TEDxPhoenix 2010 Jolyana Bitsui - What it means to be a Navajo woman

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Jolyana Bitsui - What it means to be a Navajo woman

Powwow 'adornment.'

Powwow 'adornment.'
Photo by Venaya Yazzie
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2015

I took a 'selfie' while participating in the powwow grand entry this past weekend in Dulce, New Mexico on the Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation.

This annual community celebration is a favorite on my list of summer powwows, and it did not disappoint. I was able to wear my favorite Jingle Dress and beadwork.

Dine' Women's Cultural Adornment

Dine' Women's Cultural Adornment at Dulce, NM Powwow
Photo by Venaya Yazzie
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2015

This past weekend I was able to attend and dance at the annual Jicarilla Days Celebration Powwow in Dulce, New Mexico.

As a dancer participant and as an observer I had a great opportunity to take some photographs and to talk with spectators. As I danced in the Inter-tribal dances, I befriended a Dine' (Navajo) woman who was dressed head to toe in her cultural adornment regalia. Her attire was striking and she stood out as she was the only Dine' wearing her traditional clothing among the pan-Indian dress of the powwow dancers.

I befriended her and learned she was a mother for Sweetwater, NM community. I asked her about her clothing and expressed it was good to she her dressed up in the Navajo way, or as I said, "Nizhoni'go ha'di'tee." In the Navajo way this expression concerns the physical act of wearing 'turquoise' adornment. She danced the both days of the powwow among the powwow people.

She wore a traditional wool woven dress called a 'biil,' and Navajo-style footwear called 'ke'tsal' made of cowhide and deer buckskin moccasins, and she carried a Pendleton women's shawl on her left arm. She dripped in an array of various turquoise jewelry pieces included a full-turquoise and silver belt. She wore her hair in a traditional Navajo women's 'tsii yaal' or hair bundle.

It was good to see such desert women's Indigenous Adornment. She made me proud to be a desert woman, her dress showed the beauty, dignity and strength of the Navajo woman. She blessed the People.