Explorations in Navajo Poetry and Poetics

Notes

231 Chapter 1 This chapter was previously published as “‘Ałk’idą́ą́’ Mą’ii Jooldlosh, Jiní’: Poetic Devices in Navajo Oral and Written Poetry,” Anthropological Linguistics 48, no. 3 (fall 2006): 233–265. Reproduced with permission from the University of Nebraska Press. Copyrighted by the Trustees of Indiana University. 1. The literature on language shift and both the macrolevel and microlevel analysis of that shift is extensive. On Athabaskan language shift, see Eung-Do Cook (1989, 1995); Clifton Pye (1992); Guy Lanoue (1991); Eleanor Nevins (2004); and Barbra Meek (2007). 2. The phrase glosses as “may I be everlasting and beautiful living” (Jim 2000:232). For discussions concerning this phrase, see Rex Lee Jim (2000); Gary Witherspoon (1977); and John Farella (1984). For general discussions concerning the Navajos and the language/culture nexus among Navajos, see Kluckhohn and Leighton (1962). 3. I thank Leighton C. Peterson for helping to clarify my thinking on the distinction here. See also Peterson (2006). 4. I want to thank Jonathan Hill for pointing me in the direction of Navajo ritualized or stylized weeping. In October 2007, Bennie Klain screened The Return of Navajo Boy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, with the support of John Downing and his Global Media Research Center. Hill and I both attended the screening and after the final scene with Elsie May Cly Begay reuniting with John Wayne Cly, Hill noted the similarities of her weeping to South American examples of ritual wailing he was familiar with. Having seen this stylized weeping a number of times by older Navajo women, Hill’s comments immediately led me to review tapes I had recorded of this weeping . I thank Leighton C. Peterson for reminding me that Navajo men also weep NOTES 232 notes to pages 24–34 publicly. Let me add that saying that Navajos have a “stylized weeping” is not to say that it is not sincere, but rather to say that the form of weeping and the public displays of weeping are cultural and can be understood as indexing sincerity and tradition. 5. Navajos are not the only Native Americans writing poetry. Ronald Snake Edmo, for example, has published a collection of poems in both Shoshoni and English (Edmo 2001). He clearly sees one of the goals of his poetry as creating a corpus of written materials in the Shoshoni language. I thank Edmo for many useful conversations concerning his poetry. See also Ofelia Zepeda (1982, 1997, 2000) for examples of Tohono O’odham poetry as well as linguistic and autobiographical information. Colleen Fitzgerald (2003) has analyzed the word order in some of Zepeda’s poetry. Margaret Bender (2002:155), only too briefly, describes an example of a poem written in Cherokee and in the Cherokee syllabary by a Cherokee educator. 6. In Navajo, ways are known as follows: Hózhǫ́ǫ́jí Blessingway Tł’éé’jí ‘ Nightway ‘Anaa’jí ‘ Enemyway Mą’iijí Coyoteway In all of the above cases, the forms are morphologically segmentable. In the first example Hózhǫ́ is the form for “blessing” (among other things) with the enclitic -jí. Likewise, in the second example, Tł’éé’ glosses as “night” and again we have the enclitic -jí. This enclitic glosses as “in the direction of” or “way.” 7. Let me be clear here about what I mean by “traditional Navajo poetic devices.” I mean only those formal devices that have lingered in the text-artifact documented by linguists, folklorists, and anthropologists. For a quite useful discussion on this topic, see Dinwoodie (1999). 8. Barre Toelken suggested in his review that -dlosh is only used for Coyote as far as he knew. As far as I know that is the case. However, Coyote does take other verbs of “running.” In the Watchman narrative titled “Horned Toad and his Corn Patch” (Sapir and Hoijer 1942:16), Coyote makes his appearance in association with the verb form -ghod (to run). So it appears to be the case that -dlosh almost, if not always, occurs with Coyote and that Coyote can appear with both -dlosh and -ghod. 9. Hoijer (1945) claimed that final /n/ in jin was actually a syllabic /ń/ and thus jiń and that there was no form jin in Navajo. Hoijer was critiquing the work notes to pages 39–56 233 of Gladys Reichard. Reichard (1947:194) responded by pointing out that “most of my informants and many of the casual speakers I know use jin, as well as jin...