Overview of Day 1: Our day started in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an hour drive from our hotel in Albuquerque. Santa Fe is the capital of New Mexico and has large influences from both the Native American and Hispanic communities. Its buildings are modeled after the traditional adobe structures. This quintessential southwest look makes Santa Fe visually appealing while the arts and culture make it a key destination for many. Following our visit to Santa Fe, we made our way up through the secluded city, Taos, towards our first experience of Native American life on a reservation called Taos Pueblos. Taos Pueblos is a Native American reservation that has a unique and authentic look with it’s adobe structures. The community, in order to turn profits, charges visitors a small fee to walk around a certain part of the reservation and see these unique houses and get a glimpse into native life. After Taos Pueblos, we made our way down the scenic highway called “turquoise trail” or “the high road.”  This drive, for all three of us, was one of the most beautiful and powerful experiences with the natural world. It was full of history, spirituality, and miracles of nature that amazed us all.

 

Maggie’s reflection on Santa Fe:

We arrived in Santa Fe this morning at around 10, an hour and a half drive from Albuquerque (where we were staying). As soon as you enter the outskirts of the city, the designs of the houses transition into faux pueblo-style houses, modeled after the traditional adobe buildings of the Pueblo people. The area is populated by many white, wealthy artists and celebrities, looking for a remote escape from stardom. After arriving, we parked (for free!) and walked into the center marketplace, where Native street vendors were selling their handiwork. Dozens of extremely wealthy galleries lined the streets of the small city, while Native vendors, some travelling over five hours to arrive at the market, sold their jewelry and other products on the sidewalk of one block of the center market. There was something unsettling about the jewelers sitting in the cold, eagerly selling their art for $10 to $50, while wealthy gallery owners profited from the white fascination and appropriation of Native culture mere yards away.

Each vendor was willing to share their story with extreme authenticity and an eagerness to connect with us as individuals. Though conversations usually started with a simple, “Where are you from?” (always followed with a mandatory “Go Birds!”), they quickly escalated to life stories and family history. The kindness shown to us, tourists with cameras hanging around our necks, was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced living on the East Coast – though I soon learned it was the norm in this area. The face-to-face contact with people from Hopi, Navajo, Zuni, Santo Domingo, Taos, and many other tribes differentiated the marketplace sales from galleries that sell Native work for thousands of dollars, without recognition of the Native people who made it.

Though Santa Fe’s beauty and personality appealed to us visually, its underlying messages to its Native inhabitants revealed a darker truth. The community’s existence – in terms of profit, style, and population – relies on the exploitation of Native people. This first stop of our day gave critical context for the reservations and missions that would been seen later in the day.

 

Jane’s reflection on Taos Pueblos:

Taos Pueblos is truly a beautiful sight to see. As shown in the photo above, its stacked style of adobe houses is unlike anything you’ve seen before, and they are positioned in beautiful mountains that take your breath away. While a lot of the population lives away from these unique structures in more modern buildings, the traditional adobe pueblos still hold the homes and stores of many natives. The community of Taos Pueblo, in order to generate income, charges a small amount of money to people wanting to visit this unique area. We, like so many other visitors, upon arrival took out our cameras and started shooting. The colourful doors, the unique clay structure, the dusty landscape, and the beautiful mountains all had to be captured on film.

After 10 minutes of photo taking, I took my eye away from the lens to look at what I was so eager to take a photo of. I was suddenly very uncomfortable with every click of the camera. We were taking photos of people’s lives as if they were a play or mural. It was as if we were in a museum, learning about a distant civilization. I wasn’t connecting as a human being but as one species studying another species. I put my camera away and leaned into that uncomfortableness. The truth behind it is that this community had come to an agreement on using their unique landscape as a place to earn money. This system provides jobs and was an intentional choice by the people. The disconnect comes from our approach; when I use the camera instead of my eyes we sometimes lose that ability to connect with others. In some cases, a photo preserves something, but not if it hasn’t been experienced without looking through the camera lens than that moment is not a connection, a relationship, or a moment but rather just the sound of the click and a cool photo to wave around.

 

Gwyneth’s reflection on The High Road:

At one point as we drove along the turquoise trail, Ed (our guide) told us that the next 50 miles would change our lives. For me, this was absolutely true. The whole experience was unlike anything I have ever encountered and it will be impossible to do it justice in writing. To begin with, the scenery was magical. The road wound through the sprawling mountains, which dominate the landscape. Way up there, looking out the car window down at the valley below, I felt tiny among the astounding vastness of the New Mexico wilderness. But at the same time as I felt completely out of my element and intimidated by the rugged terrain, I also found myself strangely comforted. There is no way to look at beauty like that and not feel blessed to be alive to experience it. Although I am not a particularly religious person, I have no doubt that there is something spiritual about those mountains.

This spiritual element was made manifest by the various mission churches we saw along the trail. All of them were built in the simple and humble style of Spanish colonial architecture. Perhaps even more than the churches, the tiny towns we drove through demonstrated the strong spirituality of the people there – a mix of hispanics, natives, and some caucasians. Murals and graffiti on the sides of buildings show images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Colorful graveyards, their thin white crosses decorated with rosaries and fake flowers, sit on the edges of the towns. The mountains are filled with a strong and vibrant spirituality.

By far the most powerful spot we visited was Chimayo, a well-known Catholic pilgrimage site. In one part of the town, seven large stone crosses stand, each adorned with numerous smaller crosses placed there by visitors. Even more small crosses, many containing prayers and images of the Virgin Mary, hang along a fence surrounding this area. Several small shrines stand nearby, where people have hung rosaries and placed candles. Up a hill from this spot, we came across a small church , El Santuario de Chimayo, which was open to visitors. We were not able to take pictures of the interior, and it is difficult to put into words the power it conveyed. In the traditional Latin American style, the religious art conveyed a sense of vibrancy and joy at the same time as it was solemn and thought-provoking. I could have sat inside that little church all day, just taking in the imagery.

Hello, blog-readers! Our names are Gwyneth, Maggie, and Jane, and we’re here to talk about our upcoming Senior Project visiting the Navajo and White Mountain Apache Native American reservations in New Mexico and Arizona. Along with those two reservations, we will also be visiting other sites, such as Taos Pueblos, Santa Fe, Chinle, and the Canyon De Chelley. Our guide and mentor is Ed Cunicelli, a freelance photographer and parent of a recent alum. Ed’s photography for Johns Hopkins Center for Native American Health has taken him to these areas many times before, allowing him to have established strong connections and relationships on the reservations. One of us will be posting to this blog daily about our experiences, and hopefully will be able to attach some photos in order to further illustrate our day-to-day activities.

We are super excited to head off this Saturday to start our adventure. This idea has been long in the making; ever since we had the opportunity to see Ed’s photos from his Westtown assembly this fall, we have been captivated by the idea of getting a glimpse into an often neglected, but fundamental narrative in our country’s history. In order to prepare for our trip and to start understanding the community and culture we are about to witness, we have been reading two books about the Apache and Navajo experience: Navajos Wear Nikes by Jim Kristofic and Don’t Let the Sun Step Over You by Eva Tulene Watt and assisted by Keith H. Basso. Both books take different perspective that have helped us understand the people and the history. In addition to the books, we have been researching the history and context of these places and people. It is important that you, as our readers understand this narrative as well, so that your reading of our posts will be grounded in some historical context. We have laid out a summary for both the Navajo and the White Mountain Apache people to start:

The Navajo:

The Navajo, who call themselves Diné (meaning “the people”), constitute the largest reservation-based Native American tribe in the United States. Their reservation spans 25,000 square miles in the four corners region of the American southwest. They arrived in the southwest around the year 1050 CE after splitting off from the Athabascan people and migrating southwards from Canada. Influenced by the Pueblo farmers already settled in this area, the Navajo hunter-gatherers adopted an increasingly agriculture-based lifestyle. This process was accelerated by the arrival of the Spanish, who introduced horses and livestock to the Navajo, in the 16th and 17th centuries.

As was the case with all Native American peoples, the arrival of Europeans subjected the Navajo to substantial hardship. Initial conflicts with the Spanish eventually gave way to new conflicts with white American settlers. In response to the so-called “Navajo problem”, the US Army employed tactics such as destroying of Navajo crops and burning down their villages in order to force them into a concentration camp in New Mexico known as Bosque Redondo. Those who refused to surrender were driven into the mountains to freeze or starve. In 1864, the survivors gave in and were made to embark on what is known as the “Long Walk of the Navajo” – a 370 mile journey to the camp made entirely on foot. Hundreds perished during the journey and as a result of the inhumane conditions at the camp.This period of internment was brought to an end in 1866, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs assumed responsibility for managing the Navajo and the US government created the Navajo reservation out of a small portion of the tribe’s original territory.

Since 1969, the Navajo land has been known as “the Navajo Nation” as the result of a resolution passed by the Navajo Tribal Council. The structure of the Tribal Council was reorganized in 1989 and today the government of the Navajo Nation is based on a system of checks and balances between its executive, judicial, and legislative branches.

The Navajo religion places a large role in tribal life, with even the large population of Navajos who identify as Christians continuing to engage in traditional spiritual practices. The Navajo believe that the universe is inhabited by two types of people: human beings and and Holy People, who inflict disease and disaster in response to human transgressions. Central to Navajo spirituality is the concept of hózhó, which encompasses “beauty, harmony, balance, health, goodness, etc”. Numerous different ceremonies are performed for the purpose of preserving and restoring hózhó, each of which involves its own set of chants. A specific sand painting, of which about 1,200 varieties exist in total, goes along with every chant.

Although it is impossible to make accurate generalizations about an entire people, the Navajo do have some common values and tendencies in the ways they interact and form interpersonal relationships. These will be particularly important for us to keep in mind as attempt to communicate with them in the most respectful and culturally appropriate way possible. The Navajo tend to approach things carefully and at a slow pace, listening quietly to others, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, and taking the time to fully consider an issue before making a decision. Traditionally, the tribe has been governed by consensus rather than majority rule, although this tends not to be the case today.The Navajo also strongly value generosity, as well as reciprocity in both the good and the bad done to them by others.

Unfortunately, the Navajo today suffer from a disproportionate amount of problems compared to the general US population. Like most Native Americans, the Navajo continue to be afflicted by unemployment, poverty, alcoholism, and drug abuse. Suicide and child abuse are also particularly pressing issues among the Navajo. Furthermore, significant tensions exist between more traditional members of the tribe and those who favor modernization. Finally, the environmental damage done by oil drilling, mining, and overgrazing have jeopardized much of the Navajo lands. (“Navajo”)

White Mountain Apache:

The White Mountain Apache are with whom we’ll be spending most of our time on this trip. Apache, meaning ‘enemy’ in the Zuni Pueblo language, are Native people who settled in the South West in 1400 BCE. Apache people were generally nomadic due to the aridity of the soil surrounding the Grand Canyon and beyond. The White Mountain Apache Tribe is one of 12 Apache bands, each politically independent yet culturally and linguistically connected. Historically, the Apache were separated into six extended families, or gotas, that lived, hunted, and farmed together. Each gota was created matrilineally, and was led by a headman. Women were politically important to intertribal harmony, through men were always the headmen and leaders. Due to the severe climate of the desert, Apache were known for their resilience and raiding of Hopi and Pueblo tribes for material goods. After the Spanish attempted to invade their tribal lands in 1599, the Apache obtained horses and other livestock from Spanish raids, strengthening their mobility and nation’s power. The Spanish were cruel to the Apache, forcing tribe members, even Christian converts, into slavery. The Apache were able to resist such oppression through continual raids and stealing of horses, and often Spanish colonists left Apache regions out of fear.

The relationship between American colonists and White Mountain Apache began as an alliance against the Chiricahua Apache. After their victory, however, the White Mountain people quickly became subjugated by the American colonists who had established a fort on their land. This fort then played a role in the lengthy wars between the American colonists and Native American tribes. The White Mountain Apache continue to reside on these traditional lands, a portion of their 1.6 million acres on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. The Fort Apache Indian Reservation was established by an Executive Order in 1891; its placement on traditional lands is reported to have been as reward for the service of White Mountain Apache guides to the American army. As is true for the Navajo people, the White Mountain Apache have been and continue to be maltreated by white Americans, stripping the community of most of their land, and attempting to eradicate their language and culture.

Though the White Mountain Apache were once nomadic, they have become sentiary since the invasion of white Americans on their land. The tribe was never displaced as other indigenous people were; it remains on the same lands that it has always lived on. The importance of traditional lands can be best understood in the recognition that the, “White Mountain Apache culture emphasizes the infusion of the physical world with mental and spiritual dimensions,” (Long 2003).  Apache language demonstrates the inseparability of the two: the root word ni’ can refer to either “mind” or “land” (Bray 1999).  The White Mountain Apache Tribe’s first creation story explains that water is the breath of the earth – it is alive and sacred. The mythological importance of water persists in Apache culture today through their upholding of bodies of water on their land. Environmental concerns are especially important to the White Mountain Apache, due to their understanding of the interactions between the interior and exterior world.

Ultimately, our primary goal for this trip is to remain respectful towards Native people often appropriated in White American culture. We are cognizant of the danger of becoming “white saviors” in areas of different racial backgrounds, therefore it is of utmost importance that we, as outsiders, do not disrupt or disturb the way of life that is so unique to that area. With that being said, we hope that with our awareness of these issues, we will be able to observe and attempt to understand this crucial part of American History and how our current political climate and social structures impact the life of native people.

It is with great excitement that we are able to share our experiences with you through this blog! Iit will both serve you, as the reader, and allow us, as the writers, to process and share  the possibly weighty experiences we will have throughout the week.

Jane Abbott, Maggie Lind, and Gwyneth Turner

P.S. We understand this post is quite lengthy. We hope to keep our others shorter but we believe the history is an important part of our project and hope to illustrate that for you in this first post.