Dinéj Na`nitin: Navajo Traditional Teachings and History by Robert S. McPherson (review)

NAIS 1:1 SPRING 2014 Reviews 119 RICHARD T. MACE Dinéjí Nànitin: Navajo Traditional Teachings and History by Robert S. McPherson University of Colorado Press, 2012 HISTORIAN ROBERT MCPHERSON created Dinéjí Nànitin to share the insight he had gathered from over thirty years of speaking and meeting with Navajo elders . He explains that the elders have a “growing concern that the younger generation was losing its understanding of what their grandmothers and grand­ fathers” experienced (7). McPherson notes the “extreme anguish” felt by Navajo elders of having their traditional teachings and history lost as the younger generation is “buried in a contemporary blizzard of activities sponsored by white culture that has made the old ways seem arcane, outdated, and impractical” (ibid). Dinéjí Nànitin is composed of nine independent chapters whose intent is to present and preserve the important lessons and stories that the Navajo tribal elders are afraid of losing to time and the distraction of younger members of the tribe. In his first chapter, McPherson examines divination, explaining the concepts by which the Navajo perform ceremonies and come to answers through their religious worldview. Each form of divination—wind listening, star gazing , and hand trebling—differ from each other. Listening is auditory, gazing involves sight, and trembling involves touch. The Navajo believe the world is filled with invisible holy people who understand what has and what will happen and that supernatural power plays an important role in finding tribal members who have the ability to use divination. McPherson notes that the Navajo believe the power of divination comes at a cost. If these powers are abused by their practitioners, they are cursed with disease. In his second chapter, McPherson examines why the Navajo were so devastated by the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918–19. McPherson articulately explains the Navajo custom of leaving home after someone dies, as it is believed that the lonely spirit stays in the vicinity. He contends that after the Navajo left their warm winter hogans because of this practice, they became more susceptible to the elements and the flu, and greater numbers got sick and died. Another Navajo custom that exacerbated the problem was sweat lodges. Since the influenza is a respiratory illness, sweat lodges served to both spread the disease, as well as provided for a faster incubation. McPherson notes that the nearby Ute tribe’s ceremonies are not as communal, so they did not spread the disease as rampantly as did the Navajo, and subsequently did not suffer the same level of mortality. Reviews NAIS 1:1 SPRING 2014 120 Moving from the devastation of the flu, an evil foretold by the bad omen of a solar eclipse, according to sun gazing divination, McPherson explains ideas of medicine men and witchery. He highlights Clyde Kluckhohn’s study Navajo Witchcraft, which identifies the four types of “black magic”: witchery, sorcery , wizardry, and frenzy witchcraft. He notes that the Navajo do not draw a particular distinction between good and evil magic; it only matters how the magic is used. He explains that it is important for medicine men to have an understanding of dark magic. Otherwise, they would be unprepared to create countermagic to negate its effects. Balance is central in Navajo religion, even excessive good can be a negative by becoming out of control, but rituals provide “the means by which things out of bounds can be brought back to safety and order” (78). The second half of Dinéjí Nànitin focuses on language and traditional­ stories. McPherson explains that the struggle in maintaining traditional Navajo storytelling is that the younger generation does not appreciate traditional language. He points to Charlie Blueyes as an example of a repository of Navajo wisdom, whose grandson was fluent in English but his Navajo was almost nonexistent, as school and the dominant society replaced traditional learning. The significance of the dwindling numbers of those who can speak Navajo is that “only pure Navajo words are used in ceremonies” and that these words serve as a “major underlying tenet of the Navajo belief system” (215). With the passing of elders like Charlie Blueyes, traditional stories, wisdom , and ceremonies pass out of existence...