A Weave of Time: The Story of a Navajo Family by Susan Fanshel (review)

A WEAVE OF TIME: THE STORY OF A NAVAJO FAMILY documents about fifty years and four generations of change in one family. In 1938, anthropologist John Adair traveled to Pine Springs, Arizona, with a 16mm camera to film the Burnside family, particularly Tom, who was an excellent silversmith. In a composite, Adair’s previously unseen historical footage is juxtaposed with scenes and in-depth interviews with family members fifty years later. The film unfolds a story where viewers see the cultural changes that have taken place and how they are still occurring.

The film shows the effects of cultural changes on one Navajo family in the 1980s, yet many Navajo families were experiencing similar cultural changes. These cultural changes are ongoing and do not stop. Several texts have examined Native American cultural changes, yet this film is powerful where you tangibly see those changes occurring and the effects on individuals, families, and communities.

Some powerful scenes include the film’s opening, where we see the house blessing in Navajo juxtaposed with a Catholic prayer, John Burnside saying “We have everything we needed” and “I can’t speak with my own children… I live in silence,” Isabel Deschinny’s children watching movies and playing, helping her daughter learn how to read, school scenes where the children are learning English and singing “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” and Daniel near the end of the film, where he is running and trying to complete his prayer. While there are many other scenes that give the viewer an understanding of what has happened to the Burnside family, these scenes in particular hold deep connections because of what they mean to the individual, family, and the community overall. All Navajo communities and families are dealing with constant cultural changes.

The viewer also sees the imbalanced relationship Navajo people have with capitalism and the trading post system. Navajo weavers and silversmiths are paid very little for their rugs, jewelry, and other artistic creations. The trading post sells those items at a much higher price so they can make a profit themselves. This system is unfair for many Navajo families, where some do have a favorable relationship with the trading post but many others have been exploited. Two recent films, Weaving Worlds and Woven Ways, focus on Navajo weaving, the trading post, and capitalism in more detail, but this film is one of the first to bring up the disparity for many Navajo weavers and silver smiths. The culture knowledge on Navajo weaving and silversmithing is accurate.

While the film is powerful, what is not discussed is equally powerful. For instance, Daniel Deschinny talks about how Navajo people are losing the language and the “little things.” He feels guilty for not teaching the language to his children. While he feels guilty, he also partially puts his wife in the same sphere of guilt when he criticizes her for not speaking the language. What is not show in the film is the criticism of his wife. We only hear about it through his wife. Other examples of what is not shown are the children’s feelings regarding the cultural changes; the traumatic effects of school on the family, although we do hear a couple of family members speaking about punishment for speaking the language in school but not the details; no subtitles for the Navajo translations; and the anthropologist relationship with the family and community overall. Daniel translates when John talks about but no words come across the bottom of the screen. This resonates because Native languages translated into English lose quite a bit of meaning, understanding, and reflection of the speech, conversation, and experience. You don’t necessarily get that from the scenes. The film does not go at all into the anthropologist relationship with the family and Navajo people overall. The discipline of anthropology has a mostly negative history with Native people. We do see scenes where John Adair describes his time with the family and how...