Bitter Water: Diné Oral Histories of the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute

Notes

notes Foreword 1. iverson, Diné, 56, 57. 2. Brugge, The Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute, 27. see also Kammer, The Second Long Walk. 3. redhouse, “Geopolitics of the navajo-hopi ‘Land Dispute.’” 4. Benedek, The Wind Won’t Know Me, 154. 5. redhouse, “Geopolitics of the navajo-hopi ‘Land Dispute.’” see also Wilkinson, Fire on the Plateau: Conflict and Endurance in the American Southwest. 6. Cheyfitz, “The navajo-hopi Land Dispute,” Interventions 2, no. 2 (2000), 253. 7. U.s. Congress, senate, Committee on indian Affairs, Settlement and Accommodation Agreements Concerning the Navajo and Hopi Land Dispute: Hearing before the Committee on Indian Affairs. 8. Cheyfitz, 263. Chapter 1. Mae Tso 1. Mae Tso introduces herself with the traditional navajo greeting by first telling the maternal side of her family’s kinship history. The father’s kinship history is told second, since the culture is matriarchal by nature. her first clan is naakaii Dine’e Tó Áhaní, Mexican People’s near to Water clan. see Matthews, Navaho Legends (404) for a traditional story of navajo clan origins: Kinyaa’áanii, high standing house or Towering house clan (see par. 458); Tl’ízí Lání, Many Goats (407); Chíshí Dine’é Táchii’nii, Apache People’s red streak running into Water or Among the red Waters clan (see par. 405). 2. Tó Aheedlíinii, Water flows Together or Junction of the rivers clan. in many navajo clan narratives the clan’s origin is related to the junction of the san Juan and Los Pinos rivers. it is a sacred place where Monster slayer and Born for Water, the hero Twins, retreated after they killed all of the Alien Gods for the earth surface People. for clan origins, see Matthews, Navaho Legends, par. 411. 3. in the assimilated pronunciation“Asdzáánłts’oi,”i wrote the second pronunciation in its more formal pronunciation, “Asdzáán Łitsoi,” yellow Woman, or the progenitor “Mexican” Woman. 4. Łahgo náhodeesdzá, When Time Called for a Better Way, refers to when the Anasazi culture abandoned Chaco Canyon. it remains a mystery to this day why the Anasazi deserted the san Juan Basin. Around AD 1100–1400, hunters and gatherers drifted or “wandered” into the land deserted by the Anasazis. The people called themselves Diné. in the oral traditions, this is a time known as the fourth World of creation. 5. naatsis’áán,“head of earth Woman,” navajo Mountain, Arizona, elevation 10,416 feet. for the importance of navajo Mountain to the oral traditions, see Griffin-Pierce, Earth Is My Mother, Sky Is My Father, 14–15. see also Wyman, Blessingway, 396–97; McPherson, Sacred Land, Sacred View, 15–23. 6. Táalaa hoghan. see the emma Bahe section in the “sheep is Life” chapter in this volume for an account of navajos who relocated from this area. Táala hoghan is located northeast of Keams Canyon, Arizona. 7. Łahgo náhodeesdzá, When Time Called for a Better Way of Being. A majority of academic literature about the Anasazi people documents and accepts the belief that around AD 1100–1400 the Anasazi left Chaco Canyon “as though they would return.” Left behind to be “discovered” by archaeologists and anthropologists were their pottery, grinding stones, harvests of corn and beans, bows and arrows, and other items. Diné people today refer to these times and their stories as łahgo náhodeesdzá, “a time that called for a better way of being.” in anthropology, it is referred to as the 96 notes “Chaco Phenomenon,” a time of great change and/or catastrophe. see the discussion in Douglas Preston’s Talking to the Ground, 52–58. 8. in traditional navajo oral traditions, the Kinyaa’áanii, Towering house clan, Tódích’íínii, the Bitter Water clan, hashtł’ishnii, the Mud clan, and Tó Áhaní, the near to Water clan, are considered the four original clans in navajo mythology. Their oral traditions talk of a coexistence with the Anasazi culture. 9. Kin yaa’á, A house Towering Up. When Diné people still moved from place to place with the seasons, they came among the Anasazi people at Kin yaa’á, the Towering house near Crownpoint and Borrego Pass, new Mexico. As a result of the history and interaction of peoples there, Diné people became a progenitor to the Kinyaa’áanii, Towering house clan. see Bingham and Bingham, Between Sacred Mountains, 85–86. 10. see Broken Rainbow, produced and written by Maria florio and victoria Mudd, and directed by Mudd. 11. Kéyah ániidí, “new lands...