shi ni shaa

It was a long time ago and there was a child, a little Navajo girl,
her name was Althabah. She lost her parents somehow at Fort Wingate,
Bear Springs what we call Shush-Bi-Toh in Navajo. It means Bear
Springs. There was a Fort there with cavalry soldiers.

Some say she came from around Round Top, someplace south of Canyon De
Chelly, when she was ten. Kit Carson who was hired by the Army to bring
the Navajos in went to the stronghold, Canyon De Chelly and in that
maze of canyons the Navajo People hid raising their livestock, corn and
fruit trees. The cavalry came into the canyon and burned everything
they found, houses we call hogans, cornfields and fruit trees. This was
done to make the people hungry and make them come into the cavalry at
Fort Defiance and Fort Wingate.


It was during this time of trouble this little girl, Althabah became
seperated from her parents. Some people went North to Navajo Mountain,
others went west to Hopiland and others who did not have anything ate
pinons, wild onions, and other plants but it was not enough. She was
one of these and ended up at Fort Wingate. Her feet were bare and
clothes ragged. When she got there she was placed in a wagon train and
moved like a caravan to a place called Fort Sumner in Southeastern New
Mexico. Since she was small, she walked alongside the wagons and during
this time some of those who walked did not make it.


When she got there she found there were a large number of people, her
own Navajo People there. They were told they would have to stay in this
place along the river there. They received some food from the soldiers
each month, and tried to plant but the ground was too hard and not
fertile. Nothing would grow very well.


It was during this time she learned about the different clans, the
origins of her people about the places she did not know, places like
Dinnebito, Navajo Water, about Toh hah jah lee, about the place where
water runs like fingers across the land which we call Kayenta. She
learned about the names of the stars, the songs of mothers, about how
clothes were made and rugs.


Some say the song Shi Nah Shaa came from this place, it is a song of
walking in beauty, that where you walk it would be beautiful that
walking in your own shoes on a beautiful land, it was about all the
places the people knew about growing up and now they were far away. It
is a song about longing and missing home. These are the things they
talked about and she learned these things.


After what seemed a long time the leaders spoke with the cavalry
wanting to find a way to return to their home land, within the Four
Sacred Mountains. It was during such a time that Navajo People spoke
about the soldiers letting them go from there, the words came from
Washing-don-, how we call the US Government.


Since she was an orphan she was poorest of the poor wearing gov't cast
offs and found herself working for different Navajo families and groups
trying to survive. It was during this time she learned to understand
the white man's way of speaking that it put the words behind her way of
talking.


There was talk about the Navajo People being able to go home, so much
so that people were packing their things. The word came around to
everyone that they would be able to leave in the next few days. Somehow
no one could sleep, not any baby, or old man or lady, not even the
young people. Somehow as if by magic, the whole camp moved by itself
during the night to West of the river. This was because the people were
excited.


The next day they were told they could return home, and it was if the
whole of them were lifted by the wind and they walked every way they
could. It was during this time she saw a light come to the eyes of the
people and they began to sing old songs and walk with sore feet and
hunger found them with spirit in their bodies and did not stop them.


It was a day not unlike today, she found herself helping the old folks
with the few things they carried. Some of them had managed to store
away, little bits of corn pollen from long ago and when they crossed
the highland they could see the tip of a peak to the West, it was small
on the horizon. The old people spoke quietly, what mountain is that,
they talked for bit and someone said, is that our mountain, one of our
Sacred Mountains. The word came from up ahead it is so, it is what we
call Mount Taylor today.


The old ladies fell to the ground and cried because they were so glad
to see it there in the distance. And in the way of our people they took
a little corn pollen and blessed the land, and themselves and gave
thanks that they could see their own country.


This young girl saw this with her own eyes and cried for it was such a
lovely site. She cried because she had lost everything, her home, her
family, been taken from her land and moved far away and endured many
hardships.


She returned home, to live, to grow and find a place in the sun within
these Four Sacred Mountains, she learned about Lechee, Grand Falls,
Dinnebito, Sweetwater, Dennehotso, Pueblo Pintado, Nageezi, Herfano,
Ganado, because she was one our grandmothers from those days and spoke
to her children about how it was.


That our children are Dine, that this land is called Dinetah and we
have stories about all these places and how we came go be here and it
is our home, and there is no place quite like it and so we go on and
survive despite hardships.


Sometimes life is hard and we have to suffer, and we have to be strong
to do such things but we have that thing in us to endure, to hope and
to go on and that is a little bit about who we call those people, the
Navajo.....Dine.

rustywire