Grand Canyon Speaks (U.S. National Park Service)

Episodes

Season 2

Episode 2

Ciara Minjarez and Shalitha Peaches Speaks - Native American Heritage Month Special

Transcript

Ciara and Salitha GRCA Speaks Episode 2 Season 2

[Ciara]

So when we think about it, we have really still been eating like we're on rations. So now with the younger generation, we're starting to realize and acknowledge that, yeah, we need to make that change. We need to go back to our roots, the kind that you eat, you know, and really embrace it and start revitalizing that food as medicine, really.

[Ranger Lizzy]

Welcome, I'm Ranger Lizzy.

[Ranger Melissa]

And I'm Ranger Melissa.

[Ranger Lizzy]

We are so excited to share this episode with y'all.

We sat down with Shalitha and Ciara from White Mountain Apache Tribe to talk about food sovereignty. I really love the way that they're decolonizing their relationship with food.

[Ranger Melissa]

Yeah, they're really doing amazing work. Listening to this episode, I love the way they refer to themselves as women of change because they're breaking the norms, like not just for themselves and their community, but for the global community and the next generation.

[Ranger Lizzy]

These women are truly amazing. So without further ado, Shalitha and Ciara.

[Shalitha]

Hi, everyone. My name is Salitha. I am coming from the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

Also, just to kind of identify myself with the land. So I come from a, Ciara and I both come from a band [band name in Apache]. So this is the connection that we associate when we're introducing ourselves to the community or to another indigenous tribe.

But basically, in our language, that it just basically means two hills that cut into each other. So on a reservation, it explains a certain location. So I work in four different job areas.

One is actually my own personal one. It's a, I'm hoping to be a business, which is fostering young Apache gatherers. Elderlies in training is one of the one things that I really like to say.

And it's basically working with youth and teaching them the Apache foodways within our reservation. Another one that I'm a part of is a non-profit in coordinating with people that want to come to our reservation and help local projects that are happening, especially with the agriculture area. And then also working at a tribal farm called Ndée Bikíyaa, the people's farm, as a farmer's market coordinator and marketing a lot of the produce that's growing at the farm. And what was my fourth one? There's another one. I just tend to like my mind right now.

But yeah, so that's who I am and kind of where I come from.

[Ciara]

Awesome. Yes. Thank you, Shai.

So hello, everyone. My name is Ciara Minjarez, and I come from the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. A lot of my background work is in our background work is in farming.

We really try to get with our roots back into we say like it's we need to return back to our roots, the kind that you eat, you know. So when we talk about our work and in terms of food sovereignty and resiliency, we have a lot of programs that are dedicated to to working with those those food systems and really tweaking them to be self-sufficient so that we don't have to really rely on that many people. So for me, I work with Local First Arizona as the Indigenous Foodways Program Manager.

And with through that job, they allow me to work with all the Indigenous tribes in southeastern Arizona, mainly farmers, ranchers, gardeners and growers, providing technical service, technical support and resources throughout our our entire nonprofit. I'm also a part of different community committees. One of them is called Chaghashe Bidan Siine, and that's the White Mountain Apache Child Food Security Program. And what we did was we tried to come up with out of the box ideas on how to get children fed on the reservation. So we can talk more about that later. But another one, that's how me and Shai really kind of got together and had a partnership with what she's doing and and coming out here and talking about teaching the kids and expanding their knowledge.

Because like when COVID came, gosh, you know, we lost a lot of knowledge there. So it's up to us to keep keep it going. And then I'm also part of a nonprofit called Spring to Action, which we we like to, we're in the process of really becoming a physical sponsor.

We want to be able to provide funds through our tribe without getting through the whole paperwork process. We want to make it easier to access that not just for our tribes, but for all tribes. And we started just building this alliance with our partner tribes.

And it's just been a wonderful experience because, you know, there's one thing that we always all have in common, food. You know, we always all need food. So we're excited to talk to you guys today about food sovereignty.

[Ranger Dawn]

Yeah, I'm so excited. This is like so my jam too. So I kind of wanted to yeah, just get a background on y'all.

What was your relationship to food and farming like growing up? Like, how did you get into this work? Like, where did that curiosity spark from?

[Shalitha]

Oh, my gosh. So for me, I was your average res kid running around in the summer, like by down by the river getting all tshie and everything. But when I say tshie, I mean, like all dry skin and very dark. So but for me, food has always been a connection I had, especially within the Grand Canyon area, we have so much similarities with food. And we were able to do some walks here and see some of the food that are familiar back home. And one of them was the sumac berries, and it's very sweet and tart.

And we had a walk this morning, between 11 and one. And so we're able to do a share that taste testing. And so for me, I've always remember having that food and not really knowing the importance of it.

And so it's always been something that I felt connected with, especially with a lot of the jobs that I have currently, and currently work with and network with. So there's, I feel like for me, food has always been a vast connection. I'm actually looking at being an ethnobotanist, which is basically the study of plants within a certain region.

I mainly geared towards the White Mountain Apache region and highlighting what our Apache foods are and hopefully being able to share it with the world and networking with other indigenous tribes and trying to help them create that and decolonizing our way of food and revitalizing a lot of those teachings back into the indigenous communities.

[Ciara]

So awesome. I love that. Yeah.

So for me, I had growing up on the reservation, you know, we're always, always looking forward to that time of the month, when they would give you different commodities, they gave you a box of commodities, they had all different types of food. And it wasn't until I got older, that I realized these foods are really high in preservatives. There's a reason why our people are dying from diet related diseases.

And it's because of this, this food that we get so excited over, you know, there's this brick of cheese, we call Apache gold, you know, and it's commodity cheese. But it's, it was stuff like that, that I always used to identify, like even fry bread, you know, everybody loves fry bread, but they don't know the reason why it's that we started making fry bread, that is not an indigenous food, but it was more like a culinary creation out of what we were given. And they talk about buggy flour, and rancid lard.

And that was kind of where we, that was kind of where I started my journey and looking into that. And when I started working at the farm, they were able to teach me like, did, did you know that this food that we used to eat, and then that food pyramid that they have that they're giving us now, it's not for our indigenous bodies. That's not how we used to eat, we never used to sit around all the time, we were always out getting our food.

So when I started looking into different ways of like, even my body, myself, I had was like, diagnosed with prediabetes. And I started freaking out, like, why I try to like, you know, I've been eating the food that has we've all been eating. And then it made sense, because a lot of people I knew had it, my grandma had it and just going back to the farm and for them teaching me like, well, you know what, it's because it's traveling all these ways, and they're trying to make it last forever.

And when they do that, it lasts forever, inside your belly, inside your gut, inside your your body. And so, yeah, there's a lot of food that we like to share when it comes to each other. So when we think about it, we have really still been eating like we're on rations.

So now with the younger generation, we're starting to realize and acknowledge that, yeah, we need to make that change. We need to go back to our roots, the kind that you eat, you know, and, and really embrace it and start revitalizing that food as medicine, really. So that's where I kind of like built it was really when I came to the farm, and I met Shai and all the cool farmers from Ndée Bikíyaa.

[Shalitha]

And just to let you guys know, I've actually been doing this for about going on eight years. And a lot of the team teachings that I have currently and was able to share with Ciara and do demos with I have learned from my elders, I do not go to school for this. It's something that I was able to learn from my elders, but also learn in my language first, which is Apache, or also known as an Athabascan language.

And so being able to walk in what seems like two or three worlds, because I have to know the plant's name in my language, and then also know the scientific name, and then also identify it in the common name. So for me, learning about foods is not just one world. It's also my people's world in a larger scale of other teachings.

[Ranger Dawn]

So yeah, I love how you give a lot of credit to your elders. And I like what you say, elders in training, like that's what you're trying to do to become to to teach the younger generation. I also know you wanted to talk about like women of change.

So what does it mean for you as like women to be in this role of like elders in training?

[Ciara]

You want to start?

[Shalitha]

Oh, yeah. Okay. So we're one of the main things that we definitely want a lot of people to take away from this podcast is definitely, Ciara, Sometimes I view both of us as women of change, because a lot of the projects that we have came from a simple idea that we wanted to introduce to the community. And so for us women, we are women of change within our community. And we hope to network on a larger scale with other people, with other indigenous people within Indian territory, and then also within the world, you know, because a lot of people, I feel like don't really know indigenous people or their history.

And so and I hope to share that in a way that educates people and understands that we're all the same, regardless. If one of us gets cut, it's going to bleed red. So knowing that we're all equal, we're all the same, but we're also women are people that are very rooted in our beliefs, especially with women, I feel like women, usually the men are the ones who are the head of the house.

At the end of the day, I feel like it's the women who runs the household because they have to make sure all the dishes is washed, make sure supper is on at the time at the same time, make sure the kids are all good to go. And so the man is just a moral support. [giggles] So but that, but then again, they're the protector of the home.

So it's a yin and yang dance for me.

[Ciara]

Yeah. And so like, for us, when we say women of change, I feel like we're the ones who are breaking those change, changing those norms. I know I like to use the reference, well, you know, now we have WiFi in our wiki ups, you know, and it's something new. We're embracing that technology, especially when it comes to really fighting the norms of what it used to be. And like I said, we're used to having rations, we're used to relying on the government. And that's where we come in, because we don't want to be like that no more.

We want to be able to take care of ourselves. We want to be able to grow our food the way we want to healthy. We want to be able to go out there and find our medicine because now we can.

When I look back at our reservation, there's so many things that need to change, really need to change. And I feel like in order for us to make an impact, we have to be the ones to put together these events. We have to be the ones to learn about them and make these connections because it's not really for us.

It was never really for us. And I was telling Shai this too, that when we were coming here, we're saying, how can we make this better, the earth better? How can we make sure there's food better?

Not just for us, not for our kids, but for their kids. Make sure this place is still there for them. Make sure they're able to just be healthy, you know, and live long lives.

And I want to be able to see that day, you know, where we can all get along, we can all be healthy together, we can share things. And when I say this, I see it. I see it.

And that's when I say we are women of change, because a lot of people recognize tribes as we always fight. They always fought with each other. They just always just, they're territorial.

But now we say, no, we don't fight no more. We're trying to unite. We're trying to learn from each other and heal with each other.

We've all have this connection. Like even when we talk to different people, we can joke around and it feels good. It feels normal.

And there's trust. Yeah, it feels like trust. Yeah, there's that trust there.

So that's where we said, we see it and we can feel it. You know, that's the change. And we're the women that help try and bring that, you know, to the, not just our community, but to all the tribal communities, to even the surrounding communities.

Because like Shai said, we're all one person. We all deserve to eat and live together in peace, you know.

[Ranger Dawn]

Yeah, we were chatting on the phone like earlier in the week. I loved how you're talking about like collaboration between the tribes and how that meant a lot to you. And I also appreciate how much you value education and like teaching younger people.

Did you want to talk about like the programs with, where you're at when you're teaching younger people these things?

[Ciara]

Yeah. All right. So yeah, one of the things we did back on our tribe in the White Mountains, and that's Fort Apache Indian Reservation, we were out there, we were able to, well, it all started off with a simple survey.

We asked the tribe, what do you want when it comes to your food systems? How can we support you? And unanimously, hands down, everyone said, we're tired of seeing our kids hungry.

You know, we don't want any of the kids to be hungry. And it wasn't just our reservation. It was Hualapai.

It was Hopi. It was CRIT. You know, it was all of these different tribal nations.

And so we came together and with our tribe and we had to ask ourselves, how can we get these kids fed? How can we get them sustenance when they don't have a ride? They don't have money, you know, and they just are miles away from the nearest food source.

And so we talked to our elders, how can we, how can we feed the kids? And they said, are you crazy? Do you see all this food around you?

You know, and so we were like, oh, wow, okay. And we learned how to make a yucca blossom soup. It's like a wild cabbage where we come from.

And it's a really sweet wild cabbage. And so through that, we were able to invite different tribes to come and share this meal with us. And just having them share that meal and that conversation, that laugh, that bond we had, they started coming up with their own ideas.

And we just, we recently visited Hualapai's community garden and they're able to feed their tribe for four days, their whole tribe. And that's big on a scale that we are at, you know, like where we still have hungry kids. So that's where we really, we're learning from them and we're partnering with them to build these resources and connect in that way.

And like I said, we're all about uniting each other now and we're done fighting each other. We're ready to heal together and grow together. And that's just like one of the many projects that we work on together.

And I know like, there's just so much going on and there's so many, and I feel like one of the reasons why we like to do this, like we all know what happened with COVID, but that really took a lot of our elders. And I think it really put a fire under all of us to start learning and writing our own books and learning how to pass that knowledge onto the kids, like metaphorically, because we don't really write our own books, you know, like we don't really do it like that. We have to go observe, touch the plant, smell the plant, see the colors, and even just looking at it, you know, is it spiky?

Where is it growing at? What's next to it? What eats it even?

So in just identifying those few things, it was super important to our survival. It was like, and it was something that we were told was detrimental. You cannot leave the reservation.

And so now we encourage everyone. There's nobody telling you, no, you know, you don't have to eat like this no more. I can show you, you know, I can show you how to get it, how to clean it, how to cook it, how to eat it, and how to preserve it.

And that's how, and I always tell myself, it's nothing that we didn't know already.

[Shalitha]

So for me, having to like really find out where my starting point was in my community is really just like, I wanted to hear from the community what they wanted, what was impacting them and making it harder for them to have access to healthier foods. And so we did a survey and I really just reached out to the community and hearing from them in that way. And then on a larger scale, we also reached out to farmers and getting ideas from them and really working with them and making them, they really became a family.

And so within these territories, I'm actually pretty familiar with a lot of the farmers in the area. And there was one that we really met with, his name is Tyrone Thompson, and he just recently passed, but he was a really good friend that really connected me with these areas and networking with them. So for me, it's always been just being able to have a casual conversation with whoever and finding out what is it that we can do to make this work, whether whatever project it may have been.

[Ranger Dawn]

Yeah, I like how you're empowering the youth. I agree, it's so important. You also said you wanted to mention avoiding exploiting plants.

So did you want to expand on that?

[Ciara]

Yes, yes. Oh my gosh. So we like to talk about a lot of our plants and share a lot of traditional foods, but there's a lot of things that we get scared of.

If we show you this plant, will you harvest it to extinction? But we don't want to be selective about who gets to learn this because it should be common knowledge to eat climate smart and acclimated to where your environment is. So we try to teach, but at the same time, we want to teach that don't leave things worse than when you found it.

Don't overharvest these plants. Don't sell them for your own benefit to where we can't buy them no more. And it's easy to do that.

And we always try to expand on really making sure you know how to sow the seeds, even though you take some. Don't take the whole plant. Don't rip it out from its roots.

There's some ways that you can harvest things. There's safe ways to make sure that they will keep growing, that there will be plants for the next generation and the next generation. There's times when we had, for example, the century plant, and that's how long it takes for it to be full maturity.

A century, you know, that's a hundred years. And for us to be cutting it down and eating it like sugar cane, I know it's delicious, but I mean, if you cut all of them down, then there's no more for anybody to enjoy sugar cane no more. So we really wanted to get out there and say, you know, be careful of how you take things and only take what you need.

That's a big lesson on where we come from. You don't really need too much. And when we think about the value of things, we don't measure our wealth in what we have and what we're saving up. We measure our wealth in what we give. And it's always like that. It's always been like that.

And that's why we want to really get out there, that there is a way to work together and make it healthy in a healthy way.

[Shalitha]

Yeah. A lot of the times when we do a lot of wild food walk, hopefully we'll be able to do one tomorrow. So if you guys want to come back and check it out, we'll be here.

But usually a lot of the times when I do wild food walks within the community or within other areas, I tend to do like a little small introduction on safety food practices. And so there's different levels of that. And for me, it's just basically respecting the land and leaving it better than what it is.

And basically trying to teach that with the kids to a level that they understand. And what does that look like in making it a lot healthier? Because within Indian country, a lot of kids or a lot of parents tend to yell or spank or do something in that concept.

So I'm trying to do it in a more healthier manner and trying to break that trauma that was instilled in a lot of our communities with boarding schools. So trying to break that trauma and making sure that what we teach is not exploited, especially for the indigenous communities, because a lot of the wild foods are vastly grown from California coast all the way to within Arizona, all the way leading up to New Mexico. So that's a lot of the harvesting areas that I know of, but also I know it because I network with multiple people within agriculture fields, especially with farming, because that's one of the main things that I do outside of my life.

So I'm a full time farmer, eight hours for work, and then the rest is outside of life in my little garden with my family. So really a lot of the teachings that I instill is also something that I do at home. I'm the oldest, and so I teach my oldest to seven siblings.

So I carry the responsibility of teaching a lot of our Apache teachings. And what I teach them is what I use to teach the kids within the outer communities and learning how to handle certain situations. And so for me, just introducing that to a kid and at their level, and as it gets to adults, it's a lot more easier.

And I feel like it's a lot more fun because you get the actual questions, the hard questions. And I love it when they ask me questions, it keeps me on my toes. And it also lets me know, okay, I need to learn about this topic because they're asking about it.

If I do not know the answer, I'm going to go find it and I'll get back to you. So that's a lot of the things that for me, I fairly enjoy with the kids and teaching those ways, but making it in a healthier environment for them.

[Ciara]

Yeah. And then one last thing that I wanted to really share with you guys was that a Hopi elder had talked to us. And when she had joined us in our wild foods walk, she had told us that all these plants that you see out here, they're not just plants.

And when you think about your family and your history, you got to remember that all these plants have their own families. They have ancestors and roots that have been here way longer than we've been here. Our families probably ate these same plants.

So when you're out there and looking at things to eat, always remember to just treat them with respect and let them know that, you know, I'm here, I'm here with you guys. And thank you for letting me be here. Because a lot of the times you don't know what's poisonous.

When we were doing our demo earlier, we were talking about the [Tree name in Apache]. And there's a tree over here. It's right over here.

And it looks just like it. And so when our elders teach us, we walk with them and they tell you, you can drink this one. But that one right there, that one will kill you.

[Shalitha]

And they go right next to each other.

[Ciara]

Yeah. And they go right next to each other. So it's really, and they will only tell you one time.

So you really have to pay attention. And so that's always embedded into my psyche when I come go and teach the kids like, that one will kill you, you know, and that really wakes them up. Like, yeah, these plants, they're very powerful.

And then there's ways you can eat them. There's ways that they can be used for medicine. There's all kinds of things.

Just with the sumac drink that we had, it had been researched by different nutritionists that came and tested it. And there was different beneficial things that had come out of that plant. And they had tried to take it off the reservation and domesticate it for medicine.

But when they did that, it completely depleted it of all its nutrition. And so it's like the land is telling you, leave it alone. You know, it stays there.

And there's a reason why. And I feel like for us being able to share that with you guys and that drink and all of that stuff, it was because you're friends, you're our visitors, and we're happy to have you here and even show you guys like, if God forbid, you know, you're ever out there on your own, at least you know there's a sumac berry out here that can help me. And then there's also like wild tea, yucca blossoms, yucca bananas, juniper, juniper berries, there's so much going on.

So yeah, I think, yeah, that's all you have. So much, so much there for, for all of you guys to just look at and explore. And even just if you have to, there's ways to survive.

[Ranger Dawn]

Yeah, I love that ending statement. That was great. Yeah, just like, walking with reverence on the land and with reciprocity too. I guess, well, I don't know. Yeah.

So I guess, how can people strengthen their relationship to the land?

[Shalitha]

That's a good question. Hmm. Well, it all depends on the individual. I feel like it depends on how connected do they want to feel grounded.

And also, where is your connection to the land? Where do you come from? So for me, as a White Mountain Apache, I identify myself from a certain landscape on our reservation.

And so for some of you guys, I identify myself as a [Apache Tribe Name] and on the reservation. So that's Apache language. And it translates to the two hills that cut.

And on the reservation, that's actually an area called Diamond Creek. And that's where Ciara and I identify ourselves, or know our connection to the land. And when you know the connection to the land, you know where you're from.

It grounds you. So for us, for me, if you wanted to get connected to the land, get to know yourself. Because at the end of the day, I feel like a lot of people don't do that or take the time to.

Even at the moment, this view, you know, like, look at this view, I would have never thought to see it. So at the end of the day, get to know yourself, connect yourself, know where you come from. So you can have that feeling, that sense of groundedness to the connection to the land.

[Ciara]

And I feel like for me, being able to really reconnect is just helping out, you know, doing your part when it comes to recycling. I cannot stress this enough, composting, you know, a lot of that waste and that trash, it's very detrimental to our environment. And as farmers, we know this.

Every year, we see the berries going further and further in their lifespan, getting shorter and shorter. And we can see these changes and even just preserving water, learning about groundwater and where it comes from. And I feel like for one, being self-sufficient.

If you're able to rely on yourself and grow your own food, I can honestly say like growing your own food, eating your own produce, that is the reward. It's such a reward, but it's hard work. And I feel like that's a lot of things people take for granted.

We all eat, but do you know who or where your food came from? You know, like not, and I don't mean the store, you know, like we all know you went to the store, but like how many miles did it take for your food to get there when you could just like, let's go walk right there and go get that, you know? And that is just saying like all of those different organisms that live inside that one little plant that's right there, those are healthier than anything you can buy at the store.

And I feel like even just trying to learn how to revive your soil and even reintroduce nutrients in the soil, anywhere you go, you know, that's, it's always a little help, a little push in the right direction can get you there. Even if you, you need resources, you know, we, the farm has great ones on the website. We can even, I'm pretty sure the park has a bunch of stuff that we can look to.

I see that they're recycling and that's just, it really, it brings joy to my heart because like we said, we would be nothing without the land. You know, we literally wouldn't have no clothes, no shelter, no food to eat if it wasn't for this land. And look at how we're treating it.

Look at what we eat. Why do we need all these preservatives? Why do we need this fake meat?

You know, we have healthy stuff. Food is medicine. And when we think about what we put in our bodies, we should think about the stuff that's growing around us.

That doesn't really hurt society in a way that alfalfa and cotton has because can we eat that? Why are we growing so much of it? You know, it's just thinking of it that way.

[Ranger Dawn]

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing. I also want to open it up to questions if anyone has any too.

He asked, what are their favorite foods to harvest?

[Shalitha]

Yeah, for me, I feel like one of the ones that always takes me home is always the sumac berries. I remember when I was a little kid, like seven, eight, I would run around in my backyard and just grab it off the bush or the shrub and just eat it like it was candy. So for me, I say sumac berries is one of my favorite ones.

I love it when we make it a drink. But for me, when sharing a drink with a visitor that's not from my area, it's a way of welcoming you into our home or into our land or into our area. So for at that sense, for us, that's kind of what sharing a drink for us looks like, especially back in the day before we had transportation, we walk or ride horses.

For us, our people, our relatives would travel over the mountain or into the canyon just to go visit us. And so when they got to us, we would say, you've you traveled such a long distance over the mountain to come see me. Here's a drink, refresh yourself.

And this is also considered a seasonal drink. So sumac berries is one of the ones that I fairly enjoy. Another one is actually wild onions.

So in our area, we have seven different varieties. And I enjoy the ones that are pretty rare, but they're pretty sweet. They're considered a part of the potato family, but they are they are considered onion.

So so those are probably one of my two favorite, favorite ones to eat.

[Ciara]

I know this is gonna sound funny, but I like nuts. So if you can see, yeah, if you can see this, this tree, this is a pinyon tree or that one. That's a pinyon tree.

And you can pick those pinyons in November. And they're so good. They're addictive.

You can't just get one bag and say you're going to eat a couple. No, you'll eat the whole thing. So and then where we come from, specifically, we have the emery oak tree and it grows golden acorn, which we harvest like right before monsoon season and we grind it up.

Yeah, we we call it Apache gold. And it's got a bitter taste to it. You know, it's an acquired taste.

But oh, my gosh, I can eat that by the handful. You know, it's just and then there's so many where we come from. We even have black walnuts.

We harvested them one year and we all look like demons with black fingers for like two weeks. Yeah, it was.

[Ranger Dawn]

Yeah.

[Ciara]

And so it's also used as a dye. And so there's so many different plants out there and nuts that we can eat that have just been around since time immemorial. You know, and our ancestors just needed a little bit of them to get by.

So we're excited to even just have them and the ability to harvest them. And and we want to there's really, if anything, acknowledge our elders and our ancestors, because if they didn't fight hard to keep these food ways for even just us to be able to listen to them and still learn about them like that's that that was hard, you know, for them. And even just going back to what they came through and and even for them to teach us and for my generation, for me personally, I don't speak my language, but I'm trying to learn.

I'm trying to learn as much as I can through translation. I'm always asking, "what'd they say?" "What they say?" You know, and that's my barrier. My parents thought, oh, don't don't teach her Apache, because if she knows English, she'll be able to get a good education. She'll be able to get farther in life and better work skills.

But here I am like now I'm trying to learn Apache so I could be a tribal chairwoman. You know, but it just it's just things like that, that we that's why we call ourselves women of change. And that's why we like to do what we do today.

[Shalitha]

And so the main reason why we really talk about the things that we're really experts in in our community is because it introduces the whole concept of food sovereignty. And what does that look like in your communities?

And so for those of you guys who do not know what food sovereignty is or or sovereignty, sovereignty is okay. Oh, okay. So, so food sovereignty, basically, basically means to be able to feed yourself and not rely on outside resources to feed yourself.

And so for me, when we talk about this to you guys is to introduce that concept. And what does that look like in your community? How like from so when I did the farmers market coordinating, I had to research and figure out why I was doing certain calls, why I wanted to do certain things.

And one of the main thing was to educate people about food sovereignty, being able to feed themselves, being able to support travel owned businesses, and and leave the money on the reservation so it doesn't go off the reservation. So that's what we really want to introduce when we're talking about a lot of things that we do within our communities is just to let you guys know, like, hey, this is what food sovereignty looks like. And it doesn't matter where you come from, in the world that looks different in wherever you come from.

So definitely think about that concept when we talk about these things is what is food sovereignty? And what does that look like in your community? In 2016, we didn't have a White Mountain Apache co op.

Now we do we have six members. This is our first year in it. We're hoping to go another year but add members as we go and support farmers that are on the reservation who need that help.

And so it's a slow change. It may be something that we might see when we're elders, or see some of our children, children might see that change. But knowing that I was a part of that to create that for them.

is definitely still going to be a win regardless of I'm here or not. But I know that my work carried on.

[Ciara]

So and like we were told before, by the teachers who taught us, we're not trying to teach you this because we want you to stay at our level. We're trying to teach you this so you can run past us and, and show me how to get there, you know, or even just help us work out run with me, you know, let's run together. And let's let's learn.

Let's trailblaze through this, this resilient society called food sovereignty and learn how to do that for ourselves.

[Ranger Jonah]

Grand Canyon speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy. A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music. This recording reflects the personal lived experiences of tribal members and do not encompass the views of their tribal nation or that of the National Park.

To learn more about Grand Canyon first voices visit www.nps.gov/GRCA. Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we're on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon. These being the Havasupai tribe, the Hualapai tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute tribe, the Moapa band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute tribe.

In this episode, Ciara and Shalitha sit down with Ranger Dawn to explore their inspiring journey of connecting indigenous communities to food sovereignty. Together, they share insights into how this work has deepened their understanding of stewardship, culture, and what it means to be "elders in training."

Episode 3

Zuni Royalty Speaks

Transcript

Keia Gasper: It just makes me happy seeing the younger generation get involved with culture and religious activities and wanting to know about who they are and where they come from and it's just very important for our culture.

Lakin: Welcome back everyone, my name is Lakin and I'm an intern at the Grand Canyon National Park.

Ranger Melissa: And this is Ranger Melissa.

Lakin: It's always inspiring to see youth from the Zuni Pueblo, where I'm from, grow into leaders and take action for our community. Ranger Melissa: Yeah, what's cool is this episode is with Zuni royalty who served in 2023 and 2024.

Lakin: So both Keia Gasper and Jaynie Lalio walked us through their experiences and how they become role models for the Zuni people.

Ranger Melissa: Yeah, it's really inspiring to hear from them and hear about, you know, what are their aspirations, how they're connected to the Zuni history and culture, as well as maybe even learning some cool delicious recipes.

Lakin: Yeah, so sit back, relax, and without further ado, here is Keia and Jaynie.

Keia Gasper: Keshi, ko' don sunhapk'yanapkya. Ho' Keia Gasper le'shinna. Hom annodi:we Ana:kwe deyan Yaddokya:kwe a:wan cha'le. Ho' asdemłan ha'ilekk'ya yałdo debikwayik'ya. Hom a:łashinna a:chi Ronda Johnson dap Antonio Gasper le'shinna. Lukkya debikwayinan ho' 2023-2024 Miss Zuni. .

Keia Gasper: Hi, good afternoon, my name is Keia Gasper. My parents' names are Ronda Johnson and Antonio Gasper. I am 18 years old. My clients are Tobacco and Child of the Sun, and this year I am the 2023-2024 Miss Zuni.

Jaynie Lalio: Keshi, ko' don sunhapk'yanapkya. Ho' Jaynie Lalio le'shinna. Ho' asdemłan dobalekk'ya yałdo debikwayik'ya. Hom annodi: Donashi:kwe deyan Dowa:kwe a:wan cha'le. Hom a:łashinna a:chi Erica dap Jason Lalio Jr. Lukkya debikwayinan, ho' don a:wan 2023-2024 Junior Miss Zuni. .

Jaynie Lalio: Hello, good evening, everyone. My name is Jaynie Lalio. I am 16 years old. My clients are Badger and Child of the Corn. My parents are Erica and Jason Lalio Jr. I am the 2023-2024 Junior Miss Zuni.

Ranger Kelli: Thank you, thank you. A lot of times people who come from all over the world here at Grand Canyon, they want to know, like, where's Zuni? So, like, can you explain to our audience, like, where is Zuni? . Keia Gasper: Well, Zuni is a small Pueblo, three miles out, and wait, oh my gosh, three hours out, and we come from the Grand Canyon, and we had to find the middle place, and so we went to our people, our elders, went down to find the middle place, which is Zuni.

Ranger Kelli: Yeah, and it's interesting because, you know, I think, like, we have these 11 tribes coming in from all different locations here at Grand Canyon, and then Grand Canyon is now a national park, and it just kind of created this, like, borderline for tribal communities in a way that people are always, like, amazed, like, how far Zuni is, and then they're like, how does this, how far Zuni is, and then they're like, how does it connect to the Grand Canyon, right, and I think this is important to kind of, like, talk about because, like, what you just said, it's a place of kind of, like, an emergence, right, and then as well, it's just, like, a very sacred connection, but also for Native communities, we kind of, like, it's just not, like, okay, Zuni is here, and then the canyon's here, and then that's it, like, we are connected in a whole, we connect this whole region, and it's just not the canyon and then Zuni, but also the water, you know, and I understand that with Zuni, the Colorado River and the Little Colorado River, that is a connection as well to Zuni, but I just want to let you all know, like, how, where Zuni is at, and if you all, like, have questions, we can definitely ask at the end, but my other question is, like, what is Zuni royalty? What does that mean? Do you all want to answer that?

Jaynie Lalio: So Zuni royalty, it's from an organization where they wanted someone to be able to represent the Zuni people and the community, so it's giving us a chance to represent on a different type of level, you could say.

Ranger Kelli: Do you want to answer that?

Keia Gasper: Yeah, it's, like, you're putting yourself out there, and you're getting to want your people to be known, and where you come from, and it's just very important for our culture, because we want to keep our, what we have, keep it going, and we don't want to lose it, because we see other tribes, like, they're beginning to lose what they have, and we're going strong with what we have, and it just makes me happy seeing the younger generation get involved with culture and religious activities, and just getting involved, wanting to know about who they are and where they come from, and it's just, Zuni is a beautiful, beautiful place. I'm proud to be Zuni, and it makes me happy. .

Ranger Kelli: Yeah, and, you know, what you both just said really speaks to, you know, I think that's important for people to hear, is that you are ambassadors in your community, but not just ambassadors for your community, but also for the next generation, right, and then you are leading a role not only for the younger generation in your community, but also keeping that culture going, and as a young woman, I see that you are dressed in your traditional attire, and is that something that you, when you're wearing the crown and representing your community, is that how you kind of, like, represent yourself when you go out into other communities and wearing that attire, and if you want to explain, like, your dress and the significance of that, you're more than welcome to, if you want to.

Keia Gasper: Oh yeah, our ancestors, they dressed like this back then, and we're just carrying on their tradition and making it known, like, where we come, like, what we have is something different than anybody else. I don't know, I've never seen anybody dressed like this or or have what we have, so it makes me happy knowing that we have a unique culture and with everything we have.

Ranger Kelli: I think I find it, like, really amazing today, so our royalty, for y'all who weren't here at the park earlier today, they're actually, we have four royalties here until Saturday, and they're doing demonstration from nine to four at the Watchtower, and so our two members here are, have been here all day at the tower talking about the role, but also talking about the generational knowledge of their community, and a lot of people have been, like, asking the young girls, like, are you selling your jewelry? Are you selling these different attires? But really, they're just wanting to dress how, like you said, your ancestors have been dressing, and I think that's beautiful to know that we're walking in our ancestors' shoes, basically, and we're, they're behind us, you know, and they're behind you right now, and you're wearing that crown, and just kind of representing that and carrying that knowledge, so I think that's really beautiful to express that to the public, and because, like, you're a royalty now, I want to know, like, how did you become, like, Miss Zuni or Junior Miss Zuni? So what are, what are some of the things that you had to do for competition to become royalty?

Jaynie Lalio: So we had a pageant-based, like, competition. We were judged off of a traditional talent, traditional food, public speaking, close interviews, and then there was also a best essay and most photogenic awards. .

Ranger Kelli: Was that all done in one day? .

Jaynie Lalio: Two days, yeah.

Keia Gasper: Yeah, like a week. We were all put together, and all the contestants and everybody, we just got to know each other, and we did the pageant and everything, but this year we ran against ourselves, so we had no contestants for our age, so we got the title, but we still had to go through the whole pageant and everything, and with going back to the getting your crown and the sash, it's, you get, you get, they make a crown for you, especially, because every crown gets made for every year, so there's always different crowns that come in and sashes and everything like that, so what you get during your reign or in the beginning of the reign, your crown and your sash is yours to keep, like, for life, so going, so if you, like, look back or go forward in the future, you can look back and see what you've done.

Ranger Kelli: That's really cool to keep the crown.

Jaynie Lalio: And can I add that the crown is also basically alive. It's your sister. We call it our sister because it chooses you. Yeah, it just, .

Keia Gasper: whatever, like, whatever you're feeling, your crown can feel it, and, like, if you're tired and she's tired, she'll make you more tired. It's, it's crazy. It's just, yeah, like, you can't, like, feel her. You can't know when she's talking to you and stuff, and you just gotta, when you put her on, you just gotta tell her, like, come on, let's go. We got this, and she'll motivate you into doing better for yourself for that day and just keeping it going, you know.

Ranger Kelli: I think that's amazing. Also, what inspired you both to compete? You know, I know, like, right now, you said that you, you already were competing for the crown and without any other competition, but what inspired you from the beginning before wearing the crown, any crown? What made you want to compete to become a royalty?

Jaynie Lalio: For me, what inspired me was I had the role of Zuni Princess before, and I thought that if, that was when I was young. I didn't know what to expect, so going into this year, I was influenced by the people around me saying, you should run another year. You can learn more, so that's what I decided to do, and I never thought that I would have ran by myself, so it was kind of unexpected, but it's been a pretty great experience. I'm glad for those people that inspired me, just, like, friends, family, so yeah.

Keia Gasper: Sorry, can we go back to the question?

Ranger Kelli: Yeah, and I just asked, like, you know, before you became royalty, what inspired you to want to compete and wanting to become a royalty or a title holder?

Keia Gasper: Okay, well, first of all, I, this is, this is not me, like, I, how would I put this into words? I didn't see myself in this position because I didn't think I was strong enough or I was good enough to be a good influencer for my people, and I just thought, I was like, people kept coming to me, and I kept hiding, and they kept coming to my house asking me if I'm running or if I'm gonna run for the position, and I was like, uh, I don't know, and then they pushed me into running for it, and I, I finally said, okay, I'm gonna do it, and I was, I was so nervous because I thought I was gonna have other people, um, like, running for the position, and I was like, I'm not gonna get it, I'm not gonna get it, and then here, once the deadline for the applications were over, and then here, uh, we looked on the royalty page, I looked on the royalty page, and then, actually, we were at volleyball practice, and then we looked at the volleyball page, and it was just only both of our names on it, and they were like, oh, my gosh, what did, what did we get ourselves into, but overall, it's been a great experience. It's, um, it makes me happy going places, seeing, seeing new people, and make good connections, and meeting new Crown sisters, or sash sisters, like, from other places, uh, like, Miss NTU, I'm really close with her, and Miss Indian New Mexico, I'm really close with those two, so I grew attached to them, and they're, like, my big sisters, they watch over me, and yeah, and just, and going back, going back, like, um, in 2009, I was also Crown baby princess, and I was a little baby, little baby, so I didn't know, and then here, look, look at me, I'm Miss Zuni, that's crazy.

Jaynie Lalio: Also, hold on, sorry, excuse me, no, go, funny part, we ran against each other, what's the title, princess?

Keia Gasper: Oh, yeah, then I lost that round, too, sorry, I bet,

Ranger Kelli: but you're both crazy, and then you said, too, like, you enjoy, um, traveling all over the place, you know, meeting new people, is this your first time coming to Grand Canyon?

Keia Gasper: Uh, yes, this is my first time coming to Grand Canyon. When I was leaving Zuni, like, it just, I was so nervous coming here, because knowing that our ancestors are here, and they're watching over us, and just makes me happy knowing that finally get to, like, feel their presence, knowing that they made it safe, safely there, and, oh, wait, sorry, overall, overall, this is a beautiful place, like, I'm so glad, like, our Zuni people came, like, out of this Grand Canyon, like, this is, that thing back there looks like a picture, like, it looks so unreal, but it makes me happy knowing that we have something like this within our history.

Jaynie Lalio: Yeah, this is also my first time coming here, I would say, it's been a wonderful day, just being able to go up to the watchtower, seeing the top, we were standing there, taking a picture, and I just looked and said, this doesn't look real, it looks like a green screen, it's, the beauty here, it's, it's something else, nothing can compare to it, honestly, being able to reconnect with nature on a different, different type of level feels like, like, getting, getting that clarity, to me, that's what it felt like, like, it just, whatever you see, the stresses, it's all gone.

Ranger Kelli: Yeah, and this is amazing to hear, also, like, heartfelt, as well, what you both said, because part of this program, and this Grand Canyon Speaks, a lot of our tribal members haven't come and visit Grand Canyon, even though it's an ancestral home from our 11 associated tribes, and I, being as a native ranger here, and hearing you both speak here, or even seeing your family here, and seeing the younger ones just enjoying the canyon, and this is their first time, as well, and I think that's important, that your voice is being heard here, you know, it's, your canyon hears you, and it feels you, your presence is here, is really amazing, and the whole program of this is to have your voices heard back in the space again, and when it became a national park, a lot of the native communities were forcibly removed out of this place that is home, and I think that's a very important thing to talk about.

Ranger Kelli: I know it's hard to hear, even being, as a native person, but it's now time for healing. It's also time to show your representation out here, and seeing your beautiful regalia, hearing the beautiful songs out here, it's really inspiring. Also, for the next community member who is a young adult, is gonna be inspired to want to sing here too, and to dance here as well, and set their foot here, and they want to come back again next year.

Ranger Kelli: I hope you all come back again next year, and then now your royalty, like, what are your future goals now? Like, you know, do you want to do another pageant, or, you know, school? I know you're all young, but goals are important.

Jaynie Lalio: So some of the goals I will have is to go to college. I'm currently choosing between having options open for schools here in Arizona, because Arizona is just so pretty, and I want to be close to home, so, and after that, I'm planning to go somewhere in the medical field. Still looking at my options, but today, some people were saying my goal should be to run for Miss Zuni again, but we'll see what's in store. We'll see, but I think this role is going to help my goals, because it's made me more open, I would say. It's, I'm able to communicate on an easier level than I used to.

Jaynie Lalio: It brought me out of my shell, so whatever I'm planning to go into, I know it'll help with, help with what I'm planning. .

Keia Gasper: And with me, my future goals, I have so much. So once my last month of high school came, I was like, what am I gonna do? And so I applied to colleges. I was like, I'm gonna go to college. I'm gonna go become a nurse, and then here, I, since I can't leave like Zuni, and I need to finish out my reign, I was like, nah, I want to join the army. I want to join the army, so that's what I'm gonna do.

Keia Gasper: I'm joining the army, and I'm gonna try and become a dog handler, so I work with the canines, so that's what I want to do, because I have a passion for dogs. And recently, my family, they didn't even tell me, I had a dog for like three years, and they called the rangers on my dog, and they took him, they took her, but yeah, her name was Koda, Koda Mae, and she was a cute little rez dog, yeah. But yeah, after the army, I'm gonna try, if I like it there, then I'm gonna do what I can to get my dream house and my dream car, like a western type of house, and I know this sounds so crazy, but I want to Porsche GTRS, so that's my big plan. Gotta save up a lot of money. .

Ranger Kelli: Love it. I love all of it. I love both of your goals. I think when, I'm just speaking from my personal young adult days, like I didn't really have a plan, so I think that it's just inspiring to hear you both, as young as you are, to know what you want, to know what your goals are in the future, and I think that, I think it's important for the kids to hear that, you know, to see a royalty, to speak about their goals, so they can kind of look at, okay, this is what they're doing, maybe I might do that too. I think it's really cool, and I have one more question, you know, I think that if you want to, well actually I have two more questions, but will you all, wanting to do an example of like, I know going back to the competition, when you all do competitions, like do you want to do an example of like an example of a competition, like through a talent that you are, you know, to our audience here, either through traditional talent or through a modern talent, is that all right with both of you to do something like that? .

Keia & Jaynie: Yes.

Ranger Kelli: Okay, so I'm not too sure who wants to go first. .

Keia Gasper: So during my talent, I, for traditional, I did pottery, and I still continue to do pottery. I love doing it because it just takes me away out of reality, and makes me live in a different world, like it's just crazy, like your mind is full set on something you want to create, and I make, I know I make like cool, fancy, or not fancy, but like good enough artwork to present to other people, and it's just, I've been working on pottery for about four years now, and it's just been carrying out since high school, and my uncle, Kevin Johnson, inspired me into wanting to try and see what I can do, what my mind can do with art and pottery, so, and this, I finished this seed bowl this morning, and it's just a representation of like asking for blessings for rain, and food, and water, and just for your plants to grow, and it's just, you're not also like asking for blessings for just that, it's just asking for blessings for the whole community, everybody, and just wanting to make it rain, like we need the rain, it's hot out here, like, but yeah, that's what I did, and I'll pass around an example, and yeah.

Jaynie Lalio: Okay, and for me, I'm gonna stand up for this. This was one of my, what I was presenting today as well, in the top right corner, I, right here, I made a pozole stew called chuleya:we. I was taught by my grandmother, my Wowo, so I thought, being at the recent pageants, I saw that no one really made this type of stew, so I thought, let me give it a try, maybe I can, so it's like a, like a week-long, took me a week-long process, kinda, so first, we had to, like, chop up, or cut the meat, saw it, so I could be able to cut it into pieces, and here, I'm cutting, cutting, putting water into it with corn, so it's able to get that flavor, which we also added salt, I'll get back to that, but here, we, this is the oven that we, I made the fire out of, with wood, in our outside oven, it's called, Hebok'o:we, and then, we close it off with mud, seal it overnight, and then, it should be ready in the morning, which I opened right the morning of our pageant, I was getting ready, walked outside, had my dad open it for me, and just that smell of it was so, so, I don't know, made me hungry, and I didn't eat it yet, so that's the first thing I wanted, but I couldn't, had to serve it to my judges, and it's kinda what I made, and it's also an important stew, which is, which we usually eat on every traditional occasion, and it's also just like, oh, I'm craving some chuleya:we, let's make some, that's basically the type of food it is.

Oh my gosh, I'm getting so hungry now. I love talking about food, by the way. I'll bring you a bowl next time.

Ranger Kelli: Oh my gosh, I love food, and I think that's really cool, because like, it's different talents, you know, you're doing pottery making, and then you're doing food, traditional foods, you know, that is eaten in your, in the home, and how that connects back into your ancestors as well, and then if we, right now, we're at 7:22, which is just very close to sunset, and for the audience, we can kind of look at this board a little bit closer after we're done, but this is my last question for the evening, is what do you want all of us to take away with what we just kind of talked about this evening? What is something you want our audience members to take away back to their home, or coming out to visit Grand Canyon from what we just talked about?

Keia Gasper: Well, like, we're all human beings, and we should, we should all love each other, love everybody, and because nobody has, like, a perfect life, so I just want everyone to go home happy, feeling happy, and knowing that ancestors are proud of who they are, and that you're strong, and just keep going, don't stop, do you, and live your life, live your life to the fullest, like, you got this, and yeah. .

Jaynie Lalio: I just want people to be able to embrace where they come from. Every, every story matters. It's important to love who you are, and just be confident with what, with who you are, because there's no one like you. You're unique, special, every person is different, just, just love yourself is basically what I want people to do from this experience, embrace.

Keia Gasper: One more thing is to make a challenge for yourself, try something new, go out, try something new, find what you see that you may not see yourself doing, like, like me right now, this is crazy, I'm so happy though, but yeah, just try it, because it'll take you bigger and happier places, just like this.

Ranger Kelli: I just want to send my gratitude to both of you, to explaining, and expressing, and then showing a lot of what your title holder means, but also, like, you, what you both expressed to me is just really amazing to know that you're very proud of your culture, you want to keep that going, and keep it going for the next generation. Thank you all for coming this evening, and enjoy sunset.

Ranger Jonah: To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices, visit www.nps.gov/grca . Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon. These being the Havasupai tribe, the Hualapai tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute tribe.

In this episode, 2023-2024 Zuni Royalty, Keia Gasper and Jaynie Lalio, walk us through their experience as representatives of the Zuni community and how it has shaped their character. They also shared some of their aspirations, traditional practices and beliefs that empower their connections with Zuni culture and the Grand Canyon.

Episode 4

Skylar Blackbull Speaks - Veteran's Day Special

Transcript

Skylar Blackbull: So it's really neat to see kind of the breakdown of this code because I think when a lot of times we hear about this history you don't actually get to see what the code looked like and I wanted to use this project to kind of give a chance for people to not only know more about the history but also see the code and see what how it worked and how it operated.

Meranden: Welcome or welcome back to Grand Canyon Speaks. This is Meranden

Lakin: And this is Lakin and we're both interns at Desert View.

Meranden: In this episode we talked with Skylar Blackbull who is a Diné artist. We invited her out for an in-person conversation but as we head into winter here the snow decided to come and she wasn't able to make it.

Lakin: But we didn't let that stop us though, so thankfully we were able to meet with her virtually.

Meranden: And as this is our Veterans Day special episode she was able to talk with us about her amazing piece called Unbreakable Code that highlights the Navajo Code Talkers.

Lakin: Yeah it was really interesting to learn more about the different components of this artwork along with getting to know more about her creative journey.

Meranden: Also it was really cool hearing about an opportunity she had to collaborate with someone she looks up to.

Lakin: So we hope you enjoy this episode and here is Skylar Blackbull.

Skylar: My name is Skylar Blackbull. I am from the Hosta Butte area in New Mexico currently in Colorado but no I've been you know doing art outside of college for about about two a year and a half almost two years and I've been on my artist journey since goodness since I can remember and I'm just thrilled to be able to be part of this podcast be able to share you know my journey as an artist and the way that I use the way my experiences growing up to influence my work.

Lakin: Have you been to the Grand Canyon?

Skylar: I have a very long time ago. I was just a young girl. My parents had taken my sister and I twice and we both did not actually walk down the canyon. We were strapped onto a backpack and our dad walked us down the canyon. But the two times that I have gone it I have very fond memories of being out there and just how beautiful the scenery is.

Meranden: Nice yeah I think that's something I noticed with these speaks is that usually when we bring them out or it's a cultural demonstration it's usually their first time coming or it's something they haven't been here in a long time. We can go ahead and go to the second question. When did you first start your artistic journey?

Skylar: Sure to be honest I always had a love for art and creativity growing up. My dad being a very gifted illustrator himself and just being around that and him you know doodling for my sister and I on napkins and things of that sort.

I've always had such a connection with creativity including drawing on our walls at home which was probably not the best thing ever. But no like art was such a big stress reliever for me growing up. I loved being part of art classes all through elementary school, middle school, you know high school.

I really didn't you know find my passion or my niche until about when I went to college in my undergrad. I initially started off with a degree in science. I was planning on going in biology and then eventually I switched to kinesiology and then I was like ooh nutrition sounds great.

And then I throughout those first two years of college I had been taking a lot of art classes as a way to just kind of have a breather from all of the other college classes and ended up having so much fun with these classes and enjoying them so much that my professors even convinced me to you know switch my major over to the art department. And the end of my sophomore year beginning of junior year I completely switched gears and went full towards a degree in graphic design and studio art and never looked back.

Meranden: It's really interesting seeing how much the classes and like those experiences and like professors play a big role in what we want to do. So yeah that's really cool.

Lakin: Yeah it's also good to hear that you follow your intuition and that you weren't afraid in that action. So it's always good to hear when people do that whether it's creatively or just when it comes to following a path that's oriented towards a set of value goals.

Skylar: Yeah absolutely and I agree a lot of times when you go into college you kind of go in with these big expectations of I need to go with a science degree or like a very you know a big degree. And you know just have like you said the professors really are big influences in your time at those universities and just hearing their own experiences and their own encouragement of just saying hey you know any possible career or life that you want is very possible. It's just figuring out what works for you and what drives you.

Because the last thing you want to do is go into a field for you know a career and not feel fulfilled in it and feel that you didn't take the road that you should have taken. And not that saying that you can't restart at any age but it's always it's a blessing to know that I was able to figure it out within my undergraduate degree.

Lakin: Since you started creating what medium or media have you explored with?

Skylar: I started off with just your basic pen, paper, pencils, charcoals. At the beginning of my art journey I used to be really against color. I hated anything with color partly because I didn't quite understand it either. It was really intimidating but in having different art teachers and professors they were able to kind of you know break those walls of just the intimidation of certain mediums.

And I took a lot of classes in college to kind of learn you know different styles of art. So I had to I now have kind of expanded my artistry with not only traditional illustration but I'm also an oil painter, acrylic painter. I took a print making class in college and now I started implementing that in my own work.

So I do linoleum prints. I also taught myself how to bead about two years about three years ago I'd say. Yeah those have been my my main sources of work as well as of course my digital work as well.

Meranden: When we first met you I really liked your bags and I was like really excited for you to come out here because I was like I'm gonna buy it finally. But yeah like I like your bags and then the stickers it's just like it brings like a really homey vibe of like being back home on the rez. The spam can, the cheii, like all those things.

I really like those kind of little reminders that make you feel like back at home. So those are my favorite that I really enjoyed seeing. And then I have seen like your beadwork and things like that on like socials.

So it's really cool to see how you've diversified yourself over time.

Lakin: And I also feel like when you do approach those I guess a new skill set, you go into it knowing that you'll have some mistakes and failures in that initial learning process. But once you get over that learning curve it becomes I would say like therapeutic in a way.

Skylar: Absolutely, absolutely. I always you know in taking all of those classes or you know the self-teaching component, I feel like those challenges are what pushes me like no I'm gonna figure this out. I want to figure this out.

This is something I've always wanted you know. And it also is really neat because the more that I have expanded the mediums that I work with, the more that I'm realizing a lot of them kind of bleed into each other. That you don't have to just use certain skills from one type of artistry.

You can use it for multiple. Like I have recently just started blending my beadwork and paintings. Like I feel like there's a way that you can merge different styles of artwork together to kind of create your own unique style but also improve upon many different you know parts of your your art.

Lakin: And I feel like that's a special characteristic of being an innovator or a visionary. So yeah.

Meranden: Yesterday was Veterans Day.

This is our Veterans Day special episode. We are very interested in highlighting your art as it revolves around the Navajo Code Talkers. Would you be able to explain a little bit of who they are and what your artwork entails?

Skylar: Yeah absolutely. So you know my initial interest in this project that I created really did stem from not only by having family who had served in the military. My husband is currently on active duty in the army now. But also just you know I feel like this is such an important part of history that's not as highlighted in your history courses within the education system.

And I didn't realize that until I left the rez. Until I was in college on the east coast. And I have always get questions like "Oh where are you from? What are you?" And I'm like I'm Navajo.

I'm from the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. And they're like "What is that?" And I'm like what do you mean what is that? And just those countless interactions of people just not even knowing who the Navajo people are was really that it was such a big eye-opener for me to know that like wow people don't have the privilege of learning that history. And being one of the few indigenous students on that campus and since I had switched my major to you know art I thought this would be a great opportunity to kind of utilize the skills into creating some sort of visual memorial but also a way for others to be a little more aware of the importance of this history.

So the project that I made was called the Unbreakable Code. And it brings recognition to the bravery and sacrifice of the Navajo Code Talkers during World War II. And the great thing is that the Code Talkers really did restore you know pride in our sacred language.

And this entire project honors 420 plus Code Talkers that I've served but highlights the 29 men who created the initial code. As with the history of that it's important to know that you know in the making of this code Navajo wasn't a written language. So it's really neat to see kind of the breakdown of this code because I think when a lot of times we hear about this history you don't actually get to see what the code looked like.

And I wanted to use this project to kind of give a chance for people to not only know more about the history but also see the code and see what how it worked and how it operated. So with one of the pieces here I can show you now. So this is Nelson S Thompson.

This is his name that covers the entirety of this panel. So what I had done was I used the original code dictionary from World War II and took the alphabet component and used the alphabet to spell out their name in code which was a really neat way because not only did using the alphabet I also got to learn more about the code itself which was really great. So this 29 panel installation it covers many different images as you can see in like different pieces here different images as well as different coding to honor different aspects of the Navajo people.

So for instance you have this one has arrowheads this one has the feathers and then there are two more that highlights corn as in representing corn pollen and then this one representing the tobacco leaf and that all together kind of hints at the ceremony that they do for soldiers before and after they go to war the enemy way ceremony and about how it protects them from harmful spirits before and after the war. It's a very subtle way of hinting that but it's a nice you know way to kind of see that they still maintain their their practices throughout this whole time. But yes in all of my colors as well also have meaning they all reflect back to the Navajo medicine wheel and of course the four sacred mountains.

So those are the colors in the incorporation of red symbolizes bloodshed during war. So there's a lot of hidden components in this project that I created but I also wanted to use those hidden components to represent their the Code Talkers inability to speak about what they have done during World War II till after 1969. But now with this project it was such an honor to present a visual memorial for the 400 plus men who have sacrificed so much and our people continue to sacrifice so much and creating this project it was a way for people just to see this type of history in a different way but also learn more about it as well.

Lakin: Yeah that's good too, I mean it's very interesting obviously not only good but it's very interesting when you see art and hear about artists who connect all these aspects of culture and just understanding the physical and the metaphysical world and like you connected the aspect of color and then also the landscape and just the history itself. That's regarding the Navajo Code Talkers and being able to express that in this one artwork. It's like a huge story in one intangible expression. So when it comes to understanding the landscape and how it informs your identity we'd like to know what does the Grand Canyon mean to you?

Skylar: Sure so you know in learning about our traditional stories with the Grand Canyon for instance you know the story of one of the last battles the twins have with your monster slayer has is at the Grand Canyon with the wandering rock monster and it's really interesting because when you think about that traditional story about how monster slayer is you know going to go fight this wandering rock monster because he's hoarding water and it's kind of reminiscent of the current battle today with the Navajo people in the Colorado River. But now I mean in terms of like that importance of the Grand Canyon is understanding the importance of that Colorado River for the Navajo people and another thing too is I wanted to mention as well is that growing up on the northeastern agency of the Navajo Nation you don't quite hear or understand the importance of that Colorado River for the Navajo people because it's not something that's talked about a lot on the rez just because it's mainly with the people on the western agency you know that have that who need that water and I think it's really important that it is a conversation amongst the entire nation because you know we didn't really hear about it too much especially with you know growing up where I was and I'm really thankful and happy now that I have now become more aware of the importance of that Colorado River and the water for our people but no I mean in terms of it's really interesting just to kind of think about oral traditional stories kind of you know foreshadowing or something just kind of recircling back around how it still circles around this water issue and it's really interesting.

Meranden: And I just want to backtrack on your artwork on the whole Navajo Code Talkers it's like makes me speechless to see it not a lot of people know about that or like you said there's people who don't know that we exist or they don't know about the Code Talkers we have this knowledge and being able to learn these different things so that we can spread that to other people so that they know that we're here we're still doing things and our tribes are still here so your pieces have a lot of impact on me just seeing like seeing that being able to hear the stories on it it's really cool.

Skylar: Wonderful I honestly that's the whole point of the work that I started making especially within these past few years that I want the work that I create to not only be visually fun to look at but also it it is conveying an important message and with the countless countless years that you know we've been wanting to have we want our voice to matter we want our voice to be heard and sometimes art can do art can be one of those voices that can shine through and just show a different way of looking at someone's way of life and someone's you know history and I think it's really important because we learn so much from one another within just artwork itself I mean the countless of art history classes I took the amount you just learn from paintings is insane and when you and when you are able to like incorporate that into your own work you kind of see like oh my goodness like I have this whole other way to use my to my work to speak to different audiences and that's I think with a lot of artists out there we all try and you know find that right audience to kind of convey a message that we were so passionate about

Meranden: Yeah exactly and speaking of like that impact it plays a huge influence on our work and what things we do and that kind of takes me to the next question of did you have a mentor who helped you along the way or you know someone who plays a huge role in your art making?

Skylar: Absolutely! Oh my goodness, my influences and mentors have have really allowed me to have so much on this journey. My mentors go all the way back to high school like one of my biggest ones who was Elmer Yazzie he was my art teacher and also my track coach in high school and he really instilled my love for art I absolutely loved his approach to our education it was very different compared to the it was very different because he really allowed his students to kind of lose themselves in their work he hardly ever put deadlines because he really wanted to give us a chance to kind of focus on a piece and understand what we're doing and connect with the work Yazzie taught with a lot of spirituality as well he always talked about like his emotions when he would work and it wasn't about the technical aspect of art and it was so interesting to kind of be part of that Yazzie was someone who with every student he pushed our artistic boundaries and encouraged so much innovation with our projects and not only he had some of the best stories to share in that class because he's been an artist for a very long time and he's traveled all over the world painting murals presenting his work and just hearing his stories was so encouraging to know that he's had a very fulfilling and successful life as an artist he was a a big big person for me especially in high school you know getting me to to understand the importance of art and um still love him today I always call him my adopted grandfather he's the best ever and another really big mentor for me is Lyndon Tsosie, the silversmith from Gallup, New Mexico he was a really big mentor for me and upon you know just entering in with this art industry when I was fresh out of college it was a whole new whole new life and a whole new path that I was very unfamiliar with and upon meeting Lyndon at a gallery opening which I was showing my Unbreakable Code project it sparked a conversation between us and I had explained my project to him and from there he wanted to collaborate with me on a piece and the piece that we collaborated on was also to honor the Navajo Code Talker it's a belt called "No Place Like Home" and it honors the 400+ Navajo Code Talkers so Lyndon had done all the silversmith on the concho silversmithing of the concho belt and I had created the paintings on the inside of the belt and it was really neat because not only did I get to see a different type of art because I don't know anything about silversmithing I don't know much, but he was just so transparent with his advice when it came to navigating the industry as an artist and he's he's so helpful and the fact that he has an entire foundation about empowering you know the future generations of artists and ensuring that these traditional skills of silversmithing or any type of artistry are passed to that those younger artists I think is incredible the fact that he puts all of that his efforts and you know his accomplishments as an artist back to the young folk and it's incredible and lastly you know I had two college professors that were just incredible and extremely patient I had Steven Pearson and Chloe Irla. Steven Pearson was part of the studio art department and Chloe Irla was part of the graphic design department and both of them were really big in terms of guiding me in understanding the different types of things you can do within our world Pearson was really great at helping me understand the technical ability with art and understanding like perspective and how to properly use your materials and how to take something from a three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional space so it was really nice to understand that technical aspect of art that I didn't really I didn't know um and then with Irla she opened my eyes to a whole new world of art since she was in the graphic design department I knew very little about graphic design upon taking her classes and she really you know just helped me expand my work so much further that's part of that is a huge reason as to why this Unbreakable Code you know was so successful was because she really did help guide me through understanding how to use all of these digital platforms to make this project successful but no each of each of those people have really have made such a big impact in my journey as an artist I have so much I have so much to thank for them because not only were they super patient super transparent with their advice it's just they made a huge impact on making me feel confident going into this career

Lakin: Yeah it's amazing to see how these figures and people have such a huge impact on not only your creative life but your just your life in general and I'm also looking forward to who you're able to I guess I would say be a mentor for in the future like whether you have students or just people who look up to you as a source of inspiration and I'm also glad that you brought up Lyndon because I did want to ask you about the belt I remember I had seen it recently and I was interested in wondering how that was created.

Skylar: Yeah, absolutely so it was actually the the Unbreakable Code project was one of the first ways that we kind of sparked up this conversation of the belt Lyndon had been wanting to do a Code Talker piece for I think about 10 years you know like he had this was something that he's been really wanting to do and when we met he he really loved the direction that I took my project and he was like we need to collaborate let's figure out a way where we can mesh these two these two ideas together he told me about you know the story of what he wanted to do with the silversmithing and the great the really cool thing was that on the actual concho belt each concho kind of had a series of different stamps and the stamps were telling like a whole story of you know the Code Talkers and World War II and like on the left side you see that the stamps are you have like the hogan on the bottom and you see all these arrowheads like kind of circling around the perimeter of the belt kind of shows how the spirit is protecting the soldiers and on the other side you have like the war side where you see like the fighter planes and everything and it's just a really neat way to convey a story through the stamp work and the one thing that I loved you know working with Lyndon was that he wanted to put so much meaning behind this belt and I loved how you know he was telling me how this belt is not meant to be worn type thing so the belt ended up being extremely heavy at the end of it with the amount of silver on it and the whole reason why he made it so heavy was another way to kind of convey that message of these men had to go home and not speak a single word about what they had done not even to their own siblings and it was the heaviness of you know of not being able to share any of that I can't imagine on anyone so he made the belt you know that heavy to kind of convey that message of like this is what they came home with and it was such a unique piece to be part of not only hearing like his story from the silversmithing but also incorporating you know the work that that I put into it as well I created these super tiny like two inch by one inch paintings that went on the back side of the belts and they also had hand-painted images and as well as the text but the text was English and Navajo so the Navajo text was highlighting the the message that was sent during the battle of Iwo Jima the send demolition team to Hill 362B so I had that written out in Navajo so that was part of the paintings that I created and the other part we're listing out the 29 men who created the initial code. So it was really neat to kind of have like two different types of art combined into one piece you very rarely see painting and silversmithing in one so it was so much fun I really enjoyed it and just hearing Lyndon's passion and my passion behind this just really blend itself for us to create such a unique and moving piece.

Lakin: I don't even know what to say, I'm just no but, I was really interested in how that piece was created.

Skylar: Yeah it was such an honor and it was funny because I had didn't realize but I had gone to school with a couple of his and his boys so that was also a funny thing I'm like yeah I went to school like two new kids but no, we've become really good friends, you know meeting at the gallery opening collaborating at a piece and we have very we realized we had a lot of similar mindsets in creating work that is different from what people see especially at different shows like Lyndon was really helpful with you know how to approach these shows such as the Autry, Heard Museum and the Indian Market and you know being part of those experiences you get to see the level of art it's just insane but to also go into that knowing that you can push artistic boundaries every single time and it's incredible to see what people take and make being but being part of this collaboration with Lyndon was super eye-opening but also just such an honor to be working with an artist such as himself

Lakin: Yeah and I'm really looking forward to seeing where your creative journey goes at this point and I'm sure many other people do as well. So since we're getting to the end of this we like to just recognize this month as being Native American Heritage Month and we would like to know what does Native American Heritage Month mean to you?

Skylar: Absolutely, I mean it's an exciting month, it's a national recognition for you know, our all Indigenous communities, people, and everything of that sorts. It's a time to provide recognition to celebrate, to bring acknowledgement to the challenges of many nations across the country I always say and I live by that the motto "Every day is a good day to be Indigenous". Yes, this month is extremely important and it's you know it's wonderful to know that we have this month to celebrate but I think every day should be a celebration of our past, our present, and our future and that every day should be an opportunity for us to step closer to having our voices heard and knowing that people that yes we we are here, we are resilient people, and we are continuing to fight for everything that we believe in and you know that month allows us that extra push that every day should be like that. So the motto is, "Every day is a good day to be Indigenous"! Meranden: Yes I like that, but we did just want to end with one more question. Is there anything that you would like to leave the audience with? Skylar: Oh good question, I mean to anyone out there that you know is any type of creativity out there I feel is important to share especially if it shares who you are as a person with your way of life regardless I think it's it's wonderful to see people's personal journey reflected in their work regardless of what that work is even including in the sciences just seeing your personal journey reflected in your work I think is so important to see and you know I think with you know this month, it it's a reminder that every day should be a day that we speak a little louder and have our challenges be acknowledged and celebrate who we are as a people because every day is a good day to be Indigenous! So yeah.

Meranden: Awesome!

Lakin: Yeah, that was it was great talking with you and learning more about who you are as a person not only as an artist and giving you a chance to elaborate on your artwork especially about the Navajo Code Talkers since we are celebrating Veterans Day and honoring the veterans you know we appreciate it very much

Skylar: Of course, and thank you so much it was such an honor to be part of this and if anyone who would like to see any more of my work you're welcome to visit my portfolio site all of my work is out there, the belt is on there, the Unbreakable Code is there, so please feel free to to visit, but no thank you so much it was such an honor to talk to y'all and appreciate everything.

To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices visit www.nps.gov/grca. Here at Grand Canyon National Park we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon these being the Havasupai tribe, the Hualapai tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi tribe, the Pueblo Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

In this episode, interns Meranden Numkena and Lakin Epaloose speak virtually with Diné artist Skylar Blackbull for the Veteran’s Day Special as she explains her artwork on the Navajo Code Talkers, collaborating with one of her role models, and the importance of the Grand Canyon to her tribe.

Episode 5

Kiana Omi Toadlena Speaks

Transcript

Kiana GC Speaks

Kiana Omi Toadlena: Yeah, so Native American Heritage Month for me means being Diné and being resilient. Always finding a way for yourself and paving the path no matter where you come from and how far you've come. Being Native American should be recognized every day because we're always on Native land.

Lakin: Welcome back to Grand Canyon Speaks. This is Lakin.

Meranden: And this is Meranden.

Lakin: In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, we sat down with Kiana Omi Toadlena, who was a contestant for Miss Navajo this past year.

Meranden: Yeah, she was able to explain what the pageant consists of, her purpose for running, and a fun experience of silversmithing with other contestants.

Lakin: And she also explained how family is a root source of her inspiration, especially the strong women in her life.

Meranden: We were very honored to have her speak during our festival in November. So we hope you enjoy this episode. Kiana Omi Toadlena: Yá'át'ééh shik’éí dóó shidine’é. Shí eí Kiana Omi Toadlena yinishyé.

Kiana: Naakaii Dine’é nishlo' Táchii’nii bashishchiin,Tó Dích’íi’nii dashicheii, aadóó Kinyaa’áanii dashinalí. (Continues to introduce self in Navajo). Hello everyone. Thank you all for coming.

Kiana: My name is Kiana Omi Toadlena. I introduce myself in my native language. I am of the Mexican people clan and born for Red Streak Through the Water people clan.

Kiana: I am from Sawmill, Arizona. It's a small community near Window Rock, Arizona. I like to identify as a Diné woman through my clans and originally from the Navajo Nation.

Kiana: Thank you all for having me. I'm really excited. I studied at Northern Arizona University with a major in health science.

Kiana: My line of profession is consisting of medical science. That's a little bit about me. Thank you.

Meranden: Awesome. We're really excited to have her here. One thing I really wanted to have is really empowering our indigenous women. I'm really a big advocate for having those indigenous women empower and be seen through these kind of programs and things like that. I'm really glad you're here. I'm going to start.

Meranden: Is this your first time to the Grand Canyon? How far was your drive? Kiana: No, it's not my first time at the Grand Canyon. This is actually my third time. I visited the Grand Canyon for the first time when I was about 12.

Kiana: It was a brief family trip here. I think my dad was really interested in showing us the landscapes because we're from Arizona. I think it's kind of funny.

Kiana: We've never seen the Grand Canyon for almost 12 years. The second time I went with some friends. They were from Georgia.

Kiana: They really wanted to know what the Grand Canyon looked like. We came here. This is my third time.

Kiana: Some of my connections with the Grand Canyon, I absolutely love the landscapes and the environment. It really reminds me of being home and knowing that this is a part of my identity as a Diné woman. Growing up, my grandma always told me that the canyon landscapes are very, very sacred.

Kiana: They mean a lot to us as Diné people. I don't know if you guys know. There's kind of a mini version of the Grand Canyon on the reservation near Chinle, Arizona.

Kiana: It's called Canyon de Chelly. She [grandmother] used to share stories that our ancestors used to hide in the canyons from a lot of the colonizers that were causing genocide in our communities. That's kind of my personal connection with the Grand Canyon.

Kiana: I kind of like to channel that spirit every time I come here. Lakin: Thank you for sharing those connections. I think it's always nice to hear from every individual and also from every culture.

Lakin: There are a lot of differences and similarities between connections and just how we interpret those connections. People who come from the same culture as us and people who are also foreign to our culture. That's nice to hear.

Lakin: I think we'll just get into the next question. There may be some in the audience who may be unfamiliar with what Miss Navajo title is. Would you mind explaining a little bit about that? Kiana: For the Miss Navajo Nation pageant, it's a very prestigious and intense pageant that the Navajo Nation has.

Kiana: The Miss Navajo Nation role consists of being a public ambassador. You're basically in a government role serving as a spokesperson and advocate for your people. Whether that be for the youth, the elderly, or within your own generation.

Kiana: The Miss Navajo Nation pageant has been around for many, many years. I think it's beautiful that it's still alive to this day. One of the main things that Miss Navajo does as the reigning queen, she's able to travel to communities and educate her people.

Kiana: Empower, uplift, and encourage cultural teachings amongst her people. That's kind of what the Miss Navajo Nation title entails. For those of you that don't know.

Meranden: Awesome. I understand that this takes place in Window Rock? Kiana: The Miss Navajo Nation pageant is usually during the Navajo Nation Fair. It's probably one of the biggest fairs that goes on in the reservation.

Kiana: Many communities come and join to experience cultural practices like dances, singing, or even just being with family. I think that's really great that they have it during that time. Meranden: Just to let everyone know, where is Window Rock at? Kiana: Window Rock is a little bit up north of Arizona.

Kiana: It's the capital of the Navajo Reservation. It's going towards Albuquerque. If you're going towards Albuquerque on I-40, you'd likely pass the exit.

Kiana: It's really close to Gallup, New Mexico. Meranden: Awesome. You have to run for this position.

Meranden: It has various contestants. Would you be able to explain the different components of the pageant? How many people may run for this position? Kiana: The pageant is usually announced a couple months before the competition is held. Through that entire process, you're allowed to pick up an application.

Kiana: There are very specific requirements to run for the pageant, such as you can't be married. You can't have a spouse or a significant other. You can't be over the age of 25.

Kiana: You've got to speak your native language, obviously. You have to have a platform. Those are some of the main requirements to run for the title.

Kiana: However, it just depends on how many people are interested that year. Luckily, when I ran this year, when I made the decision to do so, there were six contestants. Six of us, that's kind of crazy.

Kiana: For the past few years, they only had about two or three girls run. It was a little sad to see from the outside that the interest of people wanting to run for this title decreased. But this year, it was kind of an awakening, it felt like.

Kiana: Along with what goes on during the pageant, it's a week-long entire pageant, starting with sheep butchering. Which is kind of interesting for the outside people that don't really understand our culture. They always question, like, you have to kill a sheep to become a queen? I think that's so funny.

Kiana: Butchering a sheep is actually a very cultural and sacred practice within the Navajo culture. We look at sheep as a way of life. They kind of structure our belief systems in family and always being a provider for not just our family, but our community.

Kiana: So we hold the sheep to a very high pedestal. To be able to perform that type of competition in front of many people, it's intense, but it's very beautiful. Lakin: I think that's special that you get to embrace your culture in a public setting.

Lakin: A lot of people might have that fear of being wrong or doing something wrong. But being able to confront that fear and get over that in a public setting while learning more about yourself culturally and personally is very powerful. I'm glad that you got to share that experience with us.

Lakin: That kind of gets us into the next question, which is, what inspired you to run for Miss Navajo? Kiana: The main thing that inspired me were kind of my own life's journey, as well as the mother figures within my family. They've always pushed me to try and go towards my goals and try new things. This year, when I decided to run for Miss Navajo, I kind of wanted to challenge myself.

Kiana: It was kind of a hard thing for me to decide because within my life, I'd like to be more empowered culturally and kind of integrate the modern teachings that I've learned, like being away in college, being away from the reservation, and kind of tie those two together to be the woman I am. My mother, she is a chief of police in Gallup, New Mexico. She was my biggest role model throughout my entire life.

Kiana: When I kind of opened up to her about running for this title, she was the biggest supporter. I would just say that the women in my family inspired me. Lakin: Yeah, I really like the fact that our family is the foundation of our support for us.

Lakin: It starts when we're small all the way to early adulthood and understanding how nurturing those connections and that kinship can really empower us and give us the spirit to empower our children and the community around us. Nurturing that relationship is very vital and important when it comes to our living experience as indigenous communities and families and people. Kiana: I think that's really important because a lot of the youth nowadays on the reservation, they kind of veer away from the culture.

Kiana: Nowadays, I think it's much easier to integrate culture and modern technology to learn better. I've actually tried to push a lot of the youth in my community to download Duolingo. You can actually learn Navajo on there and it's actually really good.

Kiana: Being able to have those resources is just unbelievable compared to what my ancestors have been through. Learning the stories about the long walk and even just the community of where I'm from, Fort Defiance, we still see how the land structures are. I think that needs to be emphasized more in our indigenous communities is learning about those landscapes and everything.

Kiana: I like how you mentioned that there. Lakin: You brought up the point of utilizing modern resources, modern technology and digital technology. What I see is a lot of older people have a negative reaction when it comes to that, but I feel like being able to adapt as a community and as people can really help us prepare for the next stage of evolution.

Lakin: We can do so by, like you said, utilizing those digital resources at this moment. Kiana: That's so important because a lot of the elders on the reservation don't believe in technology. They have a very stigmatized idea of technology.

Kiana: Although it is like colonizing our culture, we can find a lot of help within those resources. I think that is one problem and one challenge I ran into during the pageant was trying to get my community to get out of their comfort zone. I brought a lot of originality to the pageant and I was told this by many, many people.

Kiana: I even faced the backlash of the elders being a little critiquing by the way I speak my language, by the way I look, by the way I present myself. They tell me I'm not native enough or I'm not indulged in my culture enough. That was one of my biggest challenges was to try to fulfill that generational gap.

Kiana: Honestly, it actually inspired me and pushed me to do my very best in this entire pageant. I think I kind of caught a lot of people by surprise. I remember when the photos and the official announcements were being made, I got so much critiques on everything.

Kiana: People even questioned if I was even Navajo or even allowed to run. Just seeing that perspective was very unfortunate. My biggest goal for that entire thing was to re-inspire my people that an individual like me can come from such a small and rural community and still lead everyone on the Navajo Nation.

Kiana: I think that's one thing that I take away from this experience as a win. Lakin: I can speak for myself that you're doing a very great job at representing your people and embracing your culture and identity. I applaud you for that.

Lakin: Next question is how does the role of Miss Navajo empower your community or the Diné people? Kiana: I like to look at the role of Miss Navajo Nation as the bridge between the youth and the new generations with our elders. I know a lot of people just look at this role as a prestigious leadership role, a public ambassador, a public figure. Miss Navajo Nation is there to serve her people in a good way.

Kiana: For those of you that aren't familiar, when I ran for the pageant, my platform was to focus on healing through heritage. I really wanted to emphasize this because you can't really change a community by knowing what the problem is within. I know a lot of our people struggle with generational trauma that leads to mental health problems, domestic violence, alcoholism, and things of that nature.

Kiana: I really wanted to bring more awareness to that from our leaders. In doing so, it was very hard to get that across because the idea of Miss Navajo is just she is one role, she is this, and that's who she's going to be. I would have really liked to expand what the role of Miss Navajo Nation is, helping new generations to get to college or even working for internships because that's where it all starts.

Kiana: I was really pushing for the idea of entrepreneurship on the reservation because I truly believe that entrepreneurship is instilled within us as Navajo people. We lived off trade at one point, and we've always, always relied on our own resources. I think that mindset is essential to being a businesswoman, a businessman, and being indulged in the entrepreneurship world.

Meranden: That's awesome. We do have the cultural demonstration program here at Grand Canyon, which is done at Desert View. Currently, we have two artists, and they are able to demonstrate their craft, talk about their connections to the Grand Canyon.

Meranden: They have the supplies out of this is how it starts, this is how it gets to this step, and this is the finished product. They have that all out there, and it allows them to express themselves and let a lot of people, especially internationally here at the park, to see those kind of crafts. We have someone inside right now that's inside the visitor center.

Meranden: They're able to demonstrate their crafts and tell you the importance of certain things. That brings me to another thing of these are not just items. They have a long story behind them.

Meranden: There's so many reasons why we have certain jewelry, why there's this color, why we have this kind of stone, why this painting is a certain way. There's so much meaning behind all this, and it allows them to use that craft and show it out to the world and allows us to express ourselves. It's really good that you mentioned that as well.

Kiana: I actually love that because small businesses on the reservation don't get enough recognition. There's so many talented artists out there. I come from a long line of hunters and silversmiths.

Kiana: We try to practice that as my grandparents grow older. We're trying to carry on that tradition of being able to silversmith. Actually, some of the jewelry I'm wearing today, my grandpa made for me.

Kiana: A lot of the jewelry that I have is either borrowed or shared between family. It's actually ironic that we're silversmiths but don't own full sets of jewelry. It's kind of our way of life.

Kiana: My grandfather has always been his own businessman, and that's how he provided for our family. To know that as a first-generation college student, I was able to get that far with him just doing that. I think that's also what inspires my entire journey as a Diné woman.

Kiana: I think shedding light on the small businesses on the reservation needs to be talked about more, too. Meranden: That's awesome that you bring that up. When we had this podcast party, we asked the panelists that are up here, what do you want to see in the podcast, like the future episodes? One person mentioned small indigenous businesses.

Meranden: That's definitely something that we would really like to highlight more. I really like that you brought that up. Usually in this podcast, me and Lakin try to ask a fun question.

Meranden: Our fun question is, if you could have any traditional dish right now, what would it be? I would say mutton dumpling stew. I love dumpling stew. If you guys haven't had it, I really recommend you stop by Scott's Food Stand in Window Rock, Arizona.

Kiana: They have the best stew there. I remember growing up, I think it's a comfort food because my late grandma Rose, she would always make it every time we went there. Every time it was cold in the winter and we'd have the stew, it was just a full circle moment.

Kiana: Like, oh my gosh. I would have that for sure. Lakin: Yeah, that sounds good.

Lakin: Maybe you could make it for us next time you come. Kiana: Oh my gosh, yes, I have to. Lakin: A question from me.

Lakin: My personal interest is your attire and your dress. Can you explain a bit more about that? Because I really like the burgundy and the pink, the tulle and the embroidery. Kiana: Thank you.

Kiana: This outfit was actually gifted to me by Jumbo Creations. He's an indigenous designer, rather very luxury. So this kind of style of outfit is not so traditional, but it's very modern mixed with traditional.

Kiana: I know a lot of outfits nowadays have these little embellishments and they kind of just bring that luxury feeling to you. And then I'm wearing, obviously, my moccasins. These were also gifted to me during the pageant.

Kiana: As you all know, I butchered a sheep, so I kind of destroyed my old moccasins. They had, like, blood on them and everything, so they were kind enough to replace those. And most of my jewelry is actually, this was my grandpa's.

Kiana: My grandpa made this. My brother made my bracelet. So a lot of the jewelry and the things you see were gifted, and this is kind of how the Navajo people thrive on having heirlooms, because we don't have a family fund or, like I said, an heirloom.

Kiana: We kind of just collect our jewelry over time, and that's kind of our own little thing there. Lakin: Yeah, that was a cool fit check. Kiana: Thank you.

Lakin: But, yeah, like I was saying, I like the burgundy and the pink. Kiana: Yeah, it was actually funny, because during the pageant, I had to prepare multiple outfits, I would say 12 outfits, and I remember, like, towards the end, I was telling my mom, I really need, like, a brown or burgundy outfit, and during the pageant I was gifted this, and she's like, you got your brown outfit. So I think that was really nice, but, yeah, thank you so much.

Kiana: Oh, and I forgot to mention that this bracelet here, I actually made myself, and we made it as, we called it friendship bracelets during the Miss Navajo pageant, so all the contestants got to be able to learn how to silversmith, and so we kind of made matching bracelets, and it just has so much meaning to me. Lakin: Was it difficult learning how to solder? Kiana: It was. It was actually very scary, because you had to have a blowtorch in your hand, and then at the same time melting the metal, and I remember one of the contestants, she's so cute, she was probably one of the youngest, and every time the blowtorch came on, she would, like, scream, like, we would just hear her, ah, and we're like, are you okay? So I, it was an experience learning how to silversmith, and even though my family and my brothers, my uncles, all silversmith, it was really hard for me to learn, but I did it anyway.

Lakin: That's so cool. I hope you keep making jewelry, and I'm excited to see what else you create. Kiana: Yeah, and kind of branching off of that, I am personally a designer, so I make a lot of dresses at the moment, and I kind of just practice my craft, and I would really like to have my own business one day to create not only, like, traditional clothing, but kind of that luxury streetwear clothing for a lot of the youth on the reservation.

Kiana: We don't have a lot of fancy stores around on the reservation to get nice clothes, so I would kind of like to be that outlet for my people, too, in that way. Lakin: You know, I think we'll do a collaboration, because I do fashion design, too. Kiana: That's awesome.

Lakin: So we'll do a fashion show in the Grand Canyon someday. Kiana: Yeah. Lakin: So if y'all want to come to our fashion show, y'all can do that.

Kiana: Yes. Lakin: No, that's cool. I didn't know you made dresses.

Lakin: That's really nice, and like you said, providing the accessibility to these quality clothing, quality garments, like an egalitarian approach, I feel like it kind of calls back to our indigenous cultural system of values, how we perceive everyone as equal, pretty much. And being able to express that through clothing and art is vital when it comes to sustaining that connection. So yeah, thank you.

Kiana: Yeah, of course, and thank you for that input. I think one thing I would like to shed light on is designing within a Navajo culture has a lot of storytelling. It could be just a zigzag like this, and there's a story that could signify rainfall or thunder or a lot of the holy people that kind of lived with us at one time, how they offered back to us as Diné people.

Kiana: And I think that's where I found a lot of inspiration in learning how to design is learning the stories behind it. So thank you for mentioning that, too. Meranden: I think you kind of touched on this a little bit, but I really like to ask, my mom is like my inspiration for everything.

Meranden: She's done so much for us. And I was just curious, like I know you said your mom is your role model. Along with your mom, is there anyone else that you know who really inspired you like in life overall or someone that you really look up to? Kiana: Yeah, I would like to give this acknowledgement to my late auntie.

Kiana: Her name was Alana Tonalina, and she passed away when I was 11. And she actually was in the hospital for a very long time, and she lost her life to pneumonia. So through her journey, she had a disability and many liver transplants.

Kiana: She did a lot for her life up to where she lived. And because of her disability, she couldn't really go to college. She couldn't live on her own.

Kiana: She couldn't do a lot of things, so she kind of stayed on the reservation. And I remember when I was about 9 or 10, she told my family that she wanted to go to college. And this kind of scared my family because she needed help to kind of live.

Kiana: And when she went away to college, she enjoyed her one year there. And she really, really took on those challenges. And from that, seeing that at a young age, I always knew that I wanted to do a lot of these things that I do for her because she couldn't really get around as far as walking and running.

Kiana: So a lot of the things such as athletics and academics and like I said, entrepreneurship comes from that inspiration from my auntie. So yeah, she's the biggest inspiration in my life. And I like to think that I channel a lot of her energy.

Kiana: And a lot of people tell me that they feel her when I'm around. So I just love that idea. Meranden: Yeah, that's really nice to hear.

Kiana; Thank you. Meranden: And then like once again, it's just like the matriarchal side of us really matters and plays a huge part in how we grow up and what inspires us. And I'm glad that that's something that really touches you and that's important to you.

Kiana: Thank you for asking that. Meranden: Yeah, of course. I really like that because once again, my mom is my biggest inspo.

Meranden: And she's literally the reason why I went to college. She's the one, like if there's anything, my only requirement in life for all of you guys, and she said this to all my siblings, is that you go to college. I don't care what else you do.

Meranden: You've got to go to college. So like that kind of just stems something. And I'm just inspired by how much she pushes us and has done so much for us.

Meranden: Yeah. Lakin: So now that we're getting to kind of the end of this program, we'd like to know what does Native American Heritage Month mean to you and why is that important for our people? Kiana: Yeah, so Native American Heritage Month for me means being Diné and being resilient, always finding a way for yourself and paving the path no matter where you come from and how far you've come. Being Native American should be recognized every day because we're always on Native land.

Kiana: And I think that a month doesn't give us enough justice, but I think during November is the perfect time because we look at the winter as our new year, and that's when the big winds start to come and the snowfall starts to arrive. And I think that's a beautiful thing that we celebrate our heritage and our culture during this month because a lot of change and a lot of good things come within these winter months. And to be Diné is to be resilient and to be Navajo from a rural area means to always, always look at your family.

Kiana: I was always told that you don't need anything in this world but family, and I think that should be more emphasized and kind of that cultural connection should be made through family. Meranden: Yeah, I agree, and it's nice that you also mentioned that. Yes, we have this recognition for this month, but it's happening all the time.

Meranden: We have ceremonies in different months, so it's nice that we have this month, but it's also like every day is an indigenous day for us. And in terms of family, I agree on that. I'm a very big family person.

Meranden: I'm the oldest of four younger siblings, so I make sure I take care of them and my mom. It's hard right now because my two sisters are on the East Coast, so they're really far from me. So when we're all together for different ceremonies or holidays, it's really nice.

Meranden: So around this time, maybe a month from now, I'll be with everyone again. So that family part is really important to me, and they always come first, so I agree on that. Kiana: Yeah, and one thing that I would like to kind of acknowledge within the Navajo culture is that we're a very matriarchal culture.

Kiana: We like to hold our women figures and our mother figures at a high level, and that's kind of how we drive our culture, is based on the life of a woman. And because the women are life givers, naturally we always, always give thanks to first women. She's known as a sanaklehe, so that's how I try to live my life and try to remember who I am a descendant of.

Kiana: And I think that all Native youth should really, really learn about their culture and learn about those stories because you are them. Meranden: Yeah, exactly, and I think that's something that I'm really grateful for with being here at the Grand Canyon is that it's made me get closer to my culture and stuff like that. I love learning the different types of stories and the tribes, what they do.

Meranden: So the 11 tribes that we have here at the Grand Canyon, I've been able to learn different words, different ceremonies, what you're supposed to do at certain dances. So I really like that being here has helped me connect to not only my personal culture and tribe, it has brought me to other cultures, so I really enjoy that as well. But I did just want to ask, as we are winding down from this conversation and going to be passing it on to the audience if they have any questions, is there anything you would like to leave the audience with? Kiana: Yes, I would like to tell the audience to always be yourself and don't ever let anyone dictate what makes you happy.

Kiana: Don't ever fret away from your teachings. Always be humble and always strive for happiness because if you lose that path of who you are and knowing what makes you happy, you'll be lost and it'll be hard to come back. Always look at family for help and always, always, always pray.

Kiana: I found a lot of healing in prayer and a lot of self-identity just through talking to the higher being and really learn your culture. And don't be afraid to go against the grain. I think that's one thing that kind of changed my life during this era of running for Miss Navajo was going against the grain and staying who I am.

Kiana: And I think that's what drew a lot of people into knowing what my journey and what my life is like today. So, yeah, that's what I would like to leave the crowd with. Meranden: Yeah, so this is pretty much going to wrap up our Grand Canyon Speaks interview with Kiana today.

. Ranger Jonah: Grand Canyon Speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy. A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music.

Ranger Jonah: This recording reflects the personal, lived experiences of tribal members and do not encompass the views of their tribal nation or that of the national park. To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices, visit www.nps.gov slash GRCA. Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon.

Ranger Jonah: These being the Havasupai Tribe, the Hualapai Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo Azuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, we sat down with Kiana Omi Toadlena, a Dine influencer and public figure who was a contestant in the Miss Navajo pageant during 2024. She shares her experience, what inspires her to be a leader and representative of her people as well as what Native American Heritage Month means to her.

Episode 6

Jackson Family Speaks

Transcript

Jackson family transcript

Tracie: I don't want to be highlighted as this like, one of only, you know, indigenous people in footwear design. I want to be with my community. I want to be designing all of this stuff with an indigenous design team.

Maryetta: More traditionally, you know, Grand Canyon has always been a sacred place for everyone. You know, we have, we have indigenous people living in the canyon. Who knows the way of the canyon.

Henry: And she used to weave a train because my dad used to work on the railroad. And then she used to make picture rugs. So a lot of my overlays are copied from that.

Noah: I'm very proud to be part of the Jackson family.

Meranden: Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Grand Canyon Speaks! This is Meranden

Lakin: And this is Lakin.

Meranden: In today's episode, we get to hear from the Jackson family. Yeah, they share the different crafts they practice, such as silversmithing and footwear design, all of which is inspired by their Diné culture.

Meranden: It's really cool because this was actually our first Grand Canyon Speaks episode recording that we got to see and be a part of as interns. Lakin: It was also raining this day, so you can hear thunder in the background. Meranden: Thank you so much for checking out this episode.

We hope you enjoy. Tracie: Yá'át'ééh. Shi eí Tracy Jackson yinishyé. Tsi’naajinii nishłį́ . Bilagáana bashishchiin.

Kiyaa’áanii dashicheii dóó Bilagáana dashinalí. On my grandma's side, we're from (Navajo word) area on the rez.

And on my cheii's side, we're from Teesto area as well. Hello, my name is Tracie and I just introduced myself in my Diné language and just said who I am and where I'm from.

Maryetta: My name is Maryetta Jackson.

Tracy is my granddaughter here. My clan is Tsi’naajinii nishłį́ . Tábąąha bashishchiin.

Táchii’nii dashicheii . dóó Tsé Ńjíkiní dashinalí . So that's my clan.

And I live in Flagstaff. I was relocated over there, but originally off the reservation is Star Mountain. Tsotsila is where I'm originally from.

Henry: Shi yáa Henry Jackson yinishyé. Kinyaa’áanii nishłį́. Áshįįhí bashishchiin. Táchii’nii dashinalí. Tótsohnii dashicheii. Ádóó (Speaks Navajo) East of Teesto Ádóó.

Noah: And then my name is Noah Kaminsky.

My clans are the exact same as my cousin's sister, Tracie Jackson, just to save some time. And I live with my grandparents in Flagstaff, learning the family business of making jewelry and everything that goes into it. I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, a couple hours south in the hot valley of the sun.

It's nice to be in the mountains where it's cooler. Ranger Annie: And so since we're here, why is Grand Canyon important to you? Tracie: Good question. I think since I've moved away from home, when I first went to college, I was first generation in our family to go to college.

And when I told people I was from Arizona, I remember a lot of people from other states in California and the East Coast would ask me if I visit the Grand Canyon every time I go home. I thought that was kind of funny because I never thought of it like that. And then, you know, I started kind of thinking more as I've away from home for 10 years now.

And I think hearing that it's because we do have a special place in our home state and on our homelands on the rez. And the Grand Canyon is a very spectacular place. And, you know, thinking about our relationship, especially the communities here, all the different tribes here in the area, it is such a sacred place where we go and pick medicines.

It's where we do ceremony. It's where people have traditionally met and had homelands and I think that's what's so beautiful about it is that we're literally looking at where our, you know, ancestors from generations prior to us have walked on before. And, you know, not a lot of people get to say that they can go back to where their families are originally from or even where their ancestors or the communities have traveled.

And I think that's something that's so beautiful is that, you know, we just go up north or we just look out in the distance and we see what is and has historically always been part of our community. Maryetta: Tracy, my granddaughter, she basically covered everything. And with us, you know, more traditionally, you know, Grand Canyon has always been a sacred place for everyone.

You know, we have Indigenous people living in the canyon. Who knows the way of the canyon, how it, you know, feeds them and treats them. And so it's, and with us living so close to the canyon, it is a sacred spot for a lot of us that are Indigenous to this area.

And like Tracy said, we do give an offering and thank it for the nourishment that it provides for the whole community in the area. And so it's one of our magnificent sites to see because it's nature. So, and it's, to me, it's just right our back door and we can step out the back door and look at what we have.

I'm very grateful for that. Lakin: So, I have questions for all of you. I'll start with you, Tracie, So, what got you into creating the footwear or designing it to begin with? They do silver work, so how did you get into that? Tracie: Yeah, well, I've always loved sneakers and shoes and I don't know, it's just always been something that I grew up with. I grew up in the 90s, 2000s and, you know, sneaker culture was really big during those decades. And I'm a huge, I was a basketball player, so I think that's what also helped get me into it is the Jordan 3s.

Like Jordan 3s were my favorite shoe of all time. And I remember, you know, living in Flagstaff and going to Foot Locker at the mall. You know, I couldn't buy them at the time, but like I would just go window shopping and just look at these shoes.

And, you know, to me it was just something cool and different that, you know, we've never really had access to in the industry wise. I mean, moccasin making, my grandma's dad, her father was a moccasin maker. And I remember when I got my first pair of moccasins made for me by a Hopi man for my Kinaaldá ceremony and I went to his, you know, his village, we went to his house and he hand drew it specifically to the size of my feet. And I still have those moccasins and I'll be honest, my feet haven't grown too big, but like they still fit. And I think to me that was something that was really cool to see is like almost, again, when I talk about these two worlds of like, almost I'm just walking in between now of, you know, I loved moccasins.

We always wore it for ceremony, but then I would play with these really different types of shoes on the court and, you know, go to school in Air Force Ones. And, but it was like really cool to see like us really break barriers in the sneaker world. And I think that's where like, I would go to the Lori Piestewa tournament and see all those really cool sneakers that kids would be wearing in the games.

And some of those were sold for like $600, like resell for crazy amount of prices, but they still wore them regardless because they were showing them off and it made them look cool. And what really specifically made me go into sneakers and footwear was looking, I was playing at the Lori Piestewa basketball tournament and I had seen the N7 logo there on a drawstring bag. And for me personally, I had never seen native culture with Nike and sport culture.

And that was something to me that inspired me as a kid. And, you know, something I never thought of was like, "Hey, I could be a designer at Nike and make some cool native stuff?" And, you know, it was just something I never thought of that never connected the two because coming from the Southwest, you know, we're taught to be some of the, you know, most renowned artistries and artists in our community, but I never thought of breaking artwork into non-native design that would be sold at other companies.

And I think that's where for me, my interest started to go. And my older brother went to the University of Oregon, which I followed and funny enough, Nike was created by students at the University of Oregon. And so I actually went through the product design program and I was the first native person to go through the program.

And when I did, I asked them when I got their first day of school, I was like, what do I have to do to design a Nike? And then that's where they said product design. So it was really interesting because I felt like I kind of fell into footwear in a way. I didn't really know where I was going.

I thought footwear was cool. I thought, you know, sportswear was really cool. I was an athlete and I just wanted to continue to pursue that type of design work.

And then, you know, when I got my internship at Nike, that's actually where I got to design apparel. I didn't really touch footwear as much, but I did graphics for the brand. And I came from a graphic design background where, you know, my grandparents are silversmiths, my great grandmothers are rug weavers.

And for me, I'm just kind of an eat all of above type person where I did painting. I want to tap into everything that they do so I can be more well-rounded and also come from different perspectives and learn. And when I was interning there, I did this collection.

My first collection was actually designing a collection for Taboo from Black Eyed Peas. And, you know, since then it was always been my brother and I will always look back at him as thanking him for, you know, helping me get to where I was. But that's where I started doing that work.

And then I did get hired as a graphic designer full time. And it wasn't until about two and a half to three years into my career that I actually got promoted to footwear design. And the reason why I was promoted to footwear design was because of the way that I approached design in general.

And I think it was because of my grandparents and my great grandma and the way they taught me how to design rug weaving specifically. Before my great grandma passed, we used, we worked on a rug and she talked about, she talked about the importance of putting intention and meaning into everything that you do and everything you make. Because as a designer, you're putting a lot of stories, you're putting power into these things.

That's why people, you know, that's why chief blankets are the way they do is because of the protection that we're putting into there that will protect the individual that wears it. It goes beyond than just wearing an item of clothes. It's an extension of your body.

And I think that's where, you know, learning that color has a story, the graphics, you know, the symbols have a story, the material has a story, and then the full composition together, it tells a full story. And that's how I was taught to design was everything is intentional. Everything's there for a reason. And if it doesn't serve a purpose, then it's not going to be in there because it doesn't serve the purpose. And so it's being very intentional and mindful about how you go about design. And that's how I've always approached it is looking at this as a very special piece.

I took a class and I asked the instructor. He was an instructor who taught this really famous school in Milan for footwear. It's renowned, one of the best schools in the world. And I was very privileged enough to get into the class and take it. So I asked my professor, what is the hardest class that you guys teach? And they responded with moccasin making. And it just kind of took me back because I thought, why would I learn moccasin making from an old Italian guy who has no tie to our community? And it just kind of made me think like, you know, we are experts in these ways more than what we think.

We're just not being in these rooms. We're not, you know, part of these conversations. And so that was one of the reasons why I decided to leave my big company and invest all of my learnings that I have learned the past six years in the industry from high-end fashion runway to athletic design, designing for, you know, I'll be honest, like I designed for a very famous athlete.

And, you know, those experiences I'm very thankful for and had the privilege to attain. And so that's why I actually wanted to completely change my route and go into a complete direction where I'm investing all this knowledge and experience back into the indigenous community, back into an indigenous company where I can give native youth and mentor them to help them learn indigenous footwear at a different way, at a different level platform. And that's something that I'm trying to do because I'm one of the only women, indigenous women in the world that's a footwear designer.

There's only me and Duane who are the only indigenous people that we know in the industry doing this work. And I think in Western society, they look at that as like when you're at the top and you're alone, that's like success. But for me, to me, that's lonely.

And that's not how society is supposed to be. We should be collectively together. And so for me, I don't want to be highlighted as this like one of only, you know, indigenous people in footwear design.

I want to be with my community. I want to be designing all of this stuff with an indigenous design team. I want to mentor them, give them the skills that they can to make their own footwear by hand.

And, you know, we're all sneakerheads in some type of degree. We love shoes. And I think that's the beauty of it, is that moccasin making is a traditional form of our culture.

Maryetta: With our jewelry, you know, it's just Henry and I. And we started way back in the 70s when we first started making jewelry. And I mean, silver is actually, you know, found in the ground as well. And that's what we work with, and gold, and copper.

Those are the materials that we work with. And we, you know, we don't bring anything else into it, just the natural stones that we use. And so we don't use any synthetics in our jewelry.

We show you the stone of what we work with. And it's not, we don't commercialize it. It's a personal thing that we developed, that we were self-taught.

We didn't have anybody teaching us what we should do and how we should make this. We basically learned the art of trial and errors. I had an uncle that taught jewelry making in Santa Fe.

But he was in Santa Fe, we were in Flagstaff. And with that, we went our separate, you know, way of making our own pieces. And everything we do by hand.

We don't use any machine cast items at all. And we do tell our story of how we make our pieces. When we first started making this piece, we call it our leaf design.

And when Henry designed that, it's the little tiny scroll work that he did, and the little drops that he put in there, and the leaves, and we hand cut all those. And that was to represent growth, you know. The vines that you see, that's what the scroll work was.

And the leaves is the leaf from that vine. And then the little tiny drops was the dew drops off the plant. So we incorporated that.

And to this day, we still use that design. And some people call it feather, but the traditional design that we came up with was our leaf design. And we continue to work with it that way.

And we don't use any cast leaves at all. We hand make everything. So that's how we started our foundation of our jewelry making.

Noah: I want to add just what my grandmother said, because she does a lot of jewelry too. She actually had a dream, which led her to make a new creation of one of the pieces that she's been doing for many years, which is her five-strand necklaces. And she actually incorporates stories into them.

So each bead has to be the exact same size. Otherwise, it throws off the whole pattern, since there's six patterns total in the necklace. And she incorporates usually the wedding basket, the four sacred mountains that surround our reservation, sometimes the morning star.

And it's really cool, because it's really nice to educate people whenever they ask about pieces like that. Because with that particular one piece, we get to tell them three different stories about what we use in our traditions and ceremonies, from babies first laugh, all the way to wedding. And even telling them about our reservation and the four sacred mountains that we call home.

And a lot of our pieces are like that, because we're a bear clan. So we have and incorporate a lot of different bears and bear paws. Even with our overlays, we have lots of different designs.

Most of them have the elements, like geometric patterns and whatnot. But they all go back to traditional stories that we've always been told and passed down from generation to generation.

Henry: I'd like to say something. All my artwork is from my family and from my relatives. Like rug weaving, you have design, like water design. And they have, like my mom used to make a rug out of wool, and she used to weave a train, because my dad used to work on the railroad.

So she used to make train, and then she used to make a picture rugs. So a lot of my overlays are copied from that, like the water design, symmetric design. And then the leaf design, I do like what my wife said, it's from a plant.

You know how you plant something, and then where the corn grows or the watermelon, and then you'll have these drops on it. And then the vines, you know how they curl up, that's what I used to do my design. And one of my friends that I used to work with, we used to sit down and talk about what we're doing.

And I was looking at another guy, he's real famous for doing reticulation, and I like his design. So I start changing some of my overlays like that to that design. So it came out really nice.

Ranger Melissa: We've got it rolling. Anything else y'all want? Do you guys want to say anything? Tracie: If you want to work with us in footwear, if you want to work with me in footwear, want to help any programs or anything it might be, I'm a resource here to help. I want to be here as much as I can to help anybody who would like to learn more, would like to understand the industry more, because I want to make myself available for anyone who might want to go in this route, who might be interested.

I'm happy to talk to you and happy to work with your indigenous programs or such. I do do talks through universities, through classes to help share my story and share that this stuff does exist elsewhere. And there are opportunities outside of our communities to do design in such remarkable ways and impactful ways in big companies as well.

So with my personal experience, I'm here. Please reach out or anything, and I'm happy to be there for you guys to help.

Noah: And then for my closing statement, I just kind of want to bounce off my sister.

You can see my sister and my grandparents have a lot of knowledge based on the culture. And since I grew up in Phoenix, I didn't learn much of that unfortunately. So I consider myself a reconnecting Native American, also known as an urban native.

But I always didn't, I never thought I would end up making jewelry, but I'm glad that I did. But being in Flagstaff has really helped me reconnect with my culture and my family. And I think it's just, you know, just being so close to home, you know, and learning all the stories that I wasn't told as a kid growing up, or even having the same experiences on the reservation, or even at like powwows, or even swap meets, or any kind of family gatherings where there's lots of natives.

So that's why I am very grateful, you know, to be part of this family, learning everything that, you know, came before me, and you know, hopefully passing it on just like they have as well. And you know, I'm still learning from my grandparents, but with my sister traveling all over, I can't wait to learn from her too when she does come back home, because we always talk about stuff like this, you know, and that's how we always like to incorporate it, because she's off all over the world learning from every single tribe, which is great. Well, I'm just reconnecting with our own tribe.

And you know, the fact that she can connect with everyone, you know, and have a conversation with anyone really shows how connected of people we are, because you know, we always want the best for everyone, no matter what it is. And a lot of people think, you know, we have generational trauma, where we hold on to the past, and you know, we're always angry, but we only do that to educate people, you know, because like I said earlier, people think we're extinct, and we'd rather educate you, and tell you what happened, than have you, you know, stay clueless and anonymous of the situation. We're indigenous, we're Native Americans, we're Diné, you know, there's everyone, everyone has their own preference when it comes to their tribe.

And you know, I think it's important, especially for reconnecting Natives, you know, to go and follow influencers, just like my sister, you know, who go and represent communities and build them up. So I'm very proud to be part of the Jackson family. Tracie: Beautiful.

Noah: That's my mic drop. Tracie: Well, thanks to you for having us. It's honestly incredible to share stories and be able to have a platform to tell these things, so that others can relate, you know, because that's where for me, I mean, I still, like, regardless of growing on and off the res, and growing up traditionally, I mean, I still see myself as, you know, I'm still learning stories that have historically been taken away from my grandparents through boarding school and such, and you know, we are to a degree all still connecting back to traditions and that pre-colonial world still, and so I think that's what I've learned as I've traveled to different communities, different countries, is that, you know, we're all working hard to basically, like, you know, deal with colonization and such, and I think to Noah's point, like, I'm very thankful that I can be there as a resource to help you also feel proud enough to show, you know, and get back into the culture, because it's hard, and it can be scary for a lot of our relatives to reconnect, and you know, I just want to make sure that, you know, I can be there to help you reconnect in the right way.

Noah: Always.

Ranger Annie: Thank you. Noah: That was fun.

Tracie: Thank you. Please let us know if you need anything else. You know, this is just the first encounter, like, now we're a community.

Grand Canyon Speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy. A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music. This recording reflects the personal lived experiences of tribal members and do not encompass the views of their tribal nation or that of the National Park.

To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices, visit www.nps.gov forward slash grca. Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon. These being the Havasupai Tribe, the Hualapai Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

In this episode, the Desert View team got to speak with the Jackson family about their artistry which consists of silversmithing and moccasin making. We get to hear about fun experiences such as famous collaborations, the impact of their grandmother’s weaving, and how their Diné culture heavily inspires their creative journeys.

Episode 7

Cory Ahownewa Speaks

Transcript

Cory Ahownewa: So, for me to see that those kids are dealing with all their hardships and all that. For my second trip, when I got picked to go again, I made prayer feathers for all them kids, because they didn't choose to be brought into this world like that, with all the hardship. And they're the strongest people for our human race.

Lakin: Welcome back to Grand Canyon Speaks. This is Lakin.

Meranden: And this is Meranden.

Lakin: In this episode, Ranger Dan sat down with Cory Ahownewa, who is a Kachina doll carver and advocate for sustaining Hopi culture, traditions, and knowledge.

Meranden: Yeah, through his work with the Hopi Cultural Preservation Program, he's been able to sustain traditional connections to the Grand Canyon.

Lakin: Cory continues to work on river trips in the Grand Canyon, not only with Hopi, but also other programs from various tribes that call the Grand Canyon home.

Meranden: He also shared moments in his life that have shaped him into the leader, artist, and father he is today.

Lakin: So, take a listen and we hope you enjoy this episode.

Cory: Hello. Good evening there. Welcome to the Grand Canyon Watchtower [Desert View]. This will be my third year here, and I would like to give thanks to Dan and all the people that put together this program. And it's a pretty great program. It's first year for my wife, and it's a great opportunity for the people to get to know the Grand Canyon from the bottom all the way up to the top. And for the Hopi, we have ancestral ties here with the Grand Canyon.

Cory: And I always wanted to bring my wife here after I did my first trip. And for her to come up here and to come to the edge and get to experience that, where she came from, and to feel that in her heart, she gets to know that this is where we, our ancestral ties are from. Yeah, and this will, I've done four trips so far, and three were with the Hopi Cultural Preservation.

Cory: And just last Friday, I was able to get with the company in Flagstaff, Ceiba, and they hired me for the first year this year. So I was able to become a swamper for them, and I lucked out and got on a Cultural Preservation trip with the Yavapai. Yavapai, they live probably like three hours down more, but they still have ancestral ties with this area.

Cory: And theirs is from National [Park] all the way down to Diamond Creek, and that's their ancestral land that way. And Hopi is from the Little Colorado River, or majority of it is from the Four Corners region all the way up past Page, all the way down this way. And the Badger Clan, my clan, they once, when we came up from below the Grand Canyon, and we came up and we formed clans, and that's when the Badger Clan, they went as far as Mesa Verde.

Cory: And after that, they went to Old Oraibi, and that's when they formed the villages there. And they decided that area, the Hopi Reservation, was a good source of dry farming with all the sand that they had over there. Yeah, so thank you everybody for coming, and this is a great experience to finally to get able to start speaking to larger crowds, and it helps me to get a little better with my talking and stuff, because I'm slowly trying to work on going to the high school, or to the elementary schools, talking to the youth, and on up, and giving them the teachings of all this area, and that Hopis have all this, our ancestors chose this area because it's all rich of all these resources for us to do our ceremonies, and I always crack up when we were doing our river trips.

Cory: We were once fishermen, and we lived right down there, right next to the side of the canyon, all the way from the granaries, all the way, even Nankoweap down here. I always wonder why is it called like a different tribal name, Nankoweap, but to me, what it kind of slowly showing itself, like the people that left last, I think that's what they were trying to pertain to, they followed us, they were the last people, the last of the Hopi people that were down here. This was inhabited at the same time as Old Oraibi, and they had pottery, the archaeologists took studies of the pottery from both areas, and they noticed that there was Hopi pottery that was being brought from down here, and from down here was other pottery that was brought to the Hopi reservation at that same time in the early 1900s.

Cory: So, on each trip, I slowly get more and more knowledge of the Hopi ties to this area. Yeah, and we leave from Lee's Ferry all the way to Diamond Creek, that's 226 miles, 10-day river trips, and those are pretty harsh conditions on monsoon, and people will be coming back all black, all tired. The last two, three days, people will be so tired, they'll be trying to stay in the shade.

Cory: Even on the second to the last day, it was 114[°F] in the shade, that was almost by Diamond Creek, or Diamond, yeah, on the takeout. And just this past trip, we ran into the Yavapai, cultural, the youth trip, and they were all so tired, they almost ran out of gas, and then we had to siphon them gas, and they tried to do a dry run without pop down there for the youth group, so they were starting getting mad at each other and having fits and stuff, so we gave them pop and all that stuff. Instead of being in the front, I was in the back, doing my work, taking care of all the, we had 17 members of the Hualapai tribe, and it was a new experience for me to get hands-on experience on how they do their cultural preservation trips.

Cory: So I waited for a while, and then I finally walked up to where they were doing their ceremonies and stuff at Deer Creek Falls, I was waiting there for a minute, then I let them do their ceremony, then I walked up, then they were doing smudging, and the guy that runs that was running that, I didn't know all this time, and he was one of the founders that helped started this cultural demonstration, his name is Bennett Wakayuta, and that was a good thing to experience to meet that guy too, and knowing that he has, his dad is Hopi, and those four other people, they also had Hopi affiliations with them too, so getting to meet them and learning their cultural background and all that stuff, I was pretty amazed that even though we're way up here, we still have ancestral ties with that tribe down there, I was like wow, that was pretty awesome to meet a whole other group of pretty much my cousins, I would say, from down that way.

Cory: Yeah, so it was a pretty good experience, and this coming September I'll be, we'll be taking down the Zuni for their cultural trip, and we'll be doing five days from right below here all the way to the LCR, we'll all be on this side, we'll be doing five days of cultural preservation, of learning more of our ancestral ties down in the canyon. Yeah, so thank you for all of you guys showing up and getting to get our background, cultural background, and on my first trip.

Cory: I was barely on my second year of sobriety, after having my wife have my boy, it changed my life, I grew up into an alcoholic family, and my mother and my father are still real bad at it, and from 6th grade all the way to the age of 32, I was an alcoholic real bad, then I had my son when I was 30, or my wife had my son at 32, then after that, two years went by and it happened so my brother, my clan brother, he was running the cultural preservation office, his name is Stuart Keiwakotua, my clan brother, then he came up to me one day and “Heard good things about you, I was wondering if you would be interested in doing this cultural preservation trip, where you go down the canyon and the Glen Canyon Dam, they're the ones that fund the project for four to five tribes that come down and they make sure that the river runners don't stop at these sacred sites down there within the canyon, and they don't mess it up or alter anything that's within these sacred areas.”

Cory: So. I was all like, “oh okay, I'm interested.” So, on that first trip, my boy was probably 5 then, now he turned 8 on the 18th of this month, so on that first trip, I went for my son, because we didn't know when he was going to have open heart surgery, and he has two different areas that are leaking in his valves, so I came down, stopped at the sacred areas, prayed for my boy for a strong recovery, got down to Diamond Creek, came out, got home, not even a week later, the heart specialist called and asked when we wanted to do the surgery down in Phoenix at the Phoenix Children's Hospital, so I was like, oh okay, right now, because I already stopped at all these sites and I already prayed for our boy, so we went down that Monday morning, 6 in the morning, he did his surgery, recovery, and in the evening time, they put him up in the upstairs, Tuesday morning he was already walking with his IV bag in the recovery area, and the sad thing about it, in the recovery area, there was like 20 plus kids all in there, and me and my wife and my boy, we walked all the way around that thing, and what I noticed, there was no mother and father with their kids there, and that 5 days that we stayed there, none of the parents stayed there like how we did, we slept in the room, we were determined for my son to get.

Cory: So that Friday, he was already released, so for me to see that those kids and dealing with all their hardships and all that, for my second trip when I got picked to go again, I made prayer feathers for all them kids, because they didn't choose to be brought into this world like that with all the hardships and stuff, and they're the strongest people in our, for our human race, the youth, so I made prayer feathers on my second trip, went down, prayed, came back out, and right when we got out, all the clouds came and it just started pouring, so just things like that, it shows itself, nature, it shows itself when you're strong in your heart and you pray a lot, and then it'll show itself, the clouds. Yeah, and the third trip, I went down again, and I was sitting there, we had to, for the Hopis, it's really, we try and stress that we talk Hopi amongst each other every time when we stop at these places, so we have to talk in our language, and every evening we sit there and talk, by the time we get done, it'll be 8 o'clock at night.

Cory: Then you'll just be seeing all the stars within the canyon showing themselves to you, then we got down to the shelves, past the gorge, we got way past down that way, then we're smoking that evening, our tobacco, smoking that evening, next thing you know, there was an anthill right here by me, and they started coming out, and they started talking to me, and they were telling me that all our ancestors are all okay, because in our, the Hopis believe the place you came out from, the emergence area, you're still going to come back over there in your afterlife, and this is your journey, you head back down to where you came from, so even the animal, the ants, even all the way down to the ants and animals and what you see within the canyon, they talk to you, and let you know that we're not here alone, and give thanks for being here, and like what I do, I do the Kachina doll carving, traditional style, and I use all the elements from the earth, and for me to use all this stuff that mother nature gave us.

Cory: I still got to go back to the Kiva and partake in my ceremonies each year, and give thanks for mother earth providing all this stuff for the Hopis, in order for us to do our ceremonies each year, so it's a learning process every year, and I learn more and more as I go down, and yeah, it's a place that changes lives, not only mine, and even the lady, the boatman, even she stood, that evening, we had a gathering in the evening, that one night, even she kind of broke down, and she was, her kids are in the late 20s and stuff, they live in Maine, and they always wonder why she don't really want to go back up to where she lives at, but her calling is here, in the Grand Canyon, to be a river runner, and to take us on our cultural preservation trips, and to learn more about herself too, and know that we're not here alone, and we got to take care of mother nature as much as we can, yeah, but thank you guys, thank you a lot.

Ranger Dan: The canyon's home, the canyon is home—and it's home to Hopi, it's home to Zuni, it's home to all.

Cory: Yeah, all the tribes that are in the southwest region, we all have ties to this area.

Ranger Dan: But it calls in more, it calls in more people, so personally, when I came back here in 2021, I came from Carlsbad, back to the canyon, after being here as a seasonal in 2016 and 17, and I felt this, this ease, lifted off my shoulders, coming back to a place that has only felt like home, after leaving home in Minnesota, and so this is, it brings in more than just, more than just the people who have been here since time immemorial, it brings in the boatman that is doing good work now, but also Hopi is home, that's where your house is, and all these experiences that you're gaining, you're able to bring them back to Hopi, right?

Cory: Yep, yep, and slowly talk to the younger youth, and maybe one day they can choose this type of work, and more people can, the natives can become rangers, and all that stuff, can work in this kind of field, archaeology, and boatman, and accounting for us, all that stuff.

Ranger Dan: Absolutely, absolutely, I know it's tough, there's a lot of, there's a lot of barriers, like in the federal government, even for just anybody getting in, and we're trying to, trying to knock those walls down, especially for the people that know this landscape, that grew up in this landscape, and yeah, we're definitely trying to help get those folks that should be in these positions, in these positions, and with you being here, with the demonstration program, you're helping punch through, and get the word out for everybody as well, which is amazing.

Cory: Yeah, that's how, I seen this guy, his name's Sterling, he was on the river trip, and he does gourds, and I was looking at them, and I was all like, wow, he has nice flower patterns on there, and it shows different kind of scenes, and he, not even only that, he does photography, and he draws a lot, and I was all like, “You're not in the cultural, the cultural demonstration [program]?” he's all. “No,” so he's interesting being a part of this too.

Ranger Dan: You've had many rich experiences going down the river, and every time I see you now, like, you got a new river story to tell, which is, which is amazing, it's, it's, I get to see you grow at the same time, and go through this place, and it's only been three years, but it's, it's been an amazing three years.

Cory: Yeah, yeah, and, and like that, I learned just from this last trip, not to have my phone out in the open, yeah, because I was, like that, I was being the swamper and stuff, I had my phone right there, and at first, I kept putting it in my pocket, because sitting in the backseat, I would have it on this side, then the water would splash up on me, so I put it back on this side, but then I keep changing the song, so I would put it, I put it on top of the ammo box, then I forgot my stake, to stake down, and for us to tie off, when there's no rock to tie off to, so that, Bennett, we're like, this is, we got your stake, then I just jumped up, and I was gonna ride, walk on the side, the side tube, and start walking up to the front, to the bow, so right when I got up, I started running, and my phone just slipped out, and went into the river, oh no, I was gonna jump for it, but it's right before the LCR, and I was like, no, I better not, then, like they say, they all laughed at me, the river takes, and the river gives, it's all like, you know, that's the truth, that's the truth right there, yeah, so it's really amazing, that's true.

Ranger Dan: For those who don't know, LCR is Little Colorado River over here, where it comes in to the Colorado River, and it's a very important place for the, for the people of Call Canyon Home, and the boats that you're talking about, if you're ever out in the rim here, everybody, and you look down, and you see this thing, that's the size of an ant, going down the river, that could be a 30 foot long boat, that Cory has worked on like this year, and been a part of, and that has a motor attached to the back of it, so it's one of the best ways to get yourself introduced to the river, because you're not getting punched by the waves as much, because it's 30 feet of boat, but you can still ride the front, and hold on, and like, sockdolager, down in the gorge, sockdolager is where you get socked, that's the origin, it's a, it's a European word, and it's where you get socked in the face, and it will hit you hard, yeah. What,

Cory: Rubber, rubber, all rubber, yeah, yeah, fill it up, yeah, fill it up with air.

Ranger Dan: yep, yeah, these boats are 30 feet long, they come in sections, they got metal plates on them to, to give some rigidity in certain areas, but no matter, depending on where you are, you get a wild ride, you get a comfy ride, yeah, in the back, but you're always going to get wet

Cory: Yep, yep, yeah, yeah

Audience Member: You don’t need to go to Disneyland or Disneyworld!

Ranger Dan: This is, this is way better than Disneyland, yeah, or any of that.

Cory: Yeah, if you're able to hack it in the front, and you can not back out anytime, and you hack it all the way to Lava Creek, Lava Creek Falls, you can handle any kind of roller coaster ride, I would think so, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and there was one, this, on this trip, and there's this place called Bed Rock, it's a rapid too, and the, the boatman, he flipped his boat backwards, and he shot down into that rapid, then right before we're gonna hit that Bed Rock, there's a big old rock right here, it's right in the middle of the river, and there's one little side right here, and there's a bigger side on this side, so he went in backwards, and right then, and that wave hit us from the side, then he used all that front weight, and it just shot him this way, and they just shot back down, boom, and that was cool, I was like, wow, I never seen that done before, so you learn all these different techniques that the boatman have too, when you're able to be sitting in the back with them, and yeah.

Ranger Dan: It sounds like you got the river bug, Cory, yeah, yeah, it grabs hold, yeah.

Cory: I got that calling, it's a calling that, yeah, I guess you gotta make use of what you know, I mean, like, I mean, if you can catch on real quick, and like that, I heard from another guy a while back, like three years ago, that Hopis can easily catch on to something real quick, you gotta just watch somebody do it a couple times, then after that, you'll catch on to, I mean, it's like that through life with everybody, you gotta watch it, watch them catch on, and learn, learn the easy way instead of the hard way, yeah, so, yeah, thanks guys for coming in, and this was a great opportunity to be able to talk to everybody, and get on, not just only on my carving stuff, but the canyon, and all that.

Ranger Dan: Yeah, it's an absolute pleasure having you out here, Cory, Gloria, it's an absolute pleasure having you out here, too, Riley, always great to see you, dude, yeah, and a bit of his artwork is now on display at their table, showing what, what he's getting into here, so, yeah, we got a whole family of artists here, and I know we got many times in the future to have you out, and new experiences to go along with that in the future, I believe that was a peregrine [falcon] that just went over us here, yeah, so that's beautiful, and you know, I would like to end on one more thing here, Cory, your shirt, this is a great shirt that you get to see around the Flagstaff Four Corners area, and can you explain what 'Don't Worry, Be Hopi' is?

Cory: 'Don't Worry, Be Hopi' is like Hopis, we just don't pray for ourselves, we pray for the whole world, and we're all one human, humankind as one, and we're, we were brought to this earth by the Creator, and we should also take care of the place that we are led into, so that's what 'Don't Worry, Be Hopi' means, it's also you can pray and be one of us too, as Hopi, and the guy that created this, he no longer has his shop on the reservation, he retired now, and when I started my career when I was 15 years old, all the way to like that, 32, he helped get my artwork out there to the world, so after that, then he retired, so I worked out a deal with him to buy so much shirts, then I can be able to sell shirts, and help him out now, since he helped me out for 20 plus years, so yeah, if you're interested, I have these shirts also for sale, different colors, medium and large, and couple 2x left, yeah, so that's the Don't Worry, Be Hopi.

Ranger Dan: They're pretty great, yeah, Be Hopi, yeah, so thank you very much everybody for coming out here tonight, experiencing Grand Canyon with Cory, and everyone else here, if, do you mind a couple questions at all Cory?

Cory: Yeah, yeah, I can take some questions from whoever would. Yes.

Audience Member 1: Just wondering how the kachina dolls fit into the Hopi life, what do you use them for?

Cory: Oh yeah, they're given to the girls at birth, and when the Hopis started doing the kachina dances, they decided that gifts should be exchanged also, so that, that's what they, the kachinas would bring for the girls, their gifts to the girls at birth, the kachina dolls, and they depict all different elements of the, of the world, all the way from the animals, to the, to the clouds, to different plants, yeah, yeah, and that's the kachina.

Audience Member 2: Yeah, you said on your rafting trips, you would stop at sacred sites, roughly how many are on the trip?

Cory: On the Hopi one, we do nine, nine, yeah, and yeah, and majority of them are from the Little Colorado, Spider Woman, Spider Grandmother, and the Hopi Salt Mine, that's right around the bend, and Ankar down here, that's a, what's a village down below, and they, they did farming down below, and the greenery a little ways down.

Ranger Dan: So we have a special guest speaker here, we got Riley, Cory's son coming up here, and we might need to, let's pass a mic here Cory, to Riley, we're, what are we learning about Riley?

Riley: The Hopi Racer Kachina.

Riley: That races against young kids, and people, like men, they race them, like to get like cookies, fruits, uh, gifts, yeah, gifts.

Cory: The racer Kachina challenges them.

Riley: Yeah, whoever gets them, have the, um, uh, snacks, or sometimes there's a chili one too, which is chili one, so, so you're gonna have to race, then if you got, get caught, then, then, um, the, the chili Kachina then goes like this to your face, then covers, covers it in chili, so you're gonna have to wash it off, yeah, and you're gonna have to be fast.

Ranger Dan: Have you raced the Racer Kachina yet?

Riley: No.

Ranger Dan: No?

Riley: Well, I never did.

Cory: Okay.

Audience Member 3: When are you gonna race it?

Ranger Dan: Yeah, when, when do we think we're going to race them?

Riley: (Speaks Hopi) Which is, “I don't know,” in Hopi.

Ranger Dan: There we go, there we go, yeah, awesome, yeah, thank you Riley, yeah.

Riley: ii iss iiyo. It’s cold.

Ranger Dan: It's cold?

Riley: Yeah.

Ranger Dan: Thank you Riley, yeah, um, does anybody else have a question? Uh, yeah, yeah.

Cory: Oh, the creation of the Grand Canyon, uh, some say that it's a serpent that's shooting down to the Gulf of Mexico, and that's how, and there's Hopi stories that our twins, that Spider Grandmother sent down two twins down to the Gulf of Mexico, and they ended up meeting the Mayans and stuff, and that's where they brought the snake dance from, and that's what the Hopis practiced to this day on the Hopi Reservation, yeah, so this is a snake, it brings us from one end of the continent to the other end, yeah, yeah, so that's what the.

Ranger Dan: Have you seen the geologic map of the Canyon, Cory?

Cory: Yeah.

Ranger Dan: Yeah, the blue dragon?

Cory: Yeah, I've seen that, yeah.

Ranger Dan: Yeah, the geologic map of Grand Canyon, you can get a large poster of it in some gift shops in different areas, it's kind of hard to find now, but it literally, it looks like a serpent, uh, yeah, it is quite interesting to see, so it's, it's really fun to see, like, there's validity to this, yeah, there, there is, it's been passed down,

Cory: Stories, yeah, passed down,

Ranger Dan: But geology is also seeing that too, and it's the two stories coming together.

Cory: Yeah, and there's, and the archaeologists, geologists are slowly seeing it now, but the Hopis already knew this long time ago, this was stories that was passed down generation to generation.

Audience Member: Why did the Hopis move out of the canyon?

Cory: To, to, yeah, to better check out this whole land, the resources that the Southwest had, because they shot all the way down to, um, Phoenix, all the way to Mesa Verde, all the way to Chaco [Canyon], and even this way, they shot, and after that, they formed back at the Hopi Mesas and formed the village, and they noticed that they had all these resources at the Hopi Mesa in order for us to do our ceremonies, so that's when they stuck and started forming clans, and after that, once their clans were formed, each clan has a responsibility for each society, that, um, there's different societies that take part throughout the whole year, and we watch the stars and the moon each time in order for us to do our ceremonies, and it helps us to keep, um, keep alliance with the earth and the rotation, and that's how we try to live by,

yeah, all right, all right, thank you guys for coming.

Ranger Dan: Yeah, this is great. Thank you, Cory.

Ranger Jonah: To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices, visit www.nps.gov/grca. Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon, these being the Havasupai Tribe, the Hualapai Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

In this episode, Cory Ahownewa, a Hopi Kachina doll carver and an advocate for protecting and sustaining cultural knowledge and sites throughout the Grand Canyon and southwestern region, walks us through moments in his life that have influenced his journey not only as an artist, but as a father and servant of his community.

Episode 8

Daryl Shack Speaks

Transcript

Grand Canyon Speaks - Episode 8 - Daryl Shack Speaks

Daryl Shack: The epiphany came right back because on the table there was coral, turquoise, and pen shell, which is black, and mother of pearl, which is white or real shiny stuff, and so I wrapped it together and, you know, made my bundles, which now today at the Santa Fe shops, they call it the "Shack stack." So that's what I want for everybody through the co-op.

Lakin: Welcome everyone to this week's episode of Grand Canyon Speaks. This is Lakin.

Meranden: And this is Meranden.

Lakin: In today's episode, Ranger Dan spoke with Daryl Shack, who is a Zuni fetish carver and multifaceted artist.

Meranden: He explains the traditional role that the fetishes play in Zuni culture and the history behind the creation of this sacred art form.

Lakin: Not only is Daryl an artist, but he's also a patron of artists from his community and provides support through efforts such as the Zuni Art Walk.

Meranden: Take a listen to Daryl's story and we hope you enjoy.

Daryl Shack: Keshi ko' don sunhapk'yanapkya. Ho' Daryl Shack le'shinna. Ho' Shiwinna kwin iya do'na ho' da: ko:wi a:wa'shuwakyan iya. Ho' Dowa:kwe deyan Ho' Bitchi:kwe a:wan cha'le. Ho' apde k'yan asdemłan dopbinde yałdo debikwaik'ya kesi. Ho' kets'anna do'na lak'yan a:wunakyan inan do'na Ho' a:wa'shuwakyan iya. Daryl Shack: Hello everybody. My name is Daryl Shack. I'm from the Pueblo of Zuni in New Mexico, and I am a fetish carver. I'm an artist, and I wanted to share that I'm in my clans, which is only very appropriate to share. I'm Corn clan, and I'm born for the Raven clan, so I always like to joke and say I'm liable to maybe eat myself one of these days.

Daryl Shack: I keep things light. You know, life is very interesting for me as a Zuni man, and to have ties here at the Grand Canyon, it's been very interesting to be able to be invited here. And as an artist, it's very opportune, you know, to be able to do that. I'm sharing my work at the tower this year, and I've been here at the visitor center and at North Rim, so I'm very appreciative of the National Park Service for extending and providing this opportunity for communities to come and, you know, bridge ties and bring a better understanding of what we as Native American nations have going on here at the National Park Service and at the Grand Canyon especially.

Ranger Dan: Yeah. Excellent, Daryl. And you mentioned that you're here as a demonstrator and showing your work down here, and I'd love to get a little bit more information about your history as an artist. Daryl Shack: Oh, okay. I think that's a little bit of, I don't know how I could go nonstop as far as history, but we were setting up Art Walk in Zuni, New Mexico in 2016, and we were all trying to figure out leadership, and we were talking about how many years of artistry we have in our background, and so we kind of went around the table. Some said 11 years, 12. Everybody's proud of, you know, their amount of years that they do artistry back home.

Daryl Shack: Some people said 20 years, which is awesome. I had to think about it as it was getting to me. And, you know, when it got to me, I was 44 at the time, so I told them 42 years of artistry, and I wasn't lying.

Daryl Shack: They all freaked out, but I wasn't lying because dancing is a very big part of our history and culture and our artistry now. We have dance troupes that go around and share social dancing, so at a very young age, that's what my dad exposed me to, so I was able to go and travel around and participate, and so I have pictures of myself in full-dress regalia, and so I was already performing back then, so performing artist I was born to.

Daryl Shack: So that went on, and of course, school — once won a contest for a poster for the state of New Mexico, and it was for nighttime safety. I said, "wear white at night for safety," and so my poster won second place, and I won a check for like $80, and so that was pushing to really exposing myself to finding out that art is around, and finally high school, it was all about the art shows and everybody showing how good you can be, and then the real world hits you after high school when you find out whether you're going to decide if you're going to do art or not, but normally, you know, you need a job, and you focus on having that education behind you, and so I'm glad that my parents were able to push that on me, and so that continued, and finally, I worked as a public transportation driver for a bit into the senior program in Zuni, and I brought a lot of art with me there, because, you know, the elders were looking to crochet, looking to, you know, bead work was a big thing there, so it was kind of limited, but when I got there, this vast expanse of, "oh, what can I do, I can do marbling techniques with them, I can do—" you know, my mind went a little haywire there to just try to be, you know, accepted into what our elders might not or would be into, so I got very good at that, and so at this point, I can say that I worked as an activity director for 13 years, and I made people do things that they normally didn't do, but they did it anyway, and they liked it, you know, so that's something that I really bank on, and I'm thankful for that, because administratively it taught me a bit of what I'm able to do today, which is my art, which is fetishes.

Daryl Shack: So back then, at some point, there was a time where I needed to participate culturally at a bigger level, and so it meant that I needed to host the men of my kiva. There's six kivas in our community, and those are like men's fraternities, and, ah, man, it's really difficult to explain this complex situation that I'd gotten into at that younger age, but I had to be initiated into that kachina cult, if you know a little bit about that, but just moving further on, it made me think a little bit more about how these ties were, you know, fueling the need for protecting art, and finding out where I belong, and so fetishes were born right about then, when I needed to supplement my income, and today, just very recently, I was asked, “Do you sit down to think about your art, and is it with intentions that what you're going to make is going to be sold, or going to go somewhere? And I'm like, “by now, yes, because it's art,” but I'm so glad that it's cultural tied, and with that, you know, it's helping me to preserve through talks like this, and just through mimicking what I've seen through my friends who've been dabbling in this fetish work, so fetishes are animals, and they're in rock form, and so that's what I get to do, and carve, and I was sharing that earlier, and I also paint, and what else do I do?

Daryl Shack: I draw, I'm a sketch artist, I can pretty much sketch this in maybe two minutes, real quick, and you know, have fun with it, that's the life I have, I'm appreciative of it, because back home, I am in certain leadership positions, and it's more or less bloodline, and in a sense, there's also positions that, you know, I can't leave home, really, to go live in Boston, where I kind of think about a lot, or San Francisco, I just can't, you know, because my ties are at home, and at home, art is everywhere, you know, people don't realize back home how art is very important, and in these younger generations, we think that art has to be put on a mural, or has to be drawn, or has to, you know, but they don't realize that the pure forms of the silver work that we do, from raw material to the beautifully finished products that I wanted to bring, you know, these are works made by my parents, and worn by my grandma, my dad, and worn by my wife, you know, so, here's my wife, Nina, and so, these are very important things in my life that I try to help protect, now, so, just getting back to what I did before, as the Activist Director, I planned, and I coordinated, and so that helps me today, I help to advocate back home about artistry, and protecting, you know, the genuine, authentic Native American arts name, trademarking people's, and branding people's name, that's what we're helping to do, I'm helping to do that for myself, my wife, different artists in the community who need the help, who want the help, I'm a founding member of what we call Art Walking Zuni, and I'm a founding member of the only Native American jewelry co-op in the U.S., so, we're very proud of that, and I think, well, art has taken me a long way, and look where it got me, right in front of you guys, to come chit-chat a little bit about what art is to us in Zuni, art is life.

Ranger Dan: And actually, one of those things, like, what art is, and you brought it up today, and it's a quote that I actually really enjoy, when we were talking, you said, art is still medicine, and art is, it's deep within Zuni culture, and, like, you're making fetishes today, and it's on an artistic basis, but, it's still medicine, and you talked about that, and also, for those that don't know, like, some of the artifacts we find here in the canyon are fetishes, so, this is something that's deeply rooted inside Zuni culture, and back then, it was medicine given to a person who needed to be saved, and so it's still, to that point today, where that medicine still exists. Can you elaborate upon that medicine existing to this day?

Daryl Shack: Oh, exactly, I think, in light of things, I'm going to put in your minds, you know, our ancestors, you know, what did they have? You know, think back, like, way back, way back in primal days, we all have ancestors that didn't have CAT scans, or MRIs, but, you know, when people were sick, what did they have, this intuition to make them feel better, and to cure them.

Daryl Shack: My people went a little further, and, you know, they asked the animal kingdom for that assistance, their know-how, their characteristics, or just asking for the unknown, you know, for help, and they found that the animals were able to do that, and it takes us back further, even, if I can, to times of creation, when we think about when man and animal were here together, and animal ate man easily, and so they were great beasts, and for assistance, our people asked our creator for, you know, help to come and give these animals, you know, at least some guidance so that they won't eat them, and the creator sent two warrior gods to talk to them, and when they did, the animal kingdom, quite honestly, didn't listen the first time, and so they kept eating man, and so man again asked for help, the warrior gods went back with intentions to at least maybe get some answers, deeply rooted in the traditions, and so those traditions are the lightning bolts of coral and turquoise, so they brought them down and said, hey guys, if you don't listen, yeah, and then, so they went back and still animal ate man, and so they went back down and said, okay, you guys don't listen, here we go, and so they speared their heart up, and it was meant to tame the animal spirit, it was meant to kill them, but to tame them and to let them know that really who's in charge is our creator, and who is asking for this assistance to take care of man, and so from there, the animal kingdom had this respect, because they were told by these warriors that, you know, when man calls upon your hand and your intuitions to help, and they're going to make effigies of you, and that way you won't eat them, but you are that beast, you are that animal, and when they call upon you through prayer and invocation, that you will be there to help them, and so this medicine wasn't just, you know, something to play around with back then, powerful medicine that's meant for our healing fraternities, at some point, you know, it just blossomed into a good thing for everybody that does work with these animals as art, and for me, it's still medicine, that's what I said, because it helps to cure me, helps to cure those that might be alien, might, you know, come to my table or view my page on Facebook and find that it makes them smile.

Daryl Shack: I have vast collectors that feel so much energy from my work, you know, I sit down with a good heart, that's the only thing that I think about, and these are words from our elders to tell us that, you know, have a good heart before you touch Mother Earth, before you work with Mother Earth, and even though it's a rock, it's still Mother Earth, and so a lot of these notions to preserve these, you know, cultural aspects of, you know, really working and focusing this energy that's unbeknownst to us, really, and it may go into my work, and so I do have to feel a good heart, and sometimes when it's not, they break, you know, or sometimes it just takes forever to finish something, and so I take a break, for real, and go focusing on something else, so, energy in the art for Native Americans throughout, I think it can pertain to that same, you know, perspective.

Ranger Dan: Yeah, the energy is with all of us, it's not just the cultures of the Southwest, the people who call the canyon home, it's with everyone who visits, it's with everyone who comes to the canyon, it's with, who visits Zuni, who visits the cultures around here, and it's like what you're talking about, like those good memories and everything.

Daryl Shack: Yeah, I mean, today, like, I spoke with a young lady who had come in and had asked for a turtle, and I didn't have any turtles on my table, but heck, I told her, "I'm honest, I'm fast at carving animals," and then so I said, "come back later, I'll have one for you," so, you know, we had a short conversation about how she's having her daughter move somewhere, and so I told her, we had a Zuni boy that moved to Albuquerque also, and I gave him a turtle as well, and she didn't even, well, she didn't know that part, but when I told her that part, it made everything so special, and at one point, we were both crying, and I think, you know, the connections, the energy's different for everybody, and when you see my animals, you'll feel that, because some make you happy, some is like, oh, some is like, oh, you know, and then when you hear the price, you'll be like, oh, yeah, but then you know what? It's not about price, because I always say this, I'll share with you one story I learned at the Indian market in Santa Fe, which is a huge show, you know, you can expect to pay, some people pay thousands of dollars for pieces over there, right? We've seen a kachina doll go for $13,000 next to our table like that, and we were like, "oh, they're already going home and we're still here."

Daryl Shack: So, but anyways, this young man came up, I had a beautiful sodalite, which is blue, mountain lion sitting up there on my table, and so he comes up, and he looked at it, and looked at his mom, and he looked at it, and it took off. Later on, he comes back, looked at it again, this time picked it up, put it back, and he's there contemplating, looking at his mom, and he looks at me, and looks at his mom again, and you know what? So I told him, "young man, listen, look at what I have to say to you, you know, it's not about the value of money, it's about the value of having things here, you know, when you get this mountain lion, and it goes home with you, you're going to have it for as long as you live, and as long as you don't give it away, it'll be yours, but this money that I'm going to get, I'm going to go spend it, I'm going to pay for my hotel room, maybe, and I'm going to go do this, do this, eat, and there it goes, it's gone."

Daryl Shack: So, you know, that taught him. It's like, took out his money, and bought that piece, and he went home happy, I went home happy for that moment, but then it was time to get back to work. That's my work, you know, that's what I do as an artist, as what I'm here to do, to share, and I'm glad it did, you know, look where it brought me, again, you know, to be able to share this little bit of time with you, and I'm just glad that, you know, the day is so beautiful, who can't enjoy this?

Ranger Dan: Yeah, it's not bad, right? Yeah. The backdrop for this program is the Grand Canyon, like, this is not a bad place at all.

Daryl Shack: Not at all.

Ranger Dan: So, I mean, these are great examples of visitors having interactions, and the medicine's going with them, it's going with them, but we've also talked about the [Zuni ARTZ] Co-op, and this is, I think, something that's really important to touch on, because it's a way for artists to get out into the world more, and spread their love of art and their culture to everyone else, not just in the Four Corners area, but, like, around the world.

Daryl Shack: Yeah, that's a good point, that's a very good point, because I think with Co-op, as a collective, I think it's really made a big difference. We come together as like-minds with different media. I belong to a co-op that has silversmiths, painters, potters, fetish carvers like me, then we have new age, you know, graphic artists that are also involved, we have textiles, so it's really expanded, and generational-wise, it's also really been really good, because we have veterans, we have students that come from a program that we have in Zuni, it's called the Zuni Youth Enrichment Program, and so they work with young children, they do programming which utilizes different types of artistry to make sure that, you know, our children understand the far depths of where artistry reaches.

Daryl Shack: And so we have a beautiful building that they have that ties in with the Co-op, and we got into a beautiful building as well, which took some time, but, you know, with the help of the New Mexico Cooperative Catalyst, we were able to utilize their lawyers, and their, you know, I guess their grassroots programs to be able to go and get a good building for this opportunity for our community to share more art. I mean, yeah, Zuni art's everywhere.

Daryl Shack: Namely, it's shared through local buyers that come, or local buyers and buyers from Gallup, they come into the community, but the far-reaching tones of why we do art and share directly is because sometimes it's really difficult to find homes for our art. Sometimes the people who come to buy the art in Zuni aren't so nice at pricing, and it gets difficult. So sometimes in our community, it's difficult to work and show folks how retail works.

Daryl Shack: And so at the co-op, operating at retail, it allows our Zuni artists to go and show our community what's possible. So we have a website, we have our local gallery, which also features the young talent that we have from ZYEP, which they get those artists involved because the co-op artists act as mentors, and we have apprenticeship programs that we work with ZYEP. So we have like a six-week program.

Daryl Shack: They learn a media or craft, then we have a show for the kids, and then they're able to act as members of our co-op, and they have a special wall where they can have their art put up or in showcases right along our art as veterans, and we're kind of ushering them into what we're able to do. And that's where it starts with our children. We're teaching our children the basic gifts of art and then letting them understand how important it is that it needs to be carried on because what we do as art, as I was explaining earlier, it comes from what our people use culturally.

Daryl Shack: Jewelry. We have ceremonies, we need jewelry. And it's almost in preparation for the next world also. We need jewelry to go with also. So it's really, really interesting. And also the fetishes are like gifts to ourselves.

Daryl Shack: Just to explain a little bit, it's about the characteristics of each animal and what they're able to offer us in this world and what we may need or if we know we lack, that's where they can help us.

Ranger Dan: And with that co-op, one of the main themes you told me about is goals. The big thing that it wants to get out, not just to visitors who are looking to buy authentic Zuni pieces, but also for the artists there, is education all around. And now the education for an artist will be different from a visitor, but it's education nonetheless.

Ranger Dan: And it sounds like the co-op is really getting that out there for people to understand from an artist perspective and from a visitor perspective. So what is the education for a visitor versus an artist through the co-op? What's the balance there?

Daryl Shack: Thank you. Thank you for asking that.

Daryl Shack: I can briefly explain. For visitors, we have what we call the art walk. And we've allowed our artists to open their home studios to visitors to come and go, to chit-chat with them, just on the light maybe for 30 minutes.

Daryl Shack: Or if you want to learn what they're really doing, you could book yourself for an extended time visit even. I mean, they're willing to share. I mean, me, if you show up at my place as an art walk visitor, I'll talk your head off and then we'll show you what we're doing on the motor to make animals.

Daryl Shack: We'll talk about what the animals mean. And then eventually, you know, you're able to purchase art directly from me, from my home studio. Usually, I have a few pieces ready to go. Daryl Shack: And you know what's fun for most visitors is that I'm able to finish a piece while they're there. They'll usually take that one home. So, it's really fun for me as well.

Daryl Shack: Whoa. See, we have visitors. They want to let me know.

Ranger Dan: Yeah, birds just fly right through the program. Daryl Shack: Right through our program here. And then, so that's available for the visitor.

Daryl Shack: And at the gallery, you're able to also view the art that our artists put in there. And for the co-op, as artists, our members are able to use the gallery to sell their art, you know. So that's, you know, very basic.

Daryl Shack: And then at the same time, we're able to help them out with, you know, the digital aspects of marketing and, you know, just promoting artists and also finding that, you know, there's training to be had for some of these artists. So we've had, you know, work done to share a little bit of mentorship for our artists' artists. You know, a little bit about coaching through different business practices.

Daryl Shack: You know, for a while, it was all about hashtagging. That's kind of fizzing down. But we're trying to find, you know, the next best thing for our artists to get exposure, networking, letting them know.

Daryl Shack: You know, one of the finer points of sharing is that, you know, information is key. And when you get the right people in the right room, it really goes a long way when we're able to share that. So, I think that's the real key of this co-op.

Daryl Shack: And for our artists, when they find out that, you know, their pieces are selling and on the online scale, we're actually selling it for them at retail and they're getting a little higher price for their work instead of having to go from store to store, from shop to shop, trying to sell your work. So let me paint that picture for you real quick. When I first started, I took my bears to a shop or like a guy in a car sitting in a shop next to a gas station.

Daryl Shack: So, I went over there with my box of bears, first box, opened it up, and he looks at it. Well, only a moment, he said, hmm, another bear carver. Closes my box and shoves it right back to me.

Daryl Shack: And he knew my parents because he's been there for years and he kind of knew me. So, he says, Daryl, you know, there's 500 bear carvers in the community. You know, what are you going to do to make yours different?

Daryl Shack: So that kind of sparked a little bit of, you know, intentions for me to, yeah, what am I going to do different? But it made me feel bad, went home, set up my mom's work table because that's where I make my work pieces, and I was lost for a bit. But, you know, this epiphany came right back because on the table there was coral, turquoise, and pen shell, which is black, and mother of pearl, which is white or real shiny stuff.

Daryl Shack: And so wrapped it together and, you know, made my bundles, which now today at the Santa Fe shops, they call it the "Shack stack." So that's what I want for everybody through the co-op. And that's what we're able to teach them, you know, through marketing, ourselves, what I said earlier, branding, the names of our artists because it's really important.

Daryl Shack: Today we struggle with thousands of imports, you know, knockoffs, if you mind me saying. And even Gucci, we're having the same problem as Gucci, and it's the same thing, you know. We're having to work through that.

Daryl Shack: And so, a lot of initiatives in Zuni have been focusing on art, I think because of Art Walk, too, and what we're able to do. And so, I'm thankful for programs such as this because I hope that our leaders will listen in on this if it does go through as a podcast and to see, you know, what the needs are for our artists in our community because they're vast, vast needs. And there have been scholars who've said that in the community of Zuni, 80% of our homes have at least one artist. You know, so I've calculated that that's about 1,200 different artists in different media. And, you know, in our home, there's five of us, and so we're a little above average, and that's what I like.

Ranger Dan: You know, I was looking at the numbers in our program here, and you say there's about 1,200 artists in Zuni. Zuni is one of the three largest artist communities for the Cultural Demonstration Program for the park. And I want to say we probably have between 75 and 100 artists from Zuni in this program. So, we're pushing almost like 10% of Zuni artists in this Cultural Demonstration Program at the park, which is kind of cool to think about now.

Daryl Shack: I call a vote right now. Everybody, I need you to vote. I need you to vote that whoever's going to be a part of this program to be a Cultural Demonstrator has to be a part of the co-op.

Daryl Shack: Nah, I'm kidding. But that would be nice. Seventy-five Zuni artists, that's a good number, because right now we're dabbling between maybe 30 and 40, and not including the young ones, but these are the artists' artists. And so, you know, I think community is awesome. Community is great. And I'm all about building this artist community that we have back home in Zuni.

Ranger Dan: Yeah, it's wonderful. And where is the co-op located? It's located in Zuni, right?

Daryl Shack: Yes, it's right in downtown Zuni, as I like to say. Right across what they say, Speedway.

Ranger Dan: Nice.

Daryl Shack: Yeah, you can't miss it.

Ranger Dan: So, everyone's invited to come out to the co-op.

Daryl Shack: Yes, absolutely.

Ranger Dan: You're invited to Zuni. You can go to the Pueblo. You can go and experience it, which is amazing.

Daryl Shack: Yes, visit our artists, visit their homes even, you know, and to find out how, you know, the bracelet you're wearing is made, or the fetish animal you bought, how it was made, or the pottery. You know, there's several pottery artists that are on there that are awesome, you know, master artists. That's who I work with, are just masters.

Daryl Shack: And I'm in envy of a lot of those folks that are doing demonstrations and traveling throughout the U.S. And we only got started a few years ago just to get, you know, our foot in the water. But before that, it's all about sit back and then it became like this. You know, I make my piece quick, quick, quick. I'm a very good photographer through my phone, and so I get very good comments online. And I believe it's all about that presentation online. And so it's difficult.

Daryl Shack: Coming and sharing directly is awesome because you can touch and feel and see and talk and find out, ask questions. So this demonstration program is just really awesome. And today was fun.

Daryl Shack: That's all I can say. A lot of fun. I'm so glad to see all of you here.

Ranger Dan: One last thing here. What would you like people to know about visiting Zuni? Like if you're going to go out and visit, what should you know ahead of time before you visit?

Daryl Shack: I think, well, let me start with it's a small village. There's not many amenities. There's only two general stores, like three now. And so be prepared. Gas stations, two gas stations. There's good eateries. There's nice Halona chicken. Don't miss that. And Chu Chu's Pizzeria. Don't miss that at all. So those are places to visit and eat. And our visitor center, please visit them.

Daryl Shack: The tour guides who are working there, Kenny and Sean, they're very knowledgeable. They also offer tours around the Zuni area through different site ruins. So it's really nice.

Daryl Shack: It's really expansive. So there's different ruins that you can see and ask questions and, of course, pose for pictures and whatnot. Also, if you hook up with a Zuni family, there's a chance you might get invited for dinner because that's really what it's about back home.

Daryl Shack: The hospitality. Zuni is known for their hospitality and their chili stews and their oven bread. Their outside horno oven bread.

Daryl Shack: So if you drive into Zuni, there's a chance that there'll be like bonfires going on. But that's really oven bread baking going on outside. So it's a long day process.

Daryl Shack: My wife goes through that.

Benina: All day. Yeah.

Daryl Shack: But then it's a hard shell bread that holds for quite a bit. So at least maybe a week, you know. So then it's game on again.

Daryl Shack: She'll have to bake bread. Just kidding.

Ranger Dan: Yeah. No, it's great. And so we definitely encourage everyone to check out that co-op.

Daryl Shack: Absolutely.

Ranger Dan: I've got the website. You can see that. If it ever works for your future trips in the southwest here, you're welcome at Zuni.

Daryl Shack: Yes. Zuni. Also, if there's a chance that there's any cultural dances, ceremonial dances going on, and if you do go, just be respectful.

Daryl Shack: And there's no photography and no recording and such. So just give everybody a fair warning on that. But enjoy.

Daryl Shack: I mean, people are nice. I mean, the scenery around there, when my people started their migration, they were told to look for the middle place. And to me, they found it.

Daryl Shack: When you look around and we have our four seasons, I mean, with the isolation that we did have, a lot of the cultural, the archaic chants and the prayers and the language that you could hear during times when our people were here, during times of Chaco Canyon, I mean, think about that. It's still back home, whereas a lot of our brother nations in the east and other tribes have lost a lot of that. So, Hopi and Zuni are like the last remnants almost, like the thread, the bridge of what was, you know.

Daryl Shack: And I was fortunate, too, that I grew up with my mom's paternal grandmother. And so, it was a bridge to the late 1800s, you know, to know that bit of preservation that I have to also carry on. It's like being on the bottom of the totem pole.

Daryl Shack: You carry the weight of everybody else on your shoulders. That's right. So it's the most important.

Daryl Shack: Elahkwa. Don ansamona don yadon k'okshi sunhapk'yanawa. Don ansamona dek'ohanann yanekchiyak'yana.

To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices, visit www.nps.gov slash GRCA. Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon, these being the Havasupai Tribe, the Hualapai Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

In this episode, Ranger Dan interviews Daryl Shack Sr., a multifaceted Zuni artist best known for his work as a fetish carver, and painter. With over 40 years of experience, Daryl discusses how his artistry is deeply connected to Zuni culture. Beyond his own creations, he is a dedicated advocate for fellow Zuni artists, playing a key role in initiatives like the Zuni Art Walk and the Zuni ARTZ Co-op.

Episode 9

Marian Manyturquoise Speaks

Transcript

Marian Speaks Transcript

Marian Manyturquoise: So, I'm going to teach you one word. Are you ready? I'm going to say it in three parts, okay? So, here we go. Ni-zho-ni. Ready? Ni-zho-ni. Beautiful. You beautiful people. That means beautiful.

Meranden: Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's Grand Canyon Speaks episode. My name is Meranden.

Lakin: And this is Lakin.

Meranden: We hope everyone out there has been enjoying season two. It's been a lot of fun being able to hear these stories and put them out there for all of you to listen to.

Lakin: We're happy to share this next episode with Ranger Dawn and Grand Canyon Conservancy employee, Marian Manyturquoise, who grew up at Grand Canyon with her grandparents.

Meranden: Yeah, she shared some knowledge about her Diné culture, her experiences with boarding school, and the importance of respecting the land around you.

Lakin: Once again, we appreciate listeners like you for tuning in, and we are excited for more episodes to come.

Meranden: And here is Marian Manyturquoise.

Marian: Yá’át’ééh means Hello. I didnt get to shake your hands. That means hello, Yá’át’ééh (speaks Navajo) When you meet your relatives or meet new people, mostly from your own tribe or your own relatives, you come to that with (speaks Navajo), I'm sorry, we're over here. So, I would say hello to all my relatives, all the people that have come from far. So, thank you for coming to the Grand Canyon.

This is a beautiful place. This is my favorite spot. This is where my family has lived for generations, hunted.

We gathered all these different, the different trees here, produced different things, and the plants also that we would come and gather at certain times of the year. So, thank you for coming to my area of this country. So, my name is Marian Manyturquoise.

This is the only turquoise I own. And then the other thing we would do is, we're in the clan system. So, what I would say is, who my mother is, is what I am.

And who my father is, who my mother's father is, and who my father's father is. On top of that, then you have at least four other clans that are really closely related to you. So, I'm going to say that whole thing for you.

I will try to explain it afterwards, so you have an understanding of what I said. So, (Introduces self in Navajo) So, I am my name, and then my mother's clan is Yucca Fruit People.

My father's clan is Apache Towering House people. My grandfather, who is usually my Cheii, is the Shadow in the Woods, is the Bear clan. And then my father's father is my nali.

He is the Deerwater clan. So the reason why we have these clan system is so we don't intermarry. So the four extra clans are also the other clans we don't marry.

If that happens anywhere, it is usually called the moths. You know how the moths, they go and they keep going towards the fire when they know, I guess they don't know, I don't know, but that's why they're called the moths. So I just like to bring that up.

That's the clan system. So there's over 200 clan system in the Navajo tribe. So I grew up here in this area with my family.

I was born here in this area. So back in the 60s, most of the kids were born in the Tuba City district, Tuba City PHS, which is about 50 miles east. So that was the main hospital for all the kids that were born in this area.

And as I grew, we grew up in these canyons here. We'd follow our parents here and there. We migrated a lot.

We'd live in Cameron for the summer. And in the fall, we'd come closer to the mountain. In the wintertime, we'd spend here close to the mountain.

So when you come up 64 east of here, as you go up, you can tell the different elevations, right? But on 64, you have the community of Cameron. And then as you come up, you're in the Navajo Nation. You're in the Navajo Nation down there.

In the summertime, like about this time, the weather gets a little bit dry. There's no kind of moisture. So we would go down to Cameron.

There's a natural spring that comes out of the lava beds. So we'd go there, and that's where we'd take our sheep. And then in the fall, we'd come closer this way.

But the only thing is, we have to haul water. But in the fall, we have all the green that has turned to the right color for our livestock. And then in the winter, we'd come straight up.

And we do have winter homes down here just below, maybe I'd say a good five miles in this direction, inside the pinyon trees and cedar trees. In the fall, we'd spend our winters there. And then by that time, we would still haul water, but also collect snow for water.

And then we'd use all the wood that was dead, had matured. That would be our firewood. So that's how me and my family, we migrated back and forth.

My parents, it was hard for them to get employment here on the Navajo Nation. So a lot of the things that my father did and my mother did was they would go from one area down to Phoenix or to Salt Lake to do migrant work. And through that time, they had 12 kids.

So they would migrate and go leave us, and we would be left with our grandparents at times. But growing up here was a special thing because we got to know our canyons and get to hike into our canyons at night. If we lost a sheep, we'd have to go into those canyons and look for our sheep.

The only way we did that was with the bells on the sheep. So a lot of things we did as little kids, like gather snow, help gather pinyons, help gather corn, watermelon at our little garden in Tuba. So there's a lot of things as growing up made us, my brothers and sisters, really strong.

So this is a very special area for me because of my grandparents and generations before. So the Grand Canyon, when I think about it, is because it really brings a lot of thankfulness, I guess you wanna say, because generations before, back in 1886, most of our family members that lived here to get away from the soldiers to be captured, they would go into the canyon and they would hide down there for till 18... Okay, 1886 is when the treaty was signed. So they would, when that, about maybe five or six years before that, then they came back out after the treaty was signed and they came back and they started living here again.

And then the park was made and then we were pushed back that way again. So that's, the specialty is that they found refuge down here so they didn't have to walk so many hundreds of miles to New Mexico. And the beauty of this area is so breathtaking.

Every time I think of my home, I always think, oh, ow, you know, I live in a real special place. So I'm gonna teach you one word. Are you ready? I'm gonna say it in three parts, okay? So here we go.

Ni-zho-ni Ready? Ni-zho-ni. Beautiful.

You beautiful people. That means beautiful. So anytime you see something or I see something, or when I say a prayer, it's always beautiful.

Nizhoni. Then at the end of our prayers, that's another thing. We always say it four times (speaks in Navajo).

Because, and there's four directions and there's four different sacred mountains. So that when we end our prayer, that's how we say it. I think that's why, and my language is really beautiful.

So just a few stories about how we grew up here. We were left alone a lot. So we'd go and we'd hike into these canyons here.

The little Colorado River Gorge. We didn't really, it was part of us, I think. So there's air pockets in those canyon, sheer cliffs, there's air pockets in them.

So our crazy brothers would say, okay, let's go. So we'd go in those air pockets and we'd go on our hands and knees and we'd follow each other all the way to where it ended. And then we'd slowly turn around and we'd go all the way back out again.

I don't know why, but we did. But we didn't feel any, we weren't scared. We were part of that land.

And just like with the moonlight and our grandparents would say, go get the sheep. We knew where to go, even though we weren't there like every single day. We'd go down and listen for the bells and anything that was wild, mountain lion, coyote, anything, didn't really bother us.

Snakes, because you were part of that land. So, and the other thing is, we were never to play in the water, respect the water. So when there was a monsoon, it was coming close to our home, we would stop everything.

We would just sit down, cross-legged or whatever, irreverently, and we'd sit there and wait for the rain to come through. And then we would meditate. We were told to do that.

So we'd just sit there and we'd watch, we'd just listen to the rain until it went through. Then we were told, yeah, now you can go out. So that's how we respect the thunderstorm.

We also respect the eclipse. So all Navajos don't do anything during the eclipse because it's the changing of our mother earth and our skies, our moon, and our sun. So before an eclipse, we would just get ready, get our food ready, drink our water, and just close off all the light in our home.

And we'd just sit still through the whole eclipse and we would pray. And then after the eclipse, we would, you know, bless ourself and then we'd say thank you or our thank you prayer. And then we would sit down and have our meal on the floor.

So a lot of our meals were on the floor. But I would like to express that, how we respect the eclipse, how we respect the moisture, the thunderstorm, and snow. Anything that brought us life is what we respected.

And that's just a few things. And then later on, as I grew up, we were told to go to the boarding school. That was a thing that we had to do because there was no other school.

So the government would come around and pick up all of us, all our little ones. And even though our parents didn't want us to go, we were forced to go. So we'd go to the Tuba City Boarding School.

Tuba City Boarding School, I think is like 200 years old. So our grandparents, our mothers have gone there. It was a sad moment in my life.

It was a scary moment in my life. There's just a couple stories that I remember. When a little kid, you know, you all have homes, you have beautiful homes, probably nice bedrooms.

And here you would go into this long hall. And each of those halls had beds. Like four people would sit and have a bunk bed in this long building.

So what they would do is they would check you out, make sure you're okay. And then the Navajos believe if you have real long hair, you bring moisture. So what they would do to the little girls is they would chop off all their hair because they didn't want to tend to our hair.

So they would chop it all off. It's easy for them to just comb it out. That was one.

The other thing that I mostly hated was we couldn't speak our language, no matter how old we were. We had to speak English. If we didn't speak English, we'd get punished.

And being punished was harsh. Other thing was they would have a fire alarm. Didn't matter what time of the night.

And us little kids didn't know any better. But they always try to tell you, keep your shoes here. Keep your fire blanket right here.

The army blanket. And somewhere along the night, the fire alarm would be the loudest thing, like a big, huge alarm you would hear in your neighborhood. And we'd jump out of bed and some of these little ones, we would forget our shoes.

And sometimes in the wintertime, it didn't matter. You had to get out to the basketball court with no shoes. Or you would step on bullheads, we call it.

Those goat heads, people call it. So we'd get out. Some of us forgot our blankets.

And sometimes during the wintertime, there's ice, there's snow. So we had to get out to that basketball court and stand in line until the doormate came and counted each of us. And then we would go back in.

But it was a harsh lesson to learn because we were just little kids. We were just like six-year-olds, five-year-olds. So I just wanted, that's some of the bad things about the boarding school.

You were there, your parents couldn't come pick you up. You were there like months at a time. And the best thing that ever happened to me was my grandfather.

He would come every two weeks. And he would come and he would be sitting at the dorm waiting for us and flirting with all the doormates. So he was a kind man.

So he was the one that kind of brightened our day or our week when he did bring us back. And then we'd end up down here, down below here. In the wintertime, we'd stay with him down below during vacations.

And I was telling my friend here that during that time, it was a real good time because our grandparents would kind of cherish us. And they would take the extra time, which is just part of their daily life. And that's how a lot of the kids grew up here is we lived in a hogan, a round structure called a hogan, ho-one.

It had that door to the east. We lived in this one room with our grandparents and we slept on the floor, sheepskins. So we'd fix our sheepskins and we'd lay them out every night and we'd sleep on it.

The only person that slept on the bed was my grandma. But other than that, they would say, you have to sleep on your sheepskin right or else if you have it during, you know, your head going this way, it's gonna run off with you at night. So we always had to be really careful and we'd lay it so its butt was towards the door.

So during the wintertime, we'd spend that time with her. She would go out like at least every two hours because it was during the lambing season and the kids were, the kids, the goats, the little ones were being born. She'd go out to the corral and she'd check them every once in a while.

And when one was of the lambs or the sheep were having their babies, she'd bring the sheep in. It's like a manger inside this hogan. So we'd have a couple of sheep here, maybe a goat here with all their little babies right at the door.

And you'd just hear them, but that, you know, we never, it didn't really bother us that much. In the wintertime, she would go out there and she'd milk the goats and she'd bring it in and she'd put it in a coffee can and she'd have it come to boil. And then she'd add a little bit of flour and whatever else you put in there.

And that was our milk pudding. And we'd have it with wild tea. You have a lot of wild tea here.

It has a reddish, rusty color. It's really yummy to drink. So that was my life when I was like maybe six or seven.

So to tend to the sheep, she would take a gunny sack and wrap it around our moccasins or whatever shoes we had. And it'd go all the way to the top here. And we were just little kids, six or seven years old.

And she'd go, go tend the sheep. So when we'd come back after a while, she'd go and dig inside her, all her stuff. And she'd bring out an orange or an apple that has been sitting there for at least since Christmas.

And she'd sit there and she'd peel it. And there's maybe four of us. And we each get so many slices.

Even with soda, she'd get maybe one can. And she'd take her little cups and she'd pour us a soda. So we didn't have very much.

But it was a blessing to be with them. It didn't mean very much to us at the time as long as we ate. So, yeah.

Visitor: Who ran the boarding school?

Marian: The Bureau of Indian Affairs. Government. That is still, the boarding school is still going now.

But now they have the kids where the abuse is gone and all that is gone. And now they have kids that they can go home when they want. They have to go home. They don't stay there anymore.

Ranger Dawn: So kind of going back to your family, I think it's really special that you get to work with your sister. And I was just wondering if you would touch on the impact she made on you and what you've learned from her.

Marian: Yeah. I do work with my sister. She keeps me in line. This is actually the first time I ever worked with one of my family members. And I love it. Actually, my sister is actually the second mom to the family.

Back then when we were small, there was no pampers. There was nothing like that out here. So I remember my mom, she goes, I had to take your diapers down to the rocks when it rained. Like that. When it rained, there was water in the catches of the rocks. The big air pockets in there.

And that's where she'd take, she'd put all her clothes on a donkey and she'd go down into the canyon and find those water catches. And that's where she'd wash her clothes. And my sister would be home taking care of us.

And she would be the main one to cook us all our meals. And she kind of kept us in line. So through that, with my sister and my brothers, when our parents are out gathering, we would pick a place like this and we'd make like a little corral, my parents would.

And they would put a fire in the middle. So at times, my sisters and my older brothers would be the ones to take care of us. Nothing ever took us.

We're still here. There was no Bigfoot, there was no bear, there's no mountain lion, nothing. We were just there, little kids playing in that little corral.

Until this day, my sister, she would be like, how do we survive that? But she was a big help to my family. She would make sure that we're in our cradleboards at certain times of the day. We all grew up in our cradleboards, so we have a cradleboard head.

But I knew my lesson, so when I made cradleboards for my grandkids, I made sure I put a foam in there with the holes in it so my grandkids don't have cradleboard heads. But my sister does play a big, important part. Her name is Caroline.

She's the oldest of six of us girls. And I have four brothers. And we have other brothers and sisters that have passed on.

But they all, my parents, my grandparents, my grandpa, my grandma, they play the role of who I am. Plus, my foster family, people that I've met. I still have a lot of kids.

I have adopted a lot of kids. So they would call me Mama, or I'd be walking down the aisle, and they'd say, Mom! Oh, yes, who was that one? So that all goes back to being brought up by my mom and my sister. Yeah.

Visitor: Sorry to ask, but what kind of time frame are we looking at? I mean, I hear stories from my parents, grandparents. I get stories to tell my kids in the 70s, 80s. Marian: So the time frame, I was born in 1962. Visitor: Oh, so you're a youngster.

Marian: Yeah, I'm young. Thank you.

1962, my mom hitchhiked to the hospital, had me, brought me back. So all her kids, she'd hitchhike from here all the way to Tuba and have her kids. And then she would catch the Simway back to her kids over here.

So those are the kind of things. So in 1962, I was born. And about 65, somewhere, 68, we went to 67 or so, I went to placement program.

But in that teen kindergarten preschool, I was in the boarding school. And then I came back in 1970-something for one year at the boarding school. And the rest of the time, I spent in Southern California, Fallbrook, San Diego area.

And then in the summer, I would come back and spend it with my grandparents, do the things we're supposed to do, herd sheep, just be there to help them out and just be at home. And we had to relearn. We had to relearn our language, because through the whole year, we weren't speaking Navajo.

So that sometimes, my tongue gets twisted. That's what you want to say. When I'm saying a word, I don't finish it.

Or sometimes, my thoughts go off to being something else. So at times, yes. So and then in 1980, I graduated here.

I came back and I graduated at the Tuba City High School. That's a Bureau of Indian Affairs high school. In California, you go outside of your classes and go to the next class.

Here, it is so beautiful. The rugs are all out. And then you just stay inside the building and go to your classes.

I was at awe at that. Any more questions?

Ranger Dawn: I have one last question. I just wanted to know, thank you for sharing all your story with us. But what is one thing you want the audience to take away from our talk today?

Marian: I think even in the 60s and the 70s out here, you would think, wow, I lived this life in the city, in a big city. But back here, on the Navajo Nation, and mostly other nations, everywhere, other native reservations, it's hardship. But I think that, let's put it this way.

When you look at us, what do you see? What do you see when you come to our Navajo Nation? OK, peace, beauty. What do you see when you drive through our Navajo Nation? Wilderness. So my sister there, really quick, it took, what, 20 years? 10 years, 15 years to get your electricity? Because of the red tape of the government, working with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

So I just want you to go from here, thinking that it is beautiful. We love it. It's a struggle.

Nowadays, for the young adults to actually go from their home to even here at times. I had a struggle. Because I left Page, and I got here, and my boss is sitting right there.

So she goes, OK, I'll hire you. But the only thing that was wrong is, where I actually have a home, I have no electricity. I have no running water.

So they were more than fortunate enough to give me a little apartment to stay in. So when you think about all those young adults wanting to get out, that would be their main problem, is to get out to find something that could make them live and get out of the poverty, out of welfare. So I think I want you to leave from here the reality of the Navajo Nation.

It is beautiful. My tradition's beautiful. I get up every morning, and I say my prayers to the sun, the moon, the air that I breathe.

Thankful every day, Mother Earth that I live on. My changing woman, my white shell woman, and also my corn pollen, my white corn grain. So those are the things that I pray to all of here.

Every morning, it's a thankful prayer. So I guess I think that it is, we are struggling, but we're proud people. Thank you again for listening to me.

Ranger Jonah: Grand Canyon Speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy. A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music.

This recording reflects the personal lived experiences of tribal members and do not encompass the views of their tribal nation or that of the National Park. To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices, visit www.nps.gov/GRCA. Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon.

These being the Havasupai tribe, the Hualapai tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute tribe.

In this episode, Ranger Dawn got to talk with Marian Manyturquoise who is a Diné employee of Grand Canyon Conservancy at the Desert View Watchtower. She tells stories of her life growing up at the canyon, her childhood at boarding school, and the importance of respecting everything around you.

Episode 10

Don Decker Speaks

Transcript

Don Decker Speaks Transcript

[Don Decker] That's how we conquered our language deficiency that we had. A lot of people were losing our language. And we're teaching our kids how to speak their own language today.

We continue that. And that's my job as an elder, as an 80-year-old elder, you know. And so there were many of us that got together and worked on this dictionary. And the dictionary was completed with a cooperative venture with a university in Indiana.

[Meranden] Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Grand Canyon Speaks. My name is Miranda.

[Lakin] And this is Lakin.

[Meranden] In this episode, Ranger Dan got to speak with Don Decker, who is a member of the Yavapai Apache Nation and is an artist from our cultural demonstration program.

[Lakin] Yes, he also spoke about the origin story for the Apache people, why Yavapai and Apache share a reservation, and explained the importance of keeping indigenous languages alive.

[Meranden] We are very excited for you to hear Don's story. And as always, thank you for tuning in to Grand Canyon Speaks.

[Lakin] Here is Don Decker.

[Ranger Dan] So without further ado, I would like to pass the mic here that's already in his hand to Don. And take it away.

[Don Decker] Oh, that's some Indian bingo. Thank you very much. Under the B, B9. You know, first of all, thank you for the introduction, Dan. I want to thank all the National Park Service people that are hosting me today. I had a wonderful day being inside of that building.

I got here this morning, and when I was coming in from Flagstaff, I came in from the east side of the park, and I was looking for this turnoff, but somehow I missed it. So I ended up over downtown Grand Canyon over there this morning, about 25 miles over there. So I made a turnaround and got here, and I was late about 20 minutes.

That's pretty good, huh? I didn't even speed getting back over here. But anyway, I was inside.

There demonstrating Apache crafts, making tiny little bags that hang around your neck. And so I was beading those things, and special stones on them, too, also, as well. And so I got a chance to meet people from all over the world, and that's one good thing about working in Grand Canyon.

It seemed like I met people from all over the world. It's incredible.

Who's farthest away from Grand Canyon?

Raise your hand if you think you're the farthest away. Norway, yes. French. Netherlands. And you're down there by Germany, yeah. Well, nice having everyone here together.

And we are one people, aren't we? We got the same kind of blood, right? The same eyes, the same everything.

One thing that we do have that's really, really, for sure, it's all the same is the heart, huh? It's incredible, huh? How we are able to have the same heart and then be able to function in this world, that's an incredible piece of machinery inside of our chest that allows us to be here, to be thankful, to look at this wonder of the world, Grand Canyon.

The word grand is something, isn't it? Like Grand Central Station, you know, the grand drawing, the grandma, you know, the grandpa, tops, right? Grand Canyon rates right up there, and this is a special place for the people here.

For the people of this area here, there's tribes that are involved with the upkeep of the Grand Canyon in terms of the signage, the new signage that has come in down toward the bottom of the canyon where there used to be a place called Indian Gardens, and they changed it, the Havasupai people changed it, and they changed it to Havasupai Gardens, and that was just done under the group that I was working with this past year, so I'm really proud to be able to work with the management of the Grand Canyon intertribal group that I've been involved with for about a year. I kind of joined late because the group's been in existence for how many years?

[Ranger Dan] It's been around for now 11 years.

[Don Decker] 11 years, and when I go to these meetings, they're very highly organized meetings, and they have an agenda, and they stick to it, and they know exactly what they're doing, what they're doing with the park, and Michael Lyndon, who was the director for about 3 or 4 years, right?

[Ranger Dan] Yeah, he ran our tribal affairs department at the park for a number of years.

[Don Decker] Yes, and they moved to Washington, D.C. He just got a new position there with the National Park Service, and he's there now, but I want to also thank him for allowing me to participate. I'm going to talk a little bit about Apache, okay? And when we think about Apache, you know, we always think about movies, Hollywood movies, right? And so we see a lot of movies that we've seen as we were growing up, you know. Apache's raiding little wagon trains, you know. Apache's doing this and starting fires and basically causing a lot of havoc, you know, in movies, you know.

But Hollywood got us really, they got us all wrong, you know. And we're peaceful, loving people. And so I'm saying, so I'm trying to correct some of the stereotypes of movies that are made in Hollywood.

They've changed all of that now. I saw the movie Little Big Man back in 1972. I saw it in Fort Wayne, Indiana one night in an old theater when it premiered.

But that was the best movie that I'd ever seen that was made about Native American indigenous people, you know. And so a lot of the corrections being going on right now with the recent movie and TV series that have been coming forth now in production. So I'm glad about that as well too.

The Apache group that I belong to, they're located about two and a half hours south of here on the way to Phoenix. There's a small little town called Camp Verde. And that is the traditional lands of the Apache people and the Yavapai.

The Yavapai people and the Apache people live on the same reservation. But the Yavapai people speak a different language. They have a different culture.

But we share the same reservations. Matter of fact, we have a lot of intermarriage with one another. There's 2,200 of us that live on the reservation.

And we've been there since time immemorial, all the way back to the 14th century, 13th century in the area, as early as the documentation that was made by Spanish explorers that came to the area around 1604. They saw Apaches in the area, and it was noted by a Catholic priest who wrote a book and was recorded. And so that is the basis of history that we look at when we look at the paperwork that's been done to show that the Apaches were in the area around the 16th century.

But the traditional Apache people say that, we've always been here, they say that. The old people, when you talk to them, you know, they say, what are you talking about? What are you talking about, 1600? What are you telling those people up there in Grand Canyon? You know, I could just hear that. But the traditional people will say, we've always been here.

And so the studies have been made. You know, our language goes all the way up to northern Canada, and then some of the people in northern California speak a, not Apache, but Athabascan, it's called Athabascan people, and we are part of the Athabascan people. And so a lot of the history is told about migration, but the migration is really from the point of view of archaeologists and anthropologists. So when the traditional Apaches talk about their own traditions and their migration, they always talk about it coming from here, from this area here. So when the Apaches talk about how did we come into this world, well, we talk about a place near Sedona where there's a place called Boynton Canyon where the Apaches celebrate, each year in February, the forthcoming, the entering of the Apache into the world as we know it today. And that leads me into the next portion of my talk about spirituality of the Apache people.

And the Apache medicine men talk about the time when time began. This was when the universe was completely dark, and they could see a small light, smaller than the head of a match, and it was lit, and that was the supreme being. The Apaches prayed to a supreme being called Usen, U-S-E-N, and he is a creator that made all the world.

And he talks about the light that began when it lit up the whole universe, and the sun is what they're talking about over here. That sun that we have here that we depend on so much, and it's so important to have the sun. And when the universe lit up, the Apache world came into the world.

I'm not going to tell you the whole story because it would take about 4 hours. We'll still be sitting here about 11 o'clock tonight, but I'm skipping ahead real fast forward here. It talks about the beginning of the world, and at the very beginning there were holy spirits. There were mountain spirit dancers that were dancing, and they are special deities that come from the creator source coming into the world and showing the people how to live. And there was a great flood, kind of like a Bible story, you know, but it's similar to it, and it talks about a great flood, the second coming, because there was a lot of corruption going on. And when the Apaches came back into the new world, it was led by the female, and they carried a shell from the ocean filled with water somewhere in San Diego somewhere back, but this was a long time ago.

And it talks about the beginning of the Apache world, and that is how the spiritual teachings are taught among Apache. That's what keeps the communities going based on that information of traditional upbringing and teachings of coming into the world. It's a very sacred story.

I can't tell you all of the story because, first of all, I'm not a medicine man, number one, okay, so I don't pretend to be a medicine man up here. I'm one of the spiritual leaders for our community, and so I wanted to share that with you. So around 1875, down in Canberra, there was an altercation between the Apaches and the U.S. Calvary. There was a lot of warfare going on, and it's hard to believe. Well, there was a civil war here. There was a war in America, too, a long time ago.

So there was a war going on between the Apaches and the Calvary. It was about land, and the Apaches were rounded up in 1875 in February and were marched off to a place in eastern Arizona where they were interned for about 25 years because the expansion of the western United States, the Apaches were in the way. And so the Yavapais were part of that roundup, and they were marched over there in what was basically a prison, but it was really just a camp, a military camp.

And at the turn of the century, 1900, we were released, and we came back to our lands over to Camp Verde. And when we got there, there were ranches everywhere. Somebody had squatted on our lands, and the land was taken.

And this is important to know because it's part of history. That's all it is. I'm not trying to make a point here or a bad point, make you feel bad or anything like that, but it's just history is what I want to share with you.

And to this day, our people survived, you know, and we have 2,200 people living on our reservation. Some people live in Schenectady. Some people live in California, different states, and so forth.

But there's about 1,100 people that live on the reservation in Camp Verde today. We have a casino. The casino is the largest employer of the area.

We employ over 500 people from the community there that have jobs that are employed by the Yavapai Apache Nation. So we contribute economically to the community that way. So I wanted to tell you a little bit about the language, the Apache language.

The Apache language is one of the hardest languages to learn. It's so hard because a lot of people try to pronounce it. It's like learning French.

Oh, French would be a hard language to learn because it's hard to pronounce French words. You know that, right, everybody? Have you tried to pronounce a French word?

It's very hard. You know what I mean? Si vous plaît, vous le savez. You know, whatever, whatever, whatever you say. So Apache is the same way. So I'm going to call one of the audience members here. Do I have a volunteer? Let's have 2 volunteers, okay? Come on up here real quick.

I want to teach you a little bit of Apache. Okay, come on up here. Say, (Speaks Apache)

[Ranger Dan] (Speaks Apache).

[Don Decker] That means, how are you?

I'll say, (speaks Apache). Yeah, it means, okay.

That sounds like French, doesn't it? (Speaks Apache) Yeah, so it's natural for you, right?

So I walk up to you and say, hey, (Speaks Apache)

[Ranger Dan] (Repeats)

[Don Decker] (Speaks Apache) I say, (Speaks Apache) I say, (Speaks Apache)

[Ranger Dan] (Speaks Apache)

[Don Decker] (Speaks Apache)

[Ranger Dan] (Speaks Apache)

[Don Decker] Yeah. Say, (Speaks Apache)

[Ranger Dan] (Speaks Apache)

[Don Decker] Where are you going? He said. (Speaks Apache) Say, (Speaks Apache)

[Ranger Dan] (Speaks Apache)

[Don Decker] (Speaks Apache) I'm going over there. That's what I told him. I said, I'll say, (Speaks Apache)

[Ranger Dan] You got to say that one again, Don.

[Don Decker] (Speaks Apache) Don.

[Ranger Dan] Don.

[Don Decker] That's my name.

[Ranger Dan] Yeah.

[Don Decker] Yeah, okay. So the language can be, the language is a very complicated language.

Apache is a very complicated language. And so we have a language program on our reservation. And I want you to write this down if you can.

It's, if you look on the internet, if you type in D-I-L-Z-H-E apostrophe E Apache Dictionary App, you'll find our dictionary on there. You can type in any word that you want, and the words will come up, and it'll teach you Apache. And that's how we conquered our language deficiency that we had.

A lot of people were losing our language. And we're teaching our kids how to speak their own language today. We continue that. And that's my job as an elder, as an 80-year-old elder, you know. And so there were many of us that got together and worked on this dictionary. And the dictionary was completed with a cooperative venture with a university in Indiana.

So it's called the Dilzhe'e Apache Dictionary App. That's the name of it. D-I-L-Z-H-E apostrophe E Dilzhe'e Apache Dictionary.

You can find it. If you type it in, it'll show up. And it's like an orange-covered book in there.

And you can learn Apache that way too. So everyone should speak their own different second language, you know. Like the foreign people that come here, they speak pretty good English, you know. And that's pretty good to hear a French person come talk English to us. So why don't you learn Apache so that you can talk to me in my own language? Geography is very important, okay.

In our group, a lot of the names that were, all these booths out here have names. They were named after Hualapai people. The Hualapai that live west of us.

And the Havasupai people. The Havasupai people live inside the canyon. Did you know that there's indigenous people living inside the canyon?

Did you know that? There's indigenous people living inside the canyon down the river. About 60 miles, huh? I've been down there. It's really beautiful. They got blue water coming down the cliffs.

Got some nice swimming holes over there. It's really beautiful. And this is part of their land.

And I honor them because I've never lived here, but they lived here inside the canyon. The Hualapai people live up on top of the cliff, like right in this area. If you go straight down here, you'll see them on top, the Hualapai people.

There's a lot of indigenous people that are tied to this area. I talked about this already earlier. So when we talk about geography, geography has a meaning for all of us, right?

When we think about Yosemite Park, when we think about Zion National Park, and we talk about different locations like Niagara Falls, what do we think about Niagara Falls when we think about it? What is that? What is Niagara Falls?

It's water running down, right, cascading down. Well, that's how the Apaches are. When they name mountains, like there's a mountain not too far from where I live.

There's a mountain there called Porcupine Mountain. That's the name of it. That's where our clan lives underneath that mountain. There's a family that used to live there a long time ago. Way, way, way, I'm talking about back in the 1860s, 1870s, the family that lived underneath Porcupine Mountain. That's the name of that mountain because of them.

They named that mountain because of that clan. There's Tsechi, the people from the Red Rock. There's people from Sedona. You ever heard of Sedona? There's a clan that lives there called Tsechi. They used to live there a long time ago, the clan from there. There's another group, the one that I belong to, called Tserutlish, Blue Water. That's Fossil Creek where there's a special water that comes on. It's very, very blue.

It's very pure. You can even drink it as it's coming out of the spring because it's that pure. So all these geographical areas where Apache used to live, they're named after the clans.

So some cities are named after people, aren't they, or families. Another thing that's really important from my perspective because I've always, I grew up with my grandparents. They were very poor people.

I grew up, I'm 80 years old, so I was born in 1944. That was during the war, World War II. So I came to live with my Apache grandparents on the reservation.

One of my mother brought me to the reservation and said, you're going to live with your grandparents. Now I was 2 years old. I don't remember the day that happened, but I lived with them for 14 years. I learned how to speak Apache. I learned to listen to their stories. We lived in a one-room house shack with a kerosene lantern.

We had a wood stove. I was very poor. There was no food to eat sometimes, and it was a struggle.

And that's how life and how tough it was growing up on the reservation. And there wasn't much for me to do except to go to school, which is something that I'm really proud of because I have two college degrees now. I was very lucky to get that. And so I use this education to better my people, to talk to them, and

I'm involved with the culture department with our Yavapai Apache Nation. They called me up and they said, Don, we need a blessing for a new bridge that's coming in, Sedona. Can you go up there? And the head of the Apache culture department, the late Vincent Randall, God bless his soul, he left us about last year, and he is one of the lead speakers at the beginning of a new film.

[Ranger Dan] We Are the Canyon, yeah. So it's a new tribal film inside the park. So every national park, every place you go to has its own film. We have two, one for the overview of the park and now a second for all the tribes that call the canyon home. And Vincent is the first voice that you hear and see in that movie. So I hope you get a chance to go see it because his words are extremely powerful in the opening portion of that film.

[Don Decker] You can see it on YouTube also, right?

[Ranger Dan] Oh yeah, yeah, you can see it on YouTube and you can also see it on the park website.

[Don Decker] What's the name of it?

[Ranger Dan] We Are Grand Canyon.

[Don Decker] We Are Grand Canyon. Would you take a look at that video? It's a beautiful video and it's being shown at the theater over here too. You can schedule yourself and see that. The main thing is to be advocating for the disenfranchised people, you know, and there's a lot of tension going on around the canyon right now. There's a uranium mine that's opening up south of the canyon over here and they're really afraid that some of the uranium water is going to get loose and it's called brachia.

It's a rock formation. They're afraid that some of that refining and digging of uranium using water is going to get in the rock formation and go down to where the Havasupai live down the canyon because that's where the water source is coming from. They're really afraid of that.

So there's a lot of controversy. It's controversial. I promise not to talk anything about controversy, but I wanted to mention that, okay, Daniel?

Because these are the things that are affecting us. We need to advocate for indigenous people, you know, for protection. And it's for all of us too, you know.

We're going through climate change too. So a lot of people say, well, we don't have climate change, you know, but I think it's happening. So we need to be advocating for ourselves really to take care of our own families, our own lives too, and need to bring about a public awareness and look at the issues and find out what the issues are and inform yourself.

You know, a well-informed public, they can advocate and vote the way you should vote, which is to be an advocate for good life, clean life, safe life. These are the things that are important to us, not only for Apaches, but for everyone in the world. It's educating ourselves and looking at the issues and being well-informed.

Those are the things that are important to us. If you ever come to the Yavapai Apache Nation, it's on I-17 between Flagstaff and Phoenix, and you can't miss it because there's a turnoff and there's a sign that says Yavapai Apache Nation. You can take a tour of that area if you're local.

You can also look it up on the Internet, and you can read a little bit about the Yavapai people and the Apache people. We're all one and the same over there. Okay, now, are there any questions that you might have?

[Visitor #1] Yes, go ahead. Sedona, yeah, so we happen to, that was where we stayed for two days before we drove down here, and we did a tour, and we got to know why it was named Sedona. So are they Apache tribe also?

[Don Decker] They're non-Apaches that named the city after a family name, Sedona. But that's where the Apaches lay claim to a lot of the geography, geographical locations that I was talking about, families and different clans that live in the area. Saochi, that's the name of it. There's a place over there called Bell Rock. Have you ever heard of that, Bell Rock? Yeah, we're there.

Yeah, you were there. There's a butte right next to it, Bell Rock. It's called Courthouse Butte.

You saw that, didn't you? Well, Courthouse Butte is an Apache's call. (Speaks Apache)

(Speaks Apache) means eagle sits on top. That's what that means. And some Apaches used to live below that mountain, that little butte there.

That's why they call it (Speaks Apache). So people say, where are you from? Hey, (Speaks Apache), you know.

Hey, I come from Beagle Butte, you know what I mean? That's how the Apache would talk to one another. So remember when I talked about geography, geographical names, that's how Apaches name, that's how that works.

So any other questions? Daniel, you want to cover anything else?

[Ranger Dan] I think we got it here, Don. This has been wonderful. And with the words of Don tonight, I want to thank you, Don, for coming here.

[Don Decker] Thank you, Daniel.

[Ranger Dan] And if you want to meet him in person and see him, he'll be down in the watchtower.

[Ranger Jonah] Grand Canyon Speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy. A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music. This recording reflects the personal, lived experiences of Tribal members and do not encompass the views of their Tribal Nation or that of the National Park.

To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices, visit www.nps.gov/grca. Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated Tribes of the Grand Canyon. These being the Havasupai Tribe, the Hualapai Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

In this episode, Don Decker, an elder of the Yavapai-Apache Nation. shares stories about his Apache culture, and the Indigenous names of different landmarks in the region, and how his tribe is working to keep their language alive.

Episode 11

Art Batala Speaks

Transcript

Art Batala Speaks

Art Batala: I think it's very important that everyone knows that we have a strong connection to the Grand Canyon and Grand Canyon is very important to our soul.

Lakin: Hello everyone, welcome back to Grand Canyon Speaks. This is Lakin

Meranden: and this is Meranden.

Meranden: In this episode, we'd like to introduce you all to Art Batala, who is a Hopi jeweler with over 50 years of experience.

Meranden: He describes his journey as an apprentice serving 10 years in the Marine Corps and attending Western New Mexico University shortly after.

Lakin: Art also explains the cultural significance of designs in Hopi Jewelry as well as the importance of sustaining traditional knowledge.

Meranden: Thank you for checking out this episode and we hope you enjoy.

Art Batala: Thank you very much for being here. As stated earlier, I am Art Batala. I'm from the Hopi tribe, which is just about 100 miles west of here. I was born and raised there and as I told the gentleman here a little earlier, that I'm probably the last generation that speak my language fluently. That's unfortunate, but it is how it is today. I've learned how to create jewelry.

Art Batala: I actually don't like the term silversmith. I like to use a jeweler because it is jewelry that I do. What I said earlier about myself, I've learned how to create jewelry as soon as I graduated from high school, which was in 1973. In 1974, I learned about this apprenticeship program out on the Hopi that was put on by, most of them were World War II veterans. They've learned how to create their style of jewelry soon after the war. I learned that they needed a way of bringing in income to support their families.

Art Batala: This was a way that they found was quite meaningful to them. They started creating jewelry and later on, they came up with the idea of teaching the younger generation on how to make this jewelry. That's where this apprenticeship program came to be. I learned about it soon after I graduated from high school. I took advantage of it. I began creating the jewelry.

Art Batala: Of course, we had to learn the process first. In learning the process, our teachers made us cut different jewelry out of brass because brass is very hard to cut. It got us used to how to handle the jeweler's saw. That was pretty much the idea behind that. Once our cutting was satisfied, they were satisfied with our cutting, then we graduated to copper. Of course, copper is very soft.

Art Batala: We made the jewelry out of copper. This place where the apprenticeship program was, whatever jewelry we made out of brass and copper, they sold it to the public. That's how the program funded itself. Anyway, I've been doing jewelry ever since then. I went into the military soon after. I spent 10 years in the Marine Corps.

Art Batala: During that time, I still did my best to keep doing jewelry. After my time in the Marine Corps ended, I left and decided to go back to school. I entered college, Western New Mexico University in Silver City, New Mexico. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in business administration. I've been doing administrative management since then. During the meantime, I still did my jewelry just to stay on top of it.

Art Batala: They told me that it's like learning how to ride a bike, but sometimes it gets difficult. Don't believe that. Making jewelry is pretty difficult. It requires a lot of patience. In my view, it requires being in tune with who you are. When you see my jewelry, my jewelry, the designs come from nature itself.

Art Batala: We use the cloud symbols a lot and the water waves. Although there's no ocean, as you can see around here, this part of the world, and you ask, why the water wave? Because generally, water waves represent oceans. When it rains out on the reservation, we see trickles of water going down a little stream, and you could see the little water waves. That's where the water waves come from. We just enhance it a little bit more to make the complete circle.

Art Batala: That's where the water waves come from. As far as other design that I do, like I said, it comes from my upbringing, my cultural upbringing, and my traditional upbringing. As we boys, as we grow up, we are initiated into the various societies as we're growing up in Hopi. And so, having gone through that, I've learned all there is, not all there is, but I learned a lot of insight into my religion and what it encompasses. My designs come from that aspect too because of the water waves and the prayer feathers that I do. A lot of my designs have prayer feathers.

Art Batala: That's where my creation of jewelry comes from. A lot of it's traditional, religious, and just basically cultural upbringing. We make mesas on a bracelet. We make the mesas. A lot of it comes from our way of life. That's how we grew up.

Art Batala: Finding out about this Native [American] demonstrations here was back in 2017, I believe it was, when I first came here. I saw the young lady in the back at that time. I met her, a ranger. So, you know, it's been a good experience for me here. I appreciate the National Park Service in acknowledging all the Natives who have connections to the Grand Canyon. So, I really do appreciate that. So, that's me in general and where I came from and where I am today.

Ranger Lizzy: Thank you, Art. That's fantastic, honestly. And I know you're wearing a piece of your jewelry now. Can you describe it for our audience here?

Art Batala: This piece of jewelry represents the corn. I'll pass it around or you can pass it around. Thank you. Anyway, most often times when I do corn, corn is the primary staple of my tribe. We plant corn. You know, we've got the blue, the white corn, the yellow corn, as well as other Natives. You know, they also plant a lot of corn. So, that's where the corn comes from, the symbol. And in here, I've also put these feathers. They represent feathers from an eagle, the eagle's tail feathers. And up here also. And off to the side, you see the black triangular shapes. They represent what you see now, dark clouds. That's what it represents. And I love doing corn because my father was of the corn clan.

Art Batala: In my tribe, we belong to different clans. I'm Coyote. I'm a Coyote clan because my mother was a Coyote clan. But my father was a corn clan. So, I love to do a lot of corn and pay tribute to my father, my late father. So, and the tips here, usually we put tips on bolos as weights. So, it'll hold the cord down. And I completely make everything on here myself. This is all sterling silver.

Art Batala: If you want to take another look at it, it'll be here. So, and also, I want to show another piece of jewelry. Where is my assistant? Maybe perhaps you can show. That is a lot of people refer to it as a cuff. I always refer to it as a bracelet.

Art Batala: So, that bracelet itself, you know, came from my area. This site with the designs, there's a lot of petroglyphs around our area. So, I visit some of these petroglyphs, you know, at various times. And that particular petroglyph is on the walls. And it represents a blanket. It's called the blanket design. So, that's the first time I ever came up with that design. The sides, they represent, also represent the black clouds.

Art Batala: And the lines down, coming down, represents the horizons. So, and the sun in the middle here is raised up a portion from the main bracelet itself, which is pretty hard to do, you know, when you're making this. You know, most of the time, when you're doing something like that, you put too much heat on it and the inside of it starts to, you know, melt. So, yeah, it's a tedious work. But, you know, after years of experience, it's possible, as you can see.

Ranger Lizzy: Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing. And, you know, you talk a lot about how your culture and your family and your upbringing really has influenced your designs. Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with your father and how he has been an influence in your life?

Art Batala: My father was a very hard worker, in my opinion. He had a full-time job. He was a heavy equipment operator with the Arizona Department of Transportation. And he worked for 40 some odd years before retiring. And all of it was with ADOT. He said he took over my grandfather's job. At that time, I guess, you don't have to apply and wait for years to get into it. But his father, my grandfather, taught him how to operate. At the time, it was the old cable-operated heavy equipment. So that must have been very difficult. As opposed to now, everything is automatic. But anyway, my father did that year in and year out.

Art Batala: And during the wintertime, although we don't get very much snow, sometimes we do get a lot of snow. And my father was always on the road making sure the public was safe. You know, anybody that ran off into a ditch, you know, he would be helping them in the middle of the night or three o'clock in the morning. And during the times when our religion calls, you know, my father would, after a full night's work, he would come home and go straight to the kiva to do his responsibilities as a man that had gotten initiated into society. So, you know, doing that all those 40 years that he was employed is amazing.

Art Batala: You know, he also planted corn. Like I told you earlier, everyone plants corn. And during the day, he would go down there where he's not working, especially on weekends. That's where he would be all day in the hot sun. But he was a man that was dedicated to family. I had four other siblings, all of them older. I'm the youngest of the family. And we lost a brother some time ago, years ago. So now, unfortunately, I lost my oldest sister not too long ago.

Art Batala: But, you know, my father was a man who looked to ensure that we are eating, you know, we are going to school, we are learning what we can learn to eventually feed ourselves, you know, so to speak. And so, you know, my dad was a man's man in my terms. He worked hard for a living and he made sure we all had a roof over our heads. And also he was true to his religion. So that's my dad. That's why I admire him. And I looked up to him and, of course, missed him when he was gone.

Ranger Lizzy: Yeah, I think, you know, you hear so much when you talk about your father, you hear how he's really committed to his family and his community. And when we were talking, I could see that from you as well. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your commitment to your community and your relationship with your community and the next generation as well.

Art Batala: And I stated earlier that as a man or as a male, we grow up getting initiated into different societies. And these societies, you know, require a lot of personal commitments. And so I've done my part of that in my growing up years. I've gotten into some initiated into some societies that I that I enjoyed doing. But when you get to being my age, you know, you find out that your stamina isn't quite there. And in performing our responsibilities to these societies, you know, you have to be out there, out there in the open and, you know, taking your prayer feathers out to certain locations.

Art Batala: About five years ago, I found that I couldn't do it anymore because of the hot sun. And it drains you completely. And so what happens is when you get into that situation, we mentor our nephews. We mentor our nephews the same way that we were mentored in the kivas. And so when a time comes for when a time comes where you aren't able to perform your responsibilities, then that's when your nephews must step up. And so that's what I've done.

Art Batala: I've picked my eldest nephew to continue what I was doing as an initiated man. But during the course of time, I was like my father. I made sure my children were fed. I made sure my children got an education. I made sure that my mother is well. And, you know, I made sure that I have a crop.

Art Batala: I also planted when I was growing up. And so, you know, like I said earlier, it's a lot of responsibility when you're a man on the Hopi Reservation. And when you're dedicated to your religion, you know, it becomes difficult. And there's a lot of balancing act that we do with the modern world and in keeping our traditions alive. And so, you know, we as Hopi have never really exploited ourselves completely to the public. We have always maintained our isolation.

Art Batala: And I believe that is the reason why our traditions, our customs have survived this long. I can pretty much say that I believe the Hopi tribe is the only tribe in the United States that still maintains and practice our religion as it was taught to us by our forefathers. You know, we still maintain that closeness of the kiva.

Art Batala: And that's where this balancing act becomes difficult. You know, our children have been born into this modern society and it's very demanding. You know, how we cope with that is, you know, you have to make sure that everyone understands each other's responsibility.

Art Batala: And, you know, the women themselves also, you know, get initiated into a lot of societies. And so my sisters in growing up, they also got initiated into these societies, the ladies’ societies. But oftentimes, you know, they need men. They need men for certain things that they can't do. And so we as men have to step up and help them. So that's another responsibility in itself.

Art Batala: So, you know, I like to think that in growing up, being a father, and now being a grandfather, I have stepped into my father's shoes and lived my life the way he had lived. And I'm glad to say that I have, you know, lived the life of my dad and in making sure that my surroundings is well. My children and now my grandchildren, my sisters, my mother. So I felt that I have achieved that goal of mine to be like my father.

Ranger Lizzy: Wow, that's fantastic. You know, we talked a lot about the importance of education and passing down information from one generation to the next. As you're working with this next generation, you know, getting closer to your grandchildren, what gives you, what are your hopes and what are your concerns for the younger generation?

Art Batala: Life on Hopi, as we know it, has changed and things aren't as they were when I was growing up. You know, and so I have to take an honest look at everything and, you know, make sure that my grandchildren get the best of education that can possibly be had. You know, balancing these modern day things that is necessary for young children to become who they really want to be.

Art Batala: You know, I am now, like I said, a grandfather and I am an elected official for my tribe. And as an elected official, I feel it is my responsibility to look at our school system to see that we have the best education possible for our grandchildren as they're growing up. And so I continue to do that, you know, whenever we talk about children.

Art Batala: You know, children need a lot of direction in this complicated world we live in. And so I'd like to be there for them, whomever it may be. It doesn't have to be my grandchildren, because I look at it as from the standpoint that they're somebody's grandchildren. So all grandchildren are precious and important. So that's what I'd like to continue to be is some kind of not necessarily role model, but an important part of a learning process for them. Yeah.

Ranger Lizzy: You know, so you talked about being an elected official, and I know that you serve on the Hopi Tribal council. Can you tell us what does tribal council mean and what is your position?

Art Batala: Tribal councils were set up by the federal government because in giving the Native American tribes an opportunity to govern themselves and to, you know, take advantage of some of these funding availability, whether it's state, county, or the national level. And when you have grant monies coming in from those sources, every time, any time grant monies are to be used on various Native lands, the tribal councils must approve in those grant funds. And so that's primarily our responsibility.

Art Batala: However, we are also faced with a lot of other, I don't really want to say problems, but I guess it's kind of like a challenge, a lot of challenges that we're facing. And, you know, we continue to have our challenges with our neighbors, you know, the Navajo. It has always been like that, a challenge, to be honest.

Art Batala: But I have to say that right now, today, about a month ago, we had come upon a great achievement, a very historic event, where the three tribes who have always been in adverse situations against each other, we have come up with a solution that all the tribes have been faced with since, gosh, since the 50s, the Little Colorado River. We have always been fighting over quantification of our rights to the Little Colorado River. And so about a month ago, the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and the San Juan Southern Paiute all signed Little Colorado River Water Settlement Agreement. And so right now, that is the highest level that we can get into moving forward to becoming partners. And I thought that that was a good, great achievement. And I feel proud to be on the council that approved that water settlement.

Art Batala: It opens up the doors to a more cordial relationship from here on. And I like that. But there certainly is still a lot more challenges that we face as a tribe. But we are trying to look for ways to make sure that our tribe survives into the future going forward. It's difficult, but not impossible. You know, nothing is impossible. If there's something that is going to better your lives, it's going to be made possible. So those are the challenges and, you know, the great achievements that I have. And I feel honored to be serving on the Tribal Council today.

Ranger Lizzy: That's really incredible. And yeah, hearing about the recent water settlement is just amazing. As you're talking about, you know, looking towards the future and the ways that tribes can survive and Hopi tribe can survive and flourish. How do you see that like in the future? What ways are those?

Art Batala: You know, that's a difficult question to answer. But there are opportunities out there. And, you know, some of those opportunities will have to be addressed. For example, I sit on our Hopi Tribal Gaming Committee, and we have resisted the idea of gaming all these years. We have had two referendums on the Hopi Reservation. Both times, the idea of gaming had been voted down. And it is primarily because of our culture. Our elderly, most of them were elderly that voted against gaming. They feel that it is not our place to go into this kind of revenue generating opportunity.

Art Batala: They feel that it's akin to what they describe as getting blood money, you know, getting income, you know, from those people who have gotten addicted to gaming and will spend their last dollar on gaming. And so those were kind of the reasons why gaming was really frowned upon. But our revenues have really greatly been reduced because of the Peabody mine closure.

Art Batala: Over 75% of our annual income derived from Peabody mining on the Black Mesa. And so when the Peabody mine closed, it took a dramatic, it hit us in a dramatic way. And so we're now struggling. And so upon getting on the Tribal Council, my colleagues asked me if I would chair the gaming committee and perhaps look into the idea of gaming, because it is now what we refer to as our last hope to bring in revenue. You know, and so what we did was we went out into the villages. We have 12 villages on the Hopi Reservation, and they all have their administrations.

Art Batala: And so that's where we went and, you know, got to get feedback from the boards of directors that run their administration and the public to see what their views are on gaming. When we were finished doing those presentations, all 12 villages unanimously is approving gaming, the idea of gaming. So that's when we started going full throttle with gaming.

Art Batala: There's still a lot of work to be done, but we're making progress. And I've been sharing all this with my wife, so she knows all about it, about me as a chairperson of the gaming. But you know, it's a challenge, but I tell people regarding gaming, a lot of different people have asked us, you know, not necessarily Hopi, but non-Hopi, non-Natives, you know, why gaming?

Art Batala: And my answer to them is, you know, at this point in time, we have to survive going into the future. The tribal government has to survive. And although there are many views against gaming, it is truly our last resort. So right now, as we see it, most, if not all of our tribal members are in approval of going gaming. So that's where that lies.

Ranger Lizzy: Yeah, and that kind of brings us back to the beginning of our conversation earlier in this program, when we were talking about how do you balance traditional life with the modern world? You know, because there are all the challenges, the economy and all that. We are just coming kind of towards the end of the program, so I would love to ask just one last question, which is, what would you like our visitors today to take away from this program and our conversation?

Art Batala: To gain knowledge of who we are as Natives and how we are connected to the Grand Canyon. I think it's very important that everyone knows that we have a strong connection to the Grand Canyon. And Grand Canyon is very important to our soul. You know, it's really important. And, you know, I really appreciate the National Park Service for putting on these Native demonstrations, wherein we interact with tourists coming in here from all parts of the world and learning about who we are, learning about our arts and crafts, because our arts and crafts are, tells everybody who we are, where we're coming from as a people. And it's great that we interact with all the people that come here.

Art Batala: A lot of them ask a lot of questions, which is important that they understand us, who we are. So, you know, I do really appreciate, you know, the National Park Service for, you know, doing this for Native Americans. And, you know, it's an opportunity that is open to all the artisans, all the weavers, in every aspect of artwork. And perhaps not just necessarily, you know, being artwork or craftspeople, but coming here and sharing their views about who they are, just to be here as people.

Ranger Lizzy: And Art, can you tell me, can you tell us a little bit about your relationship to Grand Canyon and the Hopi relationship to Grand Canyon?

Art Batala: My relationship with the Grand Canyon is from a traditional aspect of my life. I spent my entire life, you know, practicing my religion. And the Grand Canyon here is foremost, the most important place of worship that we can do, because here, I don't know how far it is.The confluence is like, what, 12 miles up there?

Ranger Lizzy: Yeah, 15 miles.

Art Batala: 15 miles.

Ranger Lizzy: I think.

Art Batala: The confluence, you know, where the Little Colorado River meets up with the Colorado River, that's the confluence. And just about half a mile into the Little Colorado is where we call the place of emergence. And that's probably the only definitive way we can say that, because it is so important.

Art Batala: We will not go into depth about the exact locations. It's just that we emerged from this part of the world, and it's our birthplace. That's why I have this close ties to the Grand Canyon, having been growing up, doing my religion, practicing my religion.

Art Batala: And, you know, I think it's a great spiritual place. And I thank the National Park again for bringing this alive to everybody. So that's what I would like everybody to know, is my spiritual connection as a Hopi.

Ranger Lizzy: Well, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

Ranger Jonah: Grand Canyon Speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy. A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music. This recording reflects the personal lived experiences of tribal members and do not encompass the views of their tribal nation or that of the National Park. To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices visit www.NPS.gov/grca. Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon. These being the Havasupai Tribe the Hualapai Tribe, the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

In this episode, Ranger Lizzy sat down with Art Batala who is a Hopi jeweler with over 50 years of experience. Art describes his journey which started as an apprentice, learning under the guidance of World War II Veterans. He also speaks about his relationship with his father and how that influenced his upbringing and role as a leader in his community.

Episode 12

Leona Begishie Speaks

Transcript

Leona Begishie Speaks

Leona Begishie: We don't have any native teachers at our school, so they kind of connect with me. And so, they're a little more open, they're a little more at ease because I look like maybe grandma or their aunt or their mom. And so that part, although all of the academics, math, ELA, all that is important, but it makes them at ease when they see me.

Meranden: Hello everybody, welcome to Grand Canyon Speaks. My name is Meranden.

Dan: And I'm Dan.

Meranden: In today's episode, Ranger Lizzie spoke with Leona Begishie, who was the Native American aide at the Grand Canyon School.

Dan: Yeah, she is Diné and greatly supported the Native American students by bringing cultural awareness to the teachers and staff, planning events for Native American Heritage Month, and providing a safe space throughout their time at the school.

Meranden: We hope you enjoy this week's episode, and thank you for tuning in.

Dan: And here's Leona Begishie.

Leona: Yes, my name is Leona Begishie, and my clans are Salt people, and I'm related to the Rock Gap people. And my grandfathers are the Zuni Edgewater, and my paternal grandfathers are the Bitterwater people.

So, in Navajo, I would say, (Introduces self in Diné). That's what makes me a woman. That's the woman that I am, that lets other people know in our nation that, oh, then they might say, recognize kinship, you know, oh, you're my mother, you're my daughter, you're my, you know, grandma.

So that kind of sets up those relationships with other people. Thank you.

Ranger Lizzie: Thanks, Leona.

So tonight, Leona is coming and joining us just from the village. She works at Grand Canyon School, and I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about the school and your position there.

Leona: So, the Grand Canyon School is a pre-K-12 school, and our school is the only school that is within national park boundaries.

There is a school in Utah, but they're in a national recreation area. So, this is actually a national park, and so it differentiates a little bit, but we're the only pre-K-12 school in any park, and people are always surprised. You know, I do crosswalk, and they'd say, are these kids school kids, you know, when I'm at the crosswalk? And I'm like, yeah, and they're really surprised by that, that we do have a school here.

My title is Native American Aid. What has happened is the school will get a grant for the Native students that attend the school, and within those regulations, rules of those grants, you have to have a group of a parent group, a Native American group, in order to receive the money. You have to have that group in place, and that group has decided to use the funding, and they can use, they decide how to use that funding, and one of the things that they decided to do was bring in a Native American aid to help the children.

And so that's how that position came to be. And I do assist teachers sometimes, but my job primarily at the school is to look, kind of watch how our Native American kids are doing, and if they need some assistance, extra assistance with anything, English, math, writing, I'll go to their classroom, I'll pull them out, and I'll work with them either one-on-one, or sometimes I pull a whole group and work with them, and I'll just be like, just reinforce some of the things that they're learning in the classroom already. One of the things that I do also is, at the beginning of the year, we hold trainings for all the teachers and the staff.

Usually it has to do with animals, like with our tribe, our nation, we don't, you don't mess with snakes, so a lot of parents say, don't let my child look at a snake, and some are okay with it, some are a little more relaxed, but there are others that say no, absolutely no snakes, or owls, you know, we don't want our kids to look at owls or be around owls. And those are the two animals that are, that parents really emphasize, please be careful with these animals, because the owl is a messenger, so they're more, they want to be more careful with an owl. So, an owl is a messenger of, you know, bad things that could happen, or it could be a messenger of death, so they really, you know, ask the school to really respect that.

And the good thing with our school is they really do. When we get materials, they kind of vet the materials with, like, what kind of pictures are on there, or what videos are on there, you know, they respect that. So that's, and eclipses, you know, we can't be out in an eclipse, so they just take that into consideration, maybe when they're doing the calendar for the school year, that type of thing. So, it's a really good school.

Ranger Lizzie: Awesome. Can you tell me a little bit more about some of the programming that you do around, like, Native American Heritage Month?

Leona: So Native American Heritage Month is in November, and starting in October, what I do is, I usually communicate with the art teacher, and we do different activities.

It could be learning how to bead bracelets, or weaving, or making pottery, dioramas. We do some research on other tribes within the area, or even throughout the United States. And so they learn about different groups of people.

And I have all of the students do it, not just our Native students, and they get really excited about it. This year, we actually had them make moccasins. Some of them actually wore them, which was really cool on Heritage Day.

So that's one component of our Heritage Month. And then in November, we have one week where, it's almost like a spirit week, it's the only way I can describe it, you know, where one day we might have Hairdo Day, where, because the different nations that are here, wear their hair in different styles. So, we'll have these different types of hairdos throughout the whole school for that day.

Moccasin Day, Jewelry Day, and then at the end of the week, we just have a whole, you know, dress-up and regalia day. And on that day, we usually have a program that we put on, you know, where the kids are singing, or they're doing a poem, or they're dancing. I do, we have a Cherokee girl that goes to our school, and she's very interested in her culture.

She's not exposed to it, so she'll ask me to do some research, and she'll say, can we do a dance from my tribe? And so, then I'll have to learn how to do a Cherokee dance, because I'm not, you know, I don't have that information. So, I'll have to look it up and do some research. So, we did like a bear dance, and we did a horse dance last year.

So, we have all these different tribes, and of course, all these people, groups of people speak different languages. And so, what I do is I grab all these kids, and I'll say, okay, what would you like to do this year? And you know, they'll say, oh, we want to dance. So, we learn a dance, and then I teach them, if they want to sing, I teach them a song.

And the songs that we learn are all Navajo songs. And the reason why we learn Navajo songs is because I'm Navajo, or Diné is what we call ourselves. And I'm really forced to say Navajo, because that's what people know, right? Like outside of our group of our people, everywhere, you see Navajo reservation signs, you know, and on maps, it says Navajo reservation.

So, I always say Navajo, just so it's familiar to everyone else. But we call ourselves Diné people. So, I teach these kids from different tribes a Navajo song.

So, what I'm really surprised with is that they pick it up really quickly. And these kids don't speak Navajo. And some of them don't even speak their own language, but they pick it up so fast.

And that was one of the things that was really interesting to me. And I really thought it was really cool. And they pick it up the first time we get together.

And then so then they've got like about a month to learn the songs. So, one of the songs that I thought was cute was, it's a song about a puppy. And I just like, I kind of want to sing that song because it's a children's song, right? So, and it's very short.

And every song that we sing, you sing it, we repeat it four times. Because four is a sacred number for the Diné people. So, but I'm not only going to do two.

And that was one of the things that had come up, which I thought was really neat. I had asked the kids, I said, you know, four is a sacred number for us. So, every song that you sing, you do it, you repeat it four times.

And I said, but due to time constraints, I said, I think we should sing it twice. Only two times. And they were like, no, no, no, don't do that.

No, let's sing it four times because that's how you're supposed to do it. So even though they don't know a lot, some of them don't know a lot about their culture or traditions, they were respecting mine, right? So, they were respecting mine and they were saying, let's do it four times. But I'm just going to sing it twice for you.

Just repeat it twice. So, it goes. (sings Diné song) So that's the song that they learned.

And that's, like I said, surprising to me. It was surprising in a really good way. So that was an interesting something that I learned.

Ranger Lizzie: Thank you for sharing your song. And it's about a puppy?

Leona: It's about a puppy. It talks about how he eats so much that he drags his stomach when he's walking because he's so fat and his ears flop. And then he steps on his tail, you know, because his tail is long. And that's what it and he follows me around all day long. That's the that's the song.

Ranger Lizzie: Oh, that's really cute. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. You know, I think this is like just such a cool position. And I we talked a little bit about this yesterday. Can you just tell us, like in your experience, why is this important?

Leona: The position to me over the years that I've been teach or been there and helping teach these kids and just kind of support them is they see me and a lot of their teachers are from different groups of people. And so, they see me, and we don't have any native teachers at our school. So, they kind of connect with me.

And so, they're a little more open. They're a little more at ease because I look like maybe grandma or their aunt or their mom. And so that part, although all of the academics, math, ELA, all that is important, but it makes them at ease when they see me.

So, when I come into their room and they're willing, they're like, OK, we're going to go, you know, even though we're repeating whatever it is that we had already been taught, they really want to come with me. And a lot of times, you know, a lot of kids might be having a bad day, and they won't tell anyone but me. They'll come because they're at ease with me.

And so that also kind of brings a little bit of support in maybe emotionally, you know, and I grew up just like these some of these kids, actually, and I'll let them know, you know, I know how it is. You know, I know how it is not to have a lot of food. I know how it is to want things and not have the resources to get them right.

And I've been there, and I know how you're feeling. So, I think that connection with them really helps. And I just really love being there.

And they're so loving. You know, they're always willing to give a hug. And another thing, too, is I bring a lot of their cultures, you know, a lot of traditions.

We talk about, you know, what grandma's house might be like, you know, because a lot of them, it's difficult for them to write. We don't say the horse is white. We say it, you know, it's flipped around.

So, we say horse white as opposed to white horse. So, when they're writing, sometimes even though they may not speak their language, which is really interesting to me, but they will do that. They'll flip their words around.

And so, we talk about that, you know, like when you write, you say white horse as opposed to horse white. And so, some of those things they don't understand. And so, I'll say, and that's OK.

But, you know, we need to really read the sentence to make sure that it makes sense when you're writing it, because that's what your teacher's looking for. The Dine language is very descriptive. You know, everything that we have the names for are descriptive.

And that's what the name is, right? That's, you know, a green tree. You know, we don't really say, although there are words now for it. We have a word now for computer or a phone.

And we had to make those up because, of course, we didn't have any of those. But they're just descriptive. And so, when they're writing, they're not they're not understanding.

OK, my house is big. You know, they want the teachers want more than that. So, I always tell them your teachers would like you to put more adjectives in there, more descriptive words.

And so, what I do is I'll pull them, and I'll say, OK, we're all going to close our eyes. And even though these kids live here on the weekends or on the long holidays, they'll go to grandma's house on the reservation. So, they'll say, close your eyes and they'll close their eyes, and they'll say, OK, so let's think about grandma's house.

What do you hear? What do you see? What does it feel like? You know, and they'll describe, oh, grandma's making, you know, breakfast or something. What does it sound like? What does it smell like? And they'll tell me all that. And I say, OK, go out the door.

Let's start walking. I always use the corral. And I always say, OK, go to the corral, start walking towards the corral.

And what do you smell? And that's the big thing. And they always get a laugh out of it because they say, what do you smell first? And they're like, we smell the sheep poop. Right.

That's what they say. And you and you do. And that really is you do as you're walking over there.

The first thing that hits you is the sheep poop, and they laugh about it. But then they go and they, you know, describe the corral and say, see all of that that you're telling me. That is what we want in your sentences.

So, then they go, oh, OK. So, then they'll add more to their sentence. So, I think that really helps them that I come in with that information and have them go, you know this.

Right. So now we just need to angle it where they understand what we want them to do. And I think in this position that I'm in, that's what helps them.

And so, this position is a unique one and that really helps them. And I'm really glad that I worked there actually to help them go, oh, OK, I know what you're talking about now. Right. So, I think that's really cool.

Ranger Lizzie: Yeah, I think that's so incredible. And you form these really close relationships to these students.

I know that you get to work for them from when they're, you know, in kindergarten up until they're in fifth grade, right?

Leona: Kindergarten to fifth grade. Yeah.

Ranger Lizzie: And then you still see them.

Leona: And I still see them in middle school and high school.

Ranger Lizzie: Can you tell me a little bit about how your relationships have grown or how you've seen kids grow as you work with them?

Leona: Well, the last year, the seniors from last year was the first group of kids that I worked with when I started. So, I was I grew up close to here.

And so, when I first started working at the school again, because we were here, then moved a couple of places and came back. So, this first group of kids that I worked with, they were in. Eighth grade, I believe, or seventh grade, and they graduated last year.

And so, I felt so like I kept saying, this is my first group of kids that were here when I started here again. And I was really emotional about it. So, I made stoles for a Native American stoles and I because I so I sewed them stoles and they really appreciated it.

It was really nice to, you know, and it was beautiful. And, of course, but these kids, I do form relationships with them and they're and I'm kind of sad, but they're sad because I'm moving. And so next year in August, when they come back, I'm not going to be there.

But these kids are like one kindergarten kid came up to me this year and said, and he's in summer school and he says, is today your last day? And he was about to cry. And I said, no crying. And he said, and I said, no, no, no.

I said, not till the end of summer school. And he goes, oh, OK, you know, and then ran off. But I formed those relationships that at the younger the younger level, and then they go through fifth grade.

And those relationships just grow. And even when they get to middle school, I have a student in middle school who really respects and he'll call his other teachers, you know, by their last name or just by their first name. But when he sees me, he always says, this is because she, you know, and he's always very respectful.

So those relationships are just so special to me. And even the kids that graduated this year is another group that I worked from here on out would be all the kids that I've worked with. I'm going to miss all of them, of course.

Ranger Lizzie: Yeah, I think that's so special. And it is sad even just to see you leaving at the end of this year, kind of when working with this next generation, you know, what concerns or worries do you have kind of looking up at the next generation?

Leona: Well, the —my concerns and my worries and hope as well. And I know we had talked about that.

And I had when I was in the boarding school, I went to boarding school on the reservation. And when I was in the boarding school, slowly, I went to kindergarten. And when I entered kindergarten, I only spoke Navajo.

And I know that I probably knew some English words like very simple. Yes, no. And satellite.

And that's interesting because my dad knew about satellites. I had no idea what they were. I just knew satellites.

And he would say we'd be outside, and he'd say, look at the stars. And we'd see this one just flying. And he goes, oh, that's a satellite.

So, I knew that I knew satellite. So, when I went into kindergarten, I could not form a sentence in English at all. So, I only know I knew Navajo.

And when I was there, we're learning this new language. And I'm like, oh, and it's so regimented. You know, it's like you've got to learn all this stuff.

And then you go back to your dormitory where you we sleep and, you know, then we eat and then we play and then all over, you know, just same thing next day. As I'm going through the school system, I start becoming really ashamed and really embarrassed that I'm Navajo. And I'm like, oh, I wish I was a born Navajo.

You know, I kept saying, oh, I don't like it because it's so difficult for me. And I would say that. And so, when I see that, I kind of am seeing slowly, slowly, slowly, our traditions and our language and our culture just kind of being peeled away a little bit because we're learning this new thing, this new way to live.

And so, my I see it now and I kind of saw it as I was getting older. So, I see it now with these kids, but they'll say we don't speak the language. We don't, you know, go to ceremonies or we don't do prayers in our language.

So slowly, these kids are like they have no clue. And that's one of my worries is that you see that as they're coming up. They have no clue on their traditions and their cultures and languages.

So that's one of my worries is that we're just going to lose all of it. And so, as I got older, until I became an adult, I was like, wait a minute. This is special.

Another, and I was a little more curious of our traditions and our cultures and our language because of the Navajo Code Talkers. So that was interesting to me, like, really? And it's interesting to read some of the words that they use. And I was like, wait a minute.

This is something to be proud of, right? This is something they had come back to us and said, develop something. And they did. Our Code Talkers did.

They developed; we already had the language. It was not written. So, they had to use the current alphabet to write some of those words down.

So that's how they created the written language because it was always just oral. So that kind of got me back to going, OK, now I know this. It's really special.

And so, I need to tell these kids because a lot of them don't know. So, I tell them, this is special. You know, you're special.

Your language is special.

Ranger Lizzie: Absolutely. I really like the way that you're just cultivating a culture of pride, kind of looking at that future generation.

We talked about some of the concerns, and then you also say they're giving you hope. In what ways do they give you hope?

Leona: I had talked about the hope and these kids, like I had said, they grow up here and they're not really learning their language or part of their cultures, but they are really good. And I'm not in this group, but they are very good artists.

I said, I really like that we have an art program at our school because these kids can draw really well. And what they do is, even though they might not participate in cultural events, they do wear their regalia, and they notice their regalia. You know, like, what am I wearing? What patterns do I have? You know, what are the different, the pottery? You know, what designs are in the pottery? And they notice that.

And so, when they're drawing, then they use some of those things, their outfits, their jewelry. They use some of those shapes and colors in the different art that they produce. And so, my hope is that they go, okay, this is what's specific to me and my people, and they use it in their art.

And I'm hoping, really, really hoping that they go, oh, I want to learn more about that. And I want to learn more about maybe my traditions. Why do we have these different designs on like the wedding baskets? And there's stories behind all that.

So, art has a big thing to do with it, because that's where they seem to connect a little bit.

Ranger Lizzie: Yeah, that's fantastic. And just kind of seeing them through that process. And, you know, we're here at Grand Canyon and you work at the school, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit also about your relationship with this park and this place, you know, bigger than the park as well. So, can you tell me a little bit about, yeah, your relationship with Grand Canyon growing up and now?

Leona: Um, so Grand Canyon is our reservation if you look that way to the east a little bit across the canyon, that's where the Navajo reservation is.

And so, I live about 30 minutes from here. It's where I grew up in Cameron. It's a very, if you blinked, you missed it.

It's very small. And that's where I grew up. So, we are close to the canyon.

And so, every time that we come to the canyon, there was always something that we needed. And it was never about, oh, let's go look at the canyon for its beauty, right? When we already, it's like, yeah, it is beautiful. However, it kind of comes back to Mother Earth, like Mother Earth is what gives us the things that we need.

So, my relationship with the Grand Canyon, when I think about it, when we come here, we came as a family. So that tie is really strong. So, when I think of Grand Canyon, I think home and family, because that's my connection. That's my, that's what we did when we came up here.

Ranger Lizzie: Thank you for sharing.

Leona: You're welcome.

Ranger Lizzie: So, we're kind of coming to the end of our program here. Just as a final question, is there anything that you want our audience tonight to take away from our conversation here?

Leona: Just the awareness of the different types of people. You know, just the, I guess it's, I'm not really sure about, you know, like you guys are from different countries. Like what, what is it that are, that you want to know? Is there anything that you would like to know about this area that you had not known before? And I'm glad that you have these programs so people can say, oh yeah, she was from, you know, the Diné Nation and she's helping her kids, you know, the little kids. And just knowing more about the past, I guess, is what it would be.

Ranger Lizzie: Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing. Thank you everyone for coming out and listening. Enjoy the sunset.

Leona: Thank you. Thanks.

Ranger Jonah: Grand Canyon Speaks is a program hosted by Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon Conservancy.

A special thanks to Aaron White for the theme music. This recording reflects the personal lived experiences of tribal members and do not encompass the views of their tribal nation or that of the national park. To learn more about Grand Canyon First Voices, visit www.nps.gov/grca.

Here at Grand Canyon National Park, we are on the ancestral homelands of the 11 associated tribes of the Grand Canyon. These being the Havasupai Tribe, the Hualapai Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Apache Nation, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

Leona Begishie tells about her impactful experiences working at the Grand Canyon School as the Native American Aide, her relationship with her Diné culture, and how the Grand Canyon means “family” to her. Leona supported the Native American students by bringing cultural awareness to the teachers and staff.

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