Dibé be’ iiná Remembering Sequence

Dibé be’ iiná
 
 
 
 
 
From a Diné perspective, goats and sheep are emblematic of womanhood. My great-aunt would winter with sheep deeper in the canyons, move with them, care for the flocks. When I was a girl, my grandmother herded our sheep in a cottonwood cloister. Our corral is now empty, the wood disassembled. At dusk, though, I can hear more, beyond, bleating. Their bells.
 
 
 
 
Once while visiting, my aunt mentioned she’d lost several goats. Her daughter told us they’d looked everywhere and asked if we could help. My aunt laughed. She said, they won’t know where to go! We didn’t have a horse. Later that day, while climbing the rocks, my older sibling was ahead of me, in their best pair of hiking shoes, all-black Vans. When they reached the top, they let out a yelp. A goat’s head was poking up against the backdrop of rose-colored sky, its copper-coin eyes blinking in the dusk. They’d gotten stuck on the other side of the rocks.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
When the Diné were death marched on the Long Walk, some escaped and crossed the veins of the San Juan, hid in the mountains, or tucked themselves into Canyon de Chelly. My great-grandfather was one who took families across the river in the night until he was captured. Roy Kady, a master fiber artist and sheep herder from Goat Springs, says that those who crossed & hid in the mountains took their churro sheep and goats with them. They took the animals with them.
 
 
 
 
 
In the sorrow and light, grant this space for remembering:
 
 
 
 
 
In Bosque Redondo, imprisoned by the U.S. army, the Diné reasoned with their captors. Women wove blankets to keep families warm, using wool from soldiers’ undergarments, scraps of wool, little blessings. Luci Tapahonso writes of the red, white, blue, and black that the women pieced together— red, for the blood spilt; white, for the sky and mountain in the East; blue for the men; black like women’s hair and clouds full of rain. Asdzáá Tl’ógí, wife of Chief Manuelito, pleaded alongside her husband for the Diné to return home. She accompanied him on future trips to Washington, D.C. After our people’s return, she continued to weave.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
When the Diné returned from Bosque Redondo, some received startup sheep from the government, perhaps in response to the scorched earth campaign Kit Carson—or Redshirt—had run to round up & imprison Diné. As always, the government signed a treaty, but they underestimated Diné. Flocks grew to the millions. And then came The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl struck.
 
 
 
 
 
In the sorrow and light, grant this space for remembering:
 
 
 
 
 
“Struck” makes this seem like a phenomenon of the natural world. Or like a disease, happening suddenly. Without clear cause. The Dust Bowl wasn’t sudden. Prairie grass, native flora and fauna, had been cleared in a hurry during land grabs in the West. Land became property, cattle farms, crops. Cows had overgrazed the land, not just churro sheep. They polluted the waters. Harvey Houses, famous railway restaurants branching through the Southwest, served up to 6,300 people a day in 1891, meaning enough steaks to stop an artery of river.
 
 
 
One might say settler colonialism is a disease, replicating, replacing, causing harm. The Dust Bowl was then merely a symptom.
 
 
 
 
As the head of the BIA, John Collier became famous for proposing “The Indian New Deal”—to reform how the U.S. approached “The Indian Problem.” The Dawes Act of 1887 had instituted the practice of allotment—divvying up tribal lands into personal land claims which were often forcibly sold or snatched up by corporations and settlers. This violated the treaty that the government had agreed to with Diné after Bosque Redondo. Collier sought to right some of the wrongs of assimilation—but he did not understand Navajos. His understanding of Native peoples was sculpted by extensive time spent with Pueblo peoples and the “first lady of Taos,” Mabel Lujan Dodge, one prominent matron of the myth of the American West. Among her most famous guests: Willa Cather, Greta Garbo, Thornton Wilder, Georgia O’Keeffe.
 
 
 
In the sorrow and light, grant this space for remembering:
 
 
                                                                                            	(Where did she get all those bones?)
 
 
 
My mother remembers the older women at home who talked about that Johnny Collie growing up. Let us make this simple: ranchers wanted money for wool and beef. They wanted land, wanted water. Erosion threatened hydropower dams that settlers had exploded into the rocks. They covered villages with water, flooded them. The dams power Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas. The water flows there. Hotels & cities & tourists demand arts and crafts. They want blankets. Want meat. Pots & fine silver.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Erosion could have been solved by giving Diné more land. Herders understood seasons, understood the temperament and genders of the rains. Instead, John Collier instructed the BIA to slaughter the livestock, but especially sheep. Get rid of them. The Navajo Problem.
 
 
 
In making these decisions, Collier only met with a tribal council assembled of Navajo men, setting precedence for councils to be patriarchal, even though Diné maintain a matriarchy and flocks of sheep were cared for by women in the family. They took the sheep from the women. They slaughtered them, stole them, sold them.
 
 
In the sorrow and light, grant this space for remembering:
 
 
 
John Collier’s friends are well-known to have kept their large numbers of sheep.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Marilyn Help is famously quoted for saying about this time, “You have now killed me. You have cut off my arms. You have cut off my legs. You have taken my head off. There is nothing left for me.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In the sorrow and light, make a space:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
While far away in Connecticut for college, I read John Collier’s papers while outside it is snowing. In photographs, his face is smooth and drawn. Frustrated with our refusal to give up our sheep, he admonished us in letters as childish and incompetent. I trace his looping handwriting with my eyes.
 
 
For Diné women, herding, birthing, and care of flocks is a highly spiritual practice. Sheep are a connection between the women and the land.
 
 
 

Dibé – Keyáh – Hooghan

Sheep – Land – Home

My grandmother’s farm no longer has sheep, but each time I hear them jangling over the brush, I am thankful. Today, women learn to butcher because they must know how to survive in the desert on their own, if need be. To butcher is a spiritual act. We always thank the animal for giving its life.
 
 
Let us remember.