Mental & Spiritual Adornment.Navajo world.

Mixed media conceptual art from Eternal Matriarch series.
Venaya Yazzie 2013

Thankfully it is true. For in the 21st century there exists a word in Dinétah that concerns the organic perpetuation of Diné lifeways on many levels, but I will talk specifically about the idea of ADORNMENT as an act of mental and spiritual well-being.

Growing up amidst the tangible cultural jewelry of my matriarchs, I acquired the jargon of female ADORNMENT, and too I learned the language of what Navajo ADORNMENT. The expression is ha'dít'é. As a young girl I did not fully understand what the act of wearing turquoise, white shell, abalone shell or coral jewelry meant, but as an adult desert woman I fully grasp the meaning.

Ha'dít'é is the essence of the Diné act, or ritual of the Emergence. As a Diné woman I understand that when I put on my coral and turquoise string of beads, I am re-enacting the motions of Diné presence and existence on the earth. We express earth as Nahasaan Ni himá, and it is because of Her that we have a continuance of life.

Ha'dít'é is the re-enactment of daily blessings in Diné epistemology.
As Diné I, we ADORN ourselves with earth's hard and soft goods as a way of perpetuating hózhó, as a way of ensuring the blessings of the Holy People.

For me, Ha'dít'é, is a visceral act.  This need is an innate act to ensure my mental and spiritual well-being as a woman of the desert, a woman of Diné and Hopi descent.

Nizhoni go ha'dít'é dooleeł

Venaya Yazzie2013