A Navajo hello đ
DinĂ© cultureâlike any cultureâis beautifully revealed through the lens of its language. Last Thursday, I introduced you to Tyrone Whitehorse. I came across a video of Tyrone introducing himself in DinĂ©, which rustled up all sorts of curiosity in me.
Tyrone kindly responded to my questions over email, with answers rich and heartfelt. Iâm excited to feature the first part of our Q&A todayâwith more to come!
You mentioned that this traditional style of introduction is a distinctive part of your culture. Is this how Diné always introduce themselves to other Diné?
Yes, this is how we DinĂ© introduce ourselves among each other. Traditionally, it is an introduction to each other whom we call âFive Finger Surface Beings.â It is a way to establish familial relationships with each other.Â
What I love about this introduction is how community and ancestryânot the self aloneâare at the heart of it. What does this say about how DinĂ© see themselves?
We value family relationships as the anchor of our society. Navajo society is matriarchal. The females are the strength of the people, and our identity runs through them. Each person receives their clan from their mother, who gets it from her mother, and so on and so forth.
We are born for our father's clan, who he got from his mother, and she from hers. We then acknowledge our grandfathersâ clans, who they got from their mothers.
These clans originally derived from family groups when the Navajo nation was much smaller. These families, in an effort to reduce the likelihood of incest, developed a clan system in which individuals are not allowed to marry within one's own clan or one's father's clan.
As the People grew, these clans became more and more important in establishing identity. The Diné were spread across half the country before European contact. From the plains of Kansas, south to Mexico, west to the Pacific Ocean, and north towards Richfield, Utah. This vast area was populated by millions of Navajo people who were not as united as we are today. So when we would come across another group of Navajo, our introductions established relationships, friendships, and alliances that became important throughout the area, as well as propagating the People by creating new families.
At the same time, people who are of the same clan as me are considered my brothers or sisters, "little mothersâ (aunts), uncles, grandmothers or grandfathersâdepending on their age. The same is true for those of my father's clan. And I become such to those people as well. I can be someone's grandfather âNavajo wayâ, as we say, even though I am young. It not only creates a larger family, but a greater responsibility for each other.Â
Below: A beautiful drawing from Tyrone that illustrates the heart of DinĂ© cultureâthe family unit. Read more about its symbolism here. More Q&A coming your way tomorrow!
Thanks for reading Gemini Mind! Elsewhere, you can find me as @yokizzi đ«