Long Way Thunder: Echoes of Dinétah

By Joseph M. Nixon and M. Colleen Hamilton

Five years among the Navajo, the Authors absorbed traditional lifestyles, working, living, meeting, and interacting with the Diné. Share those experiences through this collection of stories from that adventure, learn a bit of their language; experience their humor, wit and culture and immerse yourself in the philosophy of harmony. Long Way Thunder offers an amusing and simultaneously enlightening escape to another cultural dimension.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665517584

Joseph M. Nixon

A retired anthropologist, Dr. Nixon lives and writes in Southern California, a region known for cultural and linguistic variation. Vocational interests include history, archaeology, linguistics, and the Old West. His approach to writing includes humanistic elements imbedded by a strong education and an occasional professional venture into local history. In The Back 40, he returns to his roots in Central Illinois to tell the story of his small hometown during the 1950s.

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© 2021 M. C. Hamilton & Joseph M. Nixon. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the authors.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/31/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1759-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1757-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1758-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021903446

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Lists of Illustrations

Dedication & Acknowledgements

Authors’ Foreword

Go West Young Man

Ya ta hey

In the Neighborhood

Coming Attractions

Health Care Delivery at Navajo

The Way of the Ancients

The Policy of Assimilation

Ft. Wingate

At the Office

Cubicles

Meet the Managers

Who’s in Charge Here?

Thanksgiving Dinner

The Politics of Jell-O

The Education Committee

Patriot Warriors

Adventures in the Built Environment

The Navajo Capitol

Commuting in the High Desert

Four Wheels Good, Six Wheels Better

Ghosts in Crownpoint

Participant Observers

The Navajo Nation Fair

The Fry Bread Contest

Manmade Treasure

The Shopernator

Thinking Green

Something in the Air

The Smell of Christmas

The Grand Canyon – from the Bottom Up

Hosteen Ch’Osh – the Lost Blond

Hagóne

References Cited & Internet Addresses

LISTS OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Table 1. Films Associated with El Rancho Hotel in Gallup (NM)

Table 2. Traditional Color Sources & Hues

Images

Front Cover. 2021. Photograph, Navajo Kachinas. Original artifact & photo with Authors.

Rear Cover. 1992. Pencil Drawing. Untitled. Ray Harvey. Original artifact & photo with Authors.

DEDICATION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For five years the Authors lived and worked among the Dinétah¹ (Navajo). We participated in their culture, practiced their language, and more important, met their people. Rightly, this assembly of reminiscences is dedicated to those among them - the Respected Elders (Shi nant ani), the men (hos tui) and the beautiful women (nizhoni san yii) - who opened hearts and homes during that residence. These memories acknowledge cooperation, indulgence, and patience while struggling to teach us their language and customs; culture shock ameliorated by cultural embrace.

Working different assignments for the Navajo Nation (NN) Tribal Government, we served under the auspices of a single program, the NN Historic Preservation Department (HPD). Thanks to staff and to all who worked alongside us and figured in adventures described below. We also recognize and appreciate our (then) sister organization, the Navajo Nation Museum and its personnel.

The tendrils of the Navajo Nation’s relationship to the US government (officially termed a ‘Government to Government’ arrangement) grow through administrative cracks in fortress walls of the Indian Health Service (IHS), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and other offices. We appreciate agency staff who worked with us and recognize while the Gov/Gov relationship may have been fractious office to office, on the individual level, staff were cooperative and congenial.

Appreciation also extends to those willing to pause and recall a story themselves, sharing memories and sparking motivation. To them and to those willing to read and comment on serial manuscript versions (MCH, RN, AP) we are grateful for encouragement and support.

Memories matured on reflection, thanks to tolerating friends, neighbors, and coworkers, and to new found friends along the banks of the Little Miami who listened and commented to ideas. Thanks to those who made diminutive fold down tray tables function as desks and who changed temporary hotels into transient offices. Finally, thanks to the various Medicine Men and Women who summoned the courage to teach Navajo language to bil a gaanas (White People).

AUTHORS’ FOREWORD

Late one overcast afternoon Nixon worked alongside a Medicine Man, loading equipment into the back of a field vehicle. Looking up, the Medicine Man said sotto voce,

E det na.

Seeing puzzlement he explained,

Det na. Thunder,

E det na. Long way thunder.

Through Nixon’s rudimentary understanding of Navajo and the Medicine Man’s of English, the latter explained this Navajo construct is a reminder. It is not foreboding, not forecasting, nor even foretelling. It does not imply the future like the pending rain. Just a distant, lingering, haunting, echo. Adopting this construct, what follows are E Dinétah - echoes of Navajo.

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Navajo is an oral tradition. There are no written records, no dictionaries. Early scholarly depictions of their language employ peculiar linguistic alphabets which look strange today. For clarity, when translation is illuminating, Navajo terms are rendered using the modern English alphabet. Some representations appeared in print elsewhere. Notably useful is a volume titled Navajo Place Names by Alan Wilson (1995). Also valuable is a volume by Fran Kosik (2005) titled Native Roads which includes detailed maps of Highways and highlights across Dinétah - with translations.

Philosophically, the Navajo belief system rests on a foundation of harmony. Dualism is prevalent in song, story, myth – appearing as male/female designations, brother/sister interactions, twins in myth – harmony backdrops even daily decision making. The interactions between Man and environment, between family members, at work, everywhere – are guided by restoring and stabilizing harmony between elements. This is not harmony of voice – it is a cultural balance with surrounding elements.

Harmony cannot be packaged or gifted. It cannot be seen or measured or weighed; from a subjective throne, it scoffs at empirical quantification. It migrates across generational divides without notice and it characterizes philosophy, religion, art, and world view. As elusive as it is, it can be found expressed in mundane contexts - fatted sheep and fry bread.

As NN employees, we often directed multiple projects, many of considerable duration (2-3± yr). When the Authors separated from NN employ, projects maintained momentum, some submitted and in the approval process, others awaiting the treatment and preservation plans they helped formulate. Negotiations with effected agencies allowed arrangements to complete these as consultants. On the Gov/Gov level, this implies an operating balance between the Tribal government, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Indian Health Service all defining harmony in their own terms. On the private level, different arrangements prevailed. Whether operating as Government employee or private consultant, the overarching goal of harmony permeated all.

Go West Young Man

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L eaving St. Louis, the Authors steered west, toward New Mexico. No small move, they hired a truck and Driver to transport a decade of accumulated books, furniture, all of it. Facing ≈1200 miles, they sent belongings ahead, following next day by car planning to overtake the driver somewhere near Continental Divide (NM), reconnecting at their destination in Gallup (also NM).

Detail is elusive but someone recommended to pass driving time, we read A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle. This humorous story recounts adventures of a traveler who moves to the countryside, to Provence (SE France), detailing travails encountered adjusting to a new location, a strange language, a slower tempo, a world very different from accustomed urban busy-ness. We found his tale entertaining during long stretches between desolate western settlements. Mayle concluded it is better to adjust to a new environment than struggle to change it to meet your concept of normal. Perhaps the person recommending the work knew more than we expected for of our own volition, we relegated ourselves to … become foreigners (Mayle 1989, 1990).

We drove through Albuquerque, another 2½ hours of featureless road ahead. The highway leading into Gallup crests over the summit of a hogback formation and below, city streets stretch out like strands along a fraying rope.

We exited I-40 turning onto portions of old Route 66 which supplied access and people to sustain Gallup. Established in 1881, the town originally served as the pay station for the Atlantic & Pacific RR, named for David Gallup, their paymaster. We imagined use