Code Talkers

1
Code Talkers

• Dinepoetry and metaphor

2

• The Holy Ones placed all the peoples on the earth
  where they were meant to be the Navajo were
  placed between the four sacred mountains
• The four sacred mountains of the Navajo people
  are Mt. Hesperus in Colorado, marking the
  northern reach of Navajo Land Mt. Blanca in New
  Mexico, marking the east Mt. Taylor in New
  Mexico as well, to the southeast and San
  Franscisco Peak to the west. The actual, official
  boundaries of the Reservation are smaller

3

• In beauty I walk
• With beauty before me I walk.
• With beauty behind me I walk.
• With beauty around me I walk.
• With beauty above me I walk.
• With beauty below me I walk.
• The Navaho have that wonderful image of what they
  call the pollen path. Pollen is the life source,
  the pollen path is the path to the center

4
Corn Pollen

• Male (white) and Female (yellow) Corn
• A gift from the gods when they entered the 4th
  world
• Grown as tall as man
• Last only one season (annual)
• Literally, You are what you eat.
• Changing Woman to Navajo Mother
• You will speak for us with pollen words. You
  will talk for us with pollen words I made you,
  my children, because I dressed you with corn
  pollen, because I dressed you with dews (A form
  of prayer)

5

• Corn Pollen must go through a Blessingway
  Ceremony to become blessed and sacred
• Symbol of fertility and life.
• Corn is the Navaho staff of life, and pollen is
  its essence
• To the Navajo, Corn Pollen is prayer.
• Corn pollen is used to mark the stages in a
  persons life. There are four main ceremonies of
  life
• the celebration of birth,
• the babys first laugh,
• the puberty ceremony of the Blessingway,
• and the wedding.
• Corn pollen plays a primary role in transitioning
  a person through these ceremonies of life. Corn
  pollen plays no role in the ceremonials of death,
  as death is the end, and pollen is life

6
Corn Pollen

• The source of the sacred
• I can do this. I pinched some corn pollen from
  my medicine bag, touched my tongue, my head, and
  gestured to the east, south, wet, and north.
  (11)
• Holy water and corn pollen. Kind of the same
  idea. I said (61)
• Torn between two cultures we were unable to
  fully embrace either one (62).

7

• Navajo must always have corn pollen with them
  when they travel, as anything can happen when
  they leave home or Navajo land. For example,
  crossing the path of the messenger Coyote,
  crossing a body of water, leaving the area within
  the four sacred mountains, or finding a sacred
  herb requires corn pollen offerings. Navajo were
  told long ago not to cross large bodies of water.
  So when they do, they throw pollen to the river
  or to the body of water.

8
A culture of metaphors

• Hummingbird beauty

9
Landforms and weavings

• Sacred
• They tell stories
• Oral culture, not a written culture
• With the snow growing deeper, I remembered the
  string game . . . Honored Spider Woman, who
  taught the Dine to weave (51)
• Grandmother had been an especially fine weaver
  (52).

10
Emergence Tales

• I turned and stared up into the dark. The sky
  arched above me, decorated by First Man and First
  Woman with familiar groupings of stars (24)
• Even the rain is gendered a soft, female rain,
  had lasted for only a short while (25)
• Coyote. Everyone knew evil people came back as
  coyotes after they died (29).
• Coyote. The trickster. . .flung the stars into
  the heaven (36).

11
Death

• No word for it in Navajo language
• Adin no longer available
• Matriarchal society
• If death came, our absence kept us from
  following the dead person into the next world
  (31).
• Afterward, they told no one where the grave was.
  . . No one spoke of my mothers last days or her
  death (31).
• Death brought into the 4th world by Coyote.

12
Monsters

• After the argument between First Man and First
  Woman, monsters came in to the world, killing
• Changing Woman married the Sun and had twins.
  The twins slew each monster. Corpses turned to
  stone. Stone formations created by dead bodies
  can still be seen (37)

13
Navajo Language

• Played an important part in the creation of the
  world
• Light, earth, water, air
• Speaking our language created the world the
  world, and the creation of the world made our
  language (36)

14
The Long Walk (1920s)

• 350 miles from Fort Defiance to Fort Sumner, New
  Mexico
• The walk took twenty days, and along the way,
  hundreds died. If someone got sick, they were
  killed by soldiers. If a pregnant woman stopped
  to have her baby, she was killed. Anyone who
  tried to help her was also killed. If someone
  collapsed from thirst or hunger, he was killed
  (39). Nezs grandmother was 14 and survived.
• One of the great tragedies of Navajo history (39)

15
Boarding School

• Laura Tohe No Parole Today
• The Names
• Suddenly we are immigrants
• Waiting for the names that obliterate the past

16

• The missionary had just assigned us English
  names.
• English names were designed to rid them of the
  burden of their culture and tradition (45).
• Children were physically punished for speaking
  English
• Hair cut People should not leave parts of
  themselves scattered around to be picked up by
  someone else. Even the smallest children knew
  that (46)

17
Hogan

• A hogan was a real home.
• Life in the new dwelling was now ready to
  startin harmony and balance, the Right Way.

18
The Great Livestock Massacre

• 1930s
• Chester Nez was 14
• Fryer fried the Navajos (E. Reeseman Fryer,
  who, during the New Deal, worked for BIA)
• Effect of reduction fences, weakening of
  neighborly ties, loss of self-esteem
• After the Long Walk, the livestock massacre is
  considered the second great tragedy. . . Woven
  into oral tradition.

19
Public School in Gallup, NM

• Bombing of Pearl Harbor We are Warriors (87)
• Whereas, there exists no purer concentration of
  Americanism than among the First Americans. . .
  Therefore, we resolve that the Navajo Indians
  stand ready. . . to aid and defend our
  motherland, our Navajo Nation, and our families
  (unanimous resolution passed in 1940).

20
The original 29

• Chester Nez is one of the original 29 recruited
  to develop the code.
• Used to the physical challenges of military life
  (rolled in the snow early in life). 122 lbs?
• Real challenges were cultural. Taught to keep
  voices lowered, not look directly at people.

21
The Code

• Use an English word to represent each letter of
  the alphabet
• Those words translated into Navajo
• Navajo word represents English letter
• Also, came up with words to represent things
• Many of the sounds of Navajo language are
  impossible for the unpracticed ear to
  distinguish. It is very exact. Illustrates
  Dines relationship to nature (104)