Hunter Gray
2014-04-20 00:09:07 UTC
It's occured to me that some may be interested in the RBB discussion of Navajoland and gay rights and polygamy. The issue is the tribe's Marriage Act of 2005 which seeks to prohibit incest, gay marriage and all polygamy -- even when the latter involves marriages half a century old or longer. The Act is quite controversial in the Navajo world. Here are some of my posts. (H)
#1 Within tribal nations, there is virtually no prejudice and discrimination against gays. That includes Navajo. In fact, in a great many tribal nations, gay people are given important responsibilities, e.g., spiritual. (H.)
#2 The Navajo Nation is bigger than the state of West Virginia. The Navajo population, most of which is on the reservation, is now about 350,000. The Nation is, all things considered, quite traditional.
The concept of tribal council, which makes various laws and often resolutes, is historically new in the Navajo situation. The basic loyalty of Navajo people goes to family band and the clans involved. The tribal council concept was foisted on the Navajo in the early 1920s, by the Federal government -- in order to get oil and gas rights in the Four Corners area (Shiprock region) signed away to the big corporations. This, btw, brought John Collier, a young social worker from New York, into the field of Native defense; later, as a protege of Eleanor Roosevelt, he became Commissioner of Indian Affairs and, generally, did a very fine job from 1933 to 1944 . Among other things, Collier secured pro-Indian protective legislation, including the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which set up "modern" tribal councils which Collier felt were needed to deal with the Feds and the corporations. This did anger many traditionalists -- but most of the IRA was broadly seen by Natives as OK. The link I gave earlier today on Indian policy goes into all of that in some detail. The Navajo Nation did not sign on to IRA and never has.
On the other hand, the Fed's Navajo Tribal Council did continue and soon began to emerge as an essentially legitimate central government, even though most Navajo then, and a very large number now, really don't recognize it as pervasively so -- and some don't recognize it at all. Most people involved with the Navajo Tribal Council are genuinely good people.
To cut to the bone, the Council can make laws that really have minimal effect in much of the Navajo grassroots -- especially in the many remote areas in the vast reservation. And often no effort is made by Navajo authorities to enforce those laws. Polygamy, not uncommon, is an example. Another is the continuation of the traditional killing of a Skinwalker -- a predatory agent of a predatory witch -- with functional immunity from any prosecution. In that case, tribal police and the Feds look away. The states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado have virtually NO jurisdiction on the Navajo reservation -- and, with a few exceptions, no American states have any jurisdiction on Indian reservations.
I've often mentioned the traditional and still very vital principle of tribal responsibility: The tribe has a responsibility to the individual and the individual has a reponsibility to the tribe. In the case of a conflict, the tribe takes precedence. But there are individual and family areas of autonomy into which the tribe cannot intrude. Again, that principle is very much alive in Indian country in this day and age.
I am personally aware of these things in the Navajo country and in some other tribal settings.
Seen from the Navajo perspective, the U.S. is another country. Other Natives, most Mexican Americans, and Anglo Americans in the know recognize that's the case with Navajoland. (H)
#3 You may want to read my last piece again. Yes, that law is an intrusion and that's why it really isn't enforced. Polygamy is alive and well in Navajoland.
It's apples and oranges for sure, but let's shift to Mississippi. Until 1966, that had a theoretically strict policy of alcohol prohibition (save beer) and until 1966 it levied an official state tax on bootleg liquor.
Polygamy will always be a part of the Navajo cultural scenery. (H)
#4 There is not much more I can say. I have tried to explain this thoroughly and lucidly.
Navajoland, including much of the tribal council, is governed mostly by its own traditional folkways and mores. Even Federal laws are obeyed and enforced unevenly. It's the grassroots that trumps-- and the basic Navajo identity is shaped by the family band and its clans. That's the recognition that counts.
A great many Navajo marriages, including polygamous unions, are traditional -- via highly trained medicine men. It isn't at all inconceivable that some medicine men would marry gay couples.
Whether a gay couple married traditionally on the reservation, or off res, they wouldn't encounter prejudice and discrimination on the reservation -- and I am quite sure the marriage would be recognized by the grassroots and even by many Councilmen.
We lived at Tsaile for several years -- rather remote setting. Eldri taught kindergarten at almost all Navajo Tsaile Elementary. Our son, Peter, went there. Lots of kids with the same last names. We knew one father who had five wives. The Tribal Council's Marriage Act isn't going to change things.
#5 I arose very early this morning -- even for me. I do have a little more to say on the Navajo equality issue.
As a general rule, I'm cautious about commenting too much on the internal doings of tribal nations other than my own. I do know a good deal about the Navajo situation -- and our ties with Navajo remain close and vital to this moment. (However, there are things I don't know.)
To Ken, I appreciate your thoughtful questions about a "world" that's obviously new to you. For your part, you know things about settings and situations of which I know little or nothing. For virtually all of my adult life, I have often served as a kind of "bridge person" between some ethnicities and cultures, most especially from the Native perspective. That's a role that "half breeds" are often destined to play, if they're up to it -- which I am.
(I read the transcript of the NPR discussion on the Navajo Defense of Marriage Act that you posted last evening.)
The basic ethos of Navajo culture is Harmony. From that standpoint, the Marriage Act runs counter to that most fundamental dimention of the Navajo Way. What do I think is at least partially involved in this? Some narrow versions of Christianity. Among other things, of course, the Act seeks to void all polygamous marriages -- however long they've been established. It won't accomplish that, of course -- but that and other pieces of the Act constitute disruption.
It's worth mentioning that the traditional Navajo clan system -- as it exists in one form or another in most tribes -- does prevent incest quite effectively. So that part of the Act is useless.
Marriages by the highly trained Navajo medicine men are broadly and deeply considered totally valid. They may not always be "licensed" or "registered" with the bureaucratic structures -- very often are not -- but no question is ever raised at the grassroots about their validity .
And, as I say, in Navajoland the grassroots trumps. I definitely feel that almost all Natives, Navajo or otherwise, are not hostile to gays -- and quite the reverse. I have seen a number of Navajo gatherings where openly gay people were present -- and there were and are certainly no ripples.
I should add that, as in all tribal nations, there is a very basic Navajo Nation unity . And, increasingly, there is a very basic unity -- a pan-Indianism -- between tribal nations. Some positive influences from that perspective could affect the Navajo Council on the gay marriage issue. Same with the changing attitudes in the United States and globally.
It could be a great challenge, as one of the discussants in that which you posted suggested, to organize the 110 Navajo chapters (local governance units). But well honed educative thrusts could be helpful.
But, again, I see the Navajo grassroots as essentially just fine on the gay issue -- and that can and will embrace the gay marriage concept, if it hasn't already to a significant extent.
And the Marriage Act could simply up and disappear quietly.
A quick word on AIDS. When that struck there was, obviously, a good deal of initial confusion in many global settings. This certainly included the Native nations. In Navajo tradition, illness is almost always considered the work of witches and AIDs confusion was considerable for a long time. However, at Navajo and other tribal settings, and obviously in most global areas, perceptions of AIDs as an illness are now seen, regardless of how causal factors are perceived, as a profoundly serious matter which warrants systematic prevention and treatment.
At Navajo, the Indian Health Services (U.S. Public Health) and the medicine men have been working together for several decades. That partnership has been working very well and effectively.
This about all I have to say. Hope this has been useful to you and to some others.
Hunter Bear
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
Check out our massive social justice website
www.hunterbear.org The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm
See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.):
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm
See our very full COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
page -- with a great deal of practical material:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
See my new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word
introduction by me. This page lists many reviews.
And this book is also an activist's how-to manual:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm:
(Photos)
#1 Within tribal nations, there is virtually no prejudice and discrimination against gays. That includes Navajo. In fact, in a great many tribal nations, gay people are given important responsibilities, e.g., spiritual. (H.)
#2 The Navajo Nation is bigger than the state of West Virginia. The Navajo population, most of which is on the reservation, is now about 350,000. The Nation is, all things considered, quite traditional.
The concept of tribal council, which makes various laws and often resolutes, is historically new in the Navajo situation. The basic loyalty of Navajo people goes to family band and the clans involved. The tribal council concept was foisted on the Navajo in the early 1920s, by the Federal government -- in order to get oil and gas rights in the Four Corners area (Shiprock region) signed away to the big corporations. This, btw, brought John Collier, a young social worker from New York, into the field of Native defense; later, as a protege of Eleanor Roosevelt, he became Commissioner of Indian Affairs and, generally, did a very fine job from 1933 to 1944 . Among other things, Collier secured pro-Indian protective legislation, including the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which set up "modern" tribal councils which Collier felt were needed to deal with the Feds and the corporations. This did anger many traditionalists -- but most of the IRA was broadly seen by Natives as OK. The link I gave earlier today on Indian policy goes into all of that in some detail. The Navajo Nation did not sign on to IRA and never has.
On the other hand, the Fed's Navajo Tribal Council did continue and soon began to emerge as an essentially legitimate central government, even though most Navajo then, and a very large number now, really don't recognize it as pervasively so -- and some don't recognize it at all. Most people involved with the Navajo Tribal Council are genuinely good people.
To cut to the bone, the Council can make laws that really have minimal effect in much of the Navajo grassroots -- especially in the many remote areas in the vast reservation. And often no effort is made by Navajo authorities to enforce those laws. Polygamy, not uncommon, is an example. Another is the continuation of the traditional killing of a Skinwalker -- a predatory agent of a predatory witch -- with functional immunity from any prosecution. In that case, tribal police and the Feds look away. The states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado have virtually NO jurisdiction on the Navajo reservation -- and, with a few exceptions, no American states have any jurisdiction on Indian reservations.
I've often mentioned the traditional and still very vital principle of tribal responsibility: The tribe has a responsibility to the individual and the individual has a reponsibility to the tribe. In the case of a conflict, the tribe takes precedence. But there are individual and family areas of autonomy into which the tribe cannot intrude. Again, that principle is very much alive in Indian country in this day and age.
I am personally aware of these things in the Navajo country and in some other tribal settings.
Seen from the Navajo perspective, the U.S. is another country. Other Natives, most Mexican Americans, and Anglo Americans in the know recognize that's the case with Navajoland. (H)
#3 You may want to read my last piece again. Yes, that law is an intrusion and that's why it really isn't enforced. Polygamy is alive and well in Navajoland.
It's apples and oranges for sure, but let's shift to Mississippi. Until 1966, that had a theoretically strict policy of alcohol prohibition (save beer) and until 1966 it levied an official state tax on bootleg liquor.
Polygamy will always be a part of the Navajo cultural scenery. (H)
#4 There is not much more I can say. I have tried to explain this thoroughly and lucidly.
Navajoland, including much of the tribal council, is governed mostly by its own traditional folkways and mores. Even Federal laws are obeyed and enforced unevenly. It's the grassroots that trumps-- and the basic Navajo identity is shaped by the family band and its clans. That's the recognition that counts.
A great many Navajo marriages, including polygamous unions, are traditional -- via highly trained medicine men. It isn't at all inconceivable that some medicine men would marry gay couples.
Whether a gay couple married traditionally on the reservation, or off res, they wouldn't encounter prejudice and discrimination on the reservation -- and I am quite sure the marriage would be recognized by the grassroots and even by many Councilmen.
We lived at Tsaile for several years -- rather remote setting. Eldri taught kindergarten at almost all Navajo Tsaile Elementary. Our son, Peter, went there. Lots of kids with the same last names. We knew one father who had five wives. The Tribal Council's Marriage Act isn't going to change things.
#5 I arose very early this morning -- even for me. I do have a little more to say on the Navajo equality issue.
As a general rule, I'm cautious about commenting too much on the internal doings of tribal nations other than my own. I do know a good deal about the Navajo situation -- and our ties with Navajo remain close and vital to this moment. (However, there are things I don't know.)
To Ken, I appreciate your thoughtful questions about a "world" that's obviously new to you. For your part, you know things about settings and situations of which I know little or nothing. For virtually all of my adult life, I have often served as a kind of "bridge person" between some ethnicities and cultures, most especially from the Native perspective. That's a role that "half breeds" are often destined to play, if they're up to it -- which I am.
(I read the transcript of the NPR discussion on the Navajo Defense of Marriage Act that you posted last evening.)
The basic ethos of Navajo culture is Harmony. From that standpoint, the Marriage Act runs counter to that most fundamental dimention of the Navajo Way. What do I think is at least partially involved in this? Some narrow versions of Christianity. Among other things, of course, the Act seeks to void all polygamous marriages -- however long they've been established. It won't accomplish that, of course -- but that and other pieces of the Act constitute disruption.
It's worth mentioning that the traditional Navajo clan system -- as it exists in one form or another in most tribes -- does prevent incest quite effectively. So that part of the Act is useless.
Marriages by the highly trained Navajo medicine men are broadly and deeply considered totally valid. They may not always be "licensed" or "registered" with the bureaucratic structures -- very often are not -- but no question is ever raised at the grassroots about their validity .
And, as I say, in Navajoland the grassroots trumps. I definitely feel that almost all Natives, Navajo or otherwise, are not hostile to gays -- and quite the reverse. I have seen a number of Navajo gatherings where openly gay people were present -- and there were and are certainly no ripples.
I should add that, as in all tribal nations, there is a very basic Navajo Nation unity . And, increasingly, there is a very basic unity -- a pan-Indianism -- between tribal nations. Some positive influences from that perspective could affect the Navajo Council on the gay marriage issue. Same with the changing attitudes in the United States and globally.
It could be a great challenge, as one of the discussants in that which you posted suggested, to organize the 110 Navajo chapters (local governance units). But well honed educative thrusts could be helpful.
But, again, I see the Navajo grassroots as essentially just fine on the gay issue -- and that can and will embrace the gay marriage concept, if it hasn't already to a significant extent.
And the Marriage Act could simply up and disappear quietly.
A quick word on AIDS. When that struck there was, obviously, a good deal of initial confusion in many global settings. This certainly included the Native nations. In Navajo tradition, illness is almost always considered the work of witches and AIDs confusion was considerable for a long time. However, at Navajo and other tribal settings, and obviously in most global areas, perceptions of AIDs as an illness are now seen, regardless of how causal factors are perceived, as a profoundly serious matter which warrants systematic prevention and treatment.
At Navajo, the Indian Health Services (U.S. Public Health) and the medicine men have been working together for several decades. That partnership has been working very well and effectively.
This about all I have to say. Hope this has been useful to you and to some others.
Hunter Bear
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
Check out our massive social justice website
www.hunterbear.org The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm
See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.):
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm
See our very full COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
page -- with a great deal of practical material:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
See my new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word
introduction by me. This page lists many reviews.
And this book is also an activist's how-to manual:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm:
(Photos)