But other factors have worked through the school, the major effect of which has been the ideological acceptance of English. Vernacular literacy, traditional or introduced religion, and political structure all have failed to establish a counterforce. Economic changes also led to new living patterns that, together with improved communication, broke down isolation and supported the threat to the survival of language. This study confirms the importance of seeing language and education in the full social, cultural, religious, and political context recognized by educational anthropology.     

Associations of Circulating Oxidized LDL and Conventional Biomarkers of Cardiovascular Disease in a Cross-Sectional Study of the Navajo Population

The prevalences of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) have increased among the Navajo Native American community in recent decades. Oxidized low-density lipoprotein (oxLDL) is a novel CVD biomarker that has never been assessed in the Navajo population. We examined the relationship of oxLDL to conventional CVD and T2D risk factors and biomarkers in a cross-sectional population of Navajo participants. This cross-sectional study included 252 participants from 20 Navajo communities from the Diné Network for Environmental Health Project. Plasma samples were tested for oxLDL levels by a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to determine the relationship of oxLDL and oxidized- to non-oxidized lipoprotein ratios to glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin 6 (IL6) and demographic and health variables. Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and obesity are very prevalent in this Navajo population. HbA1c, CRP, body mass index (BMI), high-density lipoprotein, and triglycerides were at levels that may increase risk for CVD and T2D. Median oxLDL level was 47 (36.8–57) U/L. Correlational analysis showed that although oxLDL alone was not associated with HbA1c, oxLDL/HDL, oxLDL/LDL and CRP were significantly associated with HbA1c and glucose. OxLDL, oxLDL/HDL and oxLDL/LDL were significantly associated with CRP. Multivariate analysis showed that triglycerides were a common and strong predictor of oxLDL, oxLDL/HDL and oxLDL/LDL. OxLDL was trended with HbA1c and glucose but did not reach significance, however, HbA1c was an independent predictor of OxLDL/HDL. CRP trended with oxLDL/HDL and was a weak predictor of oxLDL/LDL. This Navajo subset appears to have oxLDL levels comparable to subjects without evidence of CVD reported in other studies. The high prevalence of T2D, hypertension and obesity along with abnormal levels of other biomarkers including HbA1c indicate that the Navajo population has a worsening CVD risk profile.     

Placebo studies and ritual theory: a comparative analysis of Navajo, acupuncture and biomedical healing

Using a comparative analysis of Navajo healing ceremonials, acupuncture and biomedical treatment, this essay examines placebo studies and ritual theory as mutually interpenetrating disciplines. Healing rituals create a receptive person susceptible to the influences of authoritative culturally sanctioned 'powers'. The healer provides the sufferer with imaginative, emotional, sensory, moral and aesthetic input derived from the palpable symbols and procedures of the ritual process-in the process fusing the sufferer's idiosyncratic narrative unto a universal cultural mythos. Healing rituals involve a drama of evocation, enactment, embodiment and evaluation in a charged atmosphere of hope and uncertainty. Experimental research into placebo effects demonstrates that routine biomedical pharmacological and procedural interventions contain significant ritual dimensions. This research also suggests that ritual healing not only represents changes in affect, self-awareness and self-appraisal of behavioural capacities, but involves modulations of symptoms through neurobiological mechanisms. Recent scientific investigations into placebo acupuncture suggest several ways that observations from ritual studies can be verified experimentally. Placebo effects are often described as 'non-specific'; the analysis presented here suggests that placebo effects are the 'specific' effects of healing rituals.     

Rates and Causes of End-Stage Renal Disease in Navajo Indians, 1971-1985

The rates of end-stage renal disease are much increased in American Indians, but no longitudinal study of its rates and causes has been undertaken in any tribe. This 15-year study of rates and causes of treated end-stage renal disease in the Navajo, the largest Indian tribe, supplies an important model on which to base projections and plan interventions. Treated end-stage renal disease in Navajos has increased to an age-adjusted incidence 4 times that in whites in the United States. Diabetic nephropathy accounted for 50% of all new cases in 1985, with an incidence 9.6 times that in US whites, and was due entirely to type II disease. Glomerulonephritis caused end-stage renal disease in Navajos at a rate at least 1.8 times that in US whites and afflicted a much younger population. The predominant form was mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis associated with an immune complex deposition. Renal disease of unknown etiology, which probably includes much silent glomerulonephritis, accounted for 20% of all new cases. The aggregate Navajo population with end-stage renal disease was 9 years younger than its US counterpart.These observations reflect the genesis of the epidemic of diabetic nephropathy afflicting many tribes. Urgent measures are needed to contain this. In addition, the etiology and control of mesangiopathic, immune-complex glomerulonephritis of unusual severity, a previously unrecognized problem, need to be addressed.     

Book Review

Book review in this article:
Archeology: Settlement of the Prairie Margin: Archaeology of the Richland Creek Reservoir, Navarro and Freestone Counties, Texas: 1980-1981 . L. Mark Raab
Historic Indian Groups of the Choke Canyon Reservoir and Surrounding Area, Southern Texas . T. N. Campbell and T. J. Campbell
Archaeological Investigations at Choke Canyon Reservoir, South Texas: The Phase I Findings . Grant D. Hall, Stephen L. Black, and Carol Graves
Excavations at 41 LK 67: A Prehistoric Site in the Choke Canyon Reservoir, South Texas . Kenneth M. Brown, Daniel R. Potter, Grant D. Hall, and Stephen L. Black
Anasazi and Navajo Land Use in the McKinley Mine Area Near Gallup, New Mexico, Volume 1, Parts 1 and 2: Archeology . Christina G. Allen and Ben A. Nelson
Anasazi and Navajo Land Use in the McKinley Mine Area Near Gallup, New Mexico, Volume 2: Navajo Ethnohistory . Klara B. Kelley     

Identity and healing in three Navajo religious traditions: sa'ah naagháí bik'eh hózh [symbol: see text

In this article, we elucidate how the Navajo synthetic principle sa'ah naagháí bik'eh hózh [symbol: see text] (SNBH) is understood, demonstrated, and elaborated in three different Navajo healing traditions. We conducted interviews with Navajo healers and their patients affiliated with Traditional Navajo religion, the Native American Church, and Pentecostal Christianity. Their narratives provide access to cultural themes of identity and healing that invoke elements of SNBH. SNBH specifies that the conditions for health and well-being are harmony within and connection to the physical/spiritual world. Specifically, each religious healing tradition encourages affective engagement, proper family relations, an understanding of one's cultural and spiritual histories, and the use of kinship terms to establish affective bonds with one's family and with the spiritual world. People's relationships within this common behavioral environment are integral to their self-orientations, to their identities as Navajos, and to the therapeutic process. The disruption and restoration of these relationships constitute an important affective dimension in Navajo distress and healing.     

Aldehyde dehydrogenase polymorphism in North American, South American, and Mexican Indian populations.

While about 40% of the South American Indian populations (Atacameños, Mapuche, Shuara) were found to be deficient in aldehyde dehydrogenase isozyme I (ALDH2 or E2), preliminary investigations showed very low incidence of isozyme deficiency among North American natives (Sioux, Navajo) and Mexican Indians (mestizo). Possible implications of such trait differences on cross-cultural behavioral response to alcohol drinking are discussed.     

Weight Loss Attempts and Attitudes toward Body Size,Eating, and Physical Activity in American Indian Children: Relationship to Weight Status and Gender

Objective: This study examined dieting, weight perceptions, and self‐efficacy to eat healthy foods and engage in physical activity and their relationships to weight status and gender among American Indian elementary schoolchildren. Research Methods and Procedures: Data for this study were collected as part of the baseline examination for the Pathways study. Participants were 1441 second‐ through third‐grade American Indian children in 41 schools representing seven tribes in Arizona, New Mexico, and South Dakota who filled out a questionnaire and had heights and weights taken. Results: Forty‐two percent of the children were overweight or obese. No differences were found between overweight/obese and normal weight children for healthy food intentions or self‐efficacy. Heavier children (especially those with body mass index > 95th percentile) were more likely to have tried to lose weight or were currently trying to lose weight. No gender differences were found. Normal weight children chose a slightly heavier body size as most healthy compared with overweight/obese children. Discussion: The results indicate that children are concerned about their weight and that weight modification efforts are common among overweight American Indian children. School, community, and family‐based programs are needed to help young people adopt lifelong healthful eating and physical activity practices.