Eastern Navajo. My grandmothers.

Werito Family, Huerfano, NM Eastern Navajo Reservation

I have been doing research of my family for the past five years. Using the historic photographs taken by my grandmother Jane Werito Yazzie I have found inspiration to begin collecting stories and therefore the oral histories of my family.

This photo depicts my great grandmother Louise Begay Werito, and her children. Her daughter, Jane is seated on the right of her. I love this photograph for many reasons, but I adore this becuase it clearly shows how they have ADORNED them selves via their cultural jewelry and velveteen and calico cotton clothing.

My great grandmoher is wearing a velveteen blouse that features coins as a decoration on her sleeves and has small solver buttons along the line of her collar. My grandmother Jane is also wearing a velvelteen blouse with more decoration on the sleeve, front and down her collar. In this photograph my grandmother is a teen and wears her hair in a modern style, while my great-grandmoher is wearing hers in a traditional style.

The veleveteen during this era (late 1940s-50s) is the pure cotton velvelteen with no polyester content. This kind of velveteen is hard to find nowadays. My family still has some of this attire in our possession.

My Dine' Matriarch

Jane Werito Yazzie and Venaya Yazzie
at Ignacio, Colorado

This photo was taken at a gallery reception in Ignacio, Colorado on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation.

Jane is my maternal grandmother, but she raised me and therefore, she is my mother.

What is Beauty?

As an adult we have many responsibilities, for some it is earning money for a house, for some it is being parents, for others it might be life on the road. Living in the presence of my grandparents is the life that has been presented to me. Therefore, I feel  I am continually blessed, educated and humbled on a daily basis.

When I think of what "beauty" is, what the essence of "beauty" is, it is the ways of the Indigenous Elder.

The experiences I have on a daily basis in the presence of Dine' elders is about the true Indigenous ways of being and thinking.

We, as individuals of modern society, are constantly bombarded via technology about what defines "beauty." And if we really stop to ingest this concept of beauty it is only about the physical, it is one-dimensional and in many ways simple and boring. Yet when I really ponder from the Indigenous perspective at "beauty" it is purely spiritual, truly organic.

The things that make my grandparents and or many other Dine' elders beautiful or nizhon are that they seem to constantly seek to keep the balance in life.  For my grandmother is it her socializing with friends and family while always keeping prayer a constant in her life. My family is rich mentally, spiritually becuase of her.

My masani is also my mother, she is beauty sitting in the orange sunset glittering with blue stones on her ears, wrists and chest. Her turquoise jewlery is her essence in the physical.

Virtuous Woman. Asdzaan.



Historical photograph of Navajo women


Today I post a video concerning the Navajo language.
The narrator is reading or transcribing from the Navajo Bible (1985) Proverbs 31:10-31, "The Virtuous Woman," entitled "Asdzáá Yá'át'éehii" in the Navajo Bible.

The photographs presented in the video ar very lovely and display a plethora of Indigenous Navajo ADORNMENT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_EyjZXO_iU