Modern Adornment by Navajo Woman

Modern Navajo Adornment




Matriarch, Jane Werito Yazzie
photographed by Venaya Yazzie 2013

 

Since I began this blog I have been posting pictures of historical Dine' people of the American southwestern desert region.  Most of the photographs I find are available readily on the Internet, but what I have found is that most of the historical photographs of the Indigenous people are incorrectly labeled.  This, I think is due to the fact that nationally and globally the public is still very,very uneducated on the historical and modern lives of the Indigenous people throughout the Americas.

The truth is that most of the time Indigenous people are still viewed as characters in the infamous spagetti-westerns made famous by actors such as John Wayne and others. Though time has passed since then, the icons created and plastered across American television have become stereotypes in contempory society.  The affect of such stereotypes is that we, as Indigenous people live as those images and or do not exist anymore.  The complexity of our individual cutlures is still perpetuated and is carried on via our Indigenous ADORNMENT practices.

I was blessed to grow up in the presence of my maternal grandmother, Jane Werito Yazzie, and it is from her that I grew to love the essence & beauty of turquoise ADORNMENT. My memories of my childhood always include seeing my great-grandmother and Jane wearing turquoise and silver jewelry in their daily lives and today as an adult such memories are my medicine. Today I live my life by their ideals and cultural beliefs, today I have my own collection of Indigenous jewelry pieces and today I partake in Navajo ADORNMENT.

This photograph I have posted today is one of my grandmother Jane. I often take her back to our ancestral homelands at Huerfano, New Mexico.  We often spend the summer days in amidst the sage and cedar trees.  This photograph is one of my favorites as it shows her in her ADORNMENT. This photograph is not just her dressed up in her turquoise for one day, it shows her in her daily ADORNMENT gear. She is divine.