Song & Dance.Dine'.Regalia.

Navajo man and woman at Song and Dance. Window Rock, AZ
Photograph by Venaya Yazzie

After I graduated from the Institute of American Indian Arts I planted my roots again in my homelands in the San Juan Valley and the high desert lands of Huerfano, NM. This was in 1996. I was longing for the sage views and two rivers that run through the community and too I was in need of Dine' ways of dress, song, music and dance.

With the help of some female clan relatives I was soon dressed and ADORNED in the dancing regalia of the Dine' Song and Dance. I fell so in love with the ritual of INDIGENOUS Dine' ADORNMENT, and all that a participant must do. I soon learned most of the songs that the singers sang for the dances as I was frequentling a social dance nearly every weekend. It was a good time for me, it was my healing, it was my happiness.

I am so very thankful for such an experience as a young Dine' woman, I absorbed much and learned the traditional ways of acting, behaving and presenting myself.

About this photograph: I took this at the annual Navajo Nation Fair Song and Dance in Window Rock, AZ. The dance is a social dance that requires dancing with a partner and foremost it is a woman's choice dance where the woman chooses her male partner. The modern song and dance is adapted from the traditional social dances of the Enemyway Dine' ceremony called, N'daa. This part of the ritual is a time for the young people or single people to dance with the one person they may adore.

The dance also gives the Dine' individual a chance to dress and ADORN themselves to the nines. To put on their very best and present themselves to other dancers and possibly their sweethearts.  As you will see in the picture above the elder Dine' couple is wearing matching outfits and the woman is wearing her hair in a traditional Dine' hair bun that is ADORNED with a Navajo design hair pin. She is also wearing Ke'intsaa, or her moccasins with dear skin wraps on her legs. They were good dancers too!

I am planning on attending a Song and Dance event in Monument Valley this week and will be taking some photographs to share.

Be ADORNED!