The Blessing Way (1970)

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is part of the United States Department of the Interior established on March 11, 1824. The mission of this bureau is to provide services to the 566 federally recognized Native American tribes and Alaska Natives in the United States. The BIA also administers and manages over 55 million acres of land within the U.S. The BIA is one of two bureaus under the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, the other being the Bureau of Indian Education.

Native American groups have clashed with the BIA because they believe the agency is not doing all it can for the groups it is pledged to support. Many of these claims of neglect, mismanagement, misappropriated funds, and hypocritical bureaucratic standards and procedures have been proven in courts of law.

A protective rim found at the front and rear of most vehicles. The bumper protects the body of the vehicle from incidental contact with objects, such as brush, debris, and even minor contact with other vehicles (for example the minor dings that can occur while parallel parking). The bumper is also engineered to absorb high impact contact and lessen the damage during an automobile accident. Rear bumpers have also become the site for automobile owners to decorate their car with eye-catching bumper stickers that communicate slogans, notices, cultural commentary, or political propaganda.

Buffalo grass (Bouteloua dactyloides) is a prairie grass found in the western regions of North America. It has curling leaves and grows in thick patches. Buffalo grass is a short grass that is cold, heat, and drought resistant. Historically, buffalo grass was used to make sod houses during the westward expansion.

A vernacular reference to the North American bison, large herds of which once roamed the North American plains in seemingly endless waves. The bison was an integral component of North American indigenous lifeways throughout the interwest regions. In addition to being a major source of direct subsistence, it also served indigenous communities indirectly in terms of a supporting a thriving economy of exchange founded on bison by-products. The bison was one of the most revered animals in the spiritual belief systems of Native American peoples, and its cultural and material significance cannot be over-emphasized.

Before Anglo-European settlement and the transcontinental railroad, there were approximately thirty million bison roaming the Great Plains. By the mid-19th century, the bison population was depleted to about 100,000 animals because of non-Native profit-driven mass hunting. To those tribes that saw the bison as integral and sacred, this mass hunting was a desecration. Recently, efforts to bring back the numbers of the endangered species have increased the overall bison population to about 250,000.

Buckskin is soft leather made from the skin of a deer, or other kind of horned animal, which has been treated to make it pliable. After the skin has been removed from the carcass of the deer, the subcutaneous material is scrapped off, and then the skin is tanned in a solution that contains tannin, a bitter substance present in bark, acorns, and other plant materials. The tanning process is a preservation process and is what converts animal hide into long-lasting leather. Modern buckskin is tanned, dyed, and then softened with chemicals, but traditionally, natural oils from the deer’s body are used to make the skin supple and moldable after the tanning process.

Some cultures use buckskin for clothing; however, buckskin is used by Navajos only for ceremonial purposes.

A temporary shelter that consists of a roof constructed out of tree branches or brush that are held up by poles. Often used in the Southwest to provide shade. For the Navajo, brush arbors function as temporary hogans during the summer months and are often erected at sheep camps or even on the vicinity of the primary female hogan associated with the matriarch of a family. The brush arbor may be used by females to perform non-ceremonial daily activities during the summer.

In Navajo mythology, Born of Water, also known as Water Child, is one of the twin sons of Changing Woman born to rid the earth of the monsters who were killing the People. Born of Water is the younger twin, known as Tobadzîschíni in Diné.

The twins are set a series of trials and, with the completion of each task, they get that much closer to achieving their final goal, which is gaining the tools and knowledge they need to save their People. After successfully completing many initial challenges, they are given weapons. The younger twin, Born of Water, is given prayer sticks and told to watch them as the older twin, Monster Slayer, goes out to fight the monsters. If the prayer sticks begin to burn, Born of Water will know that Monster Slayer is in danger and needs help. Monster Slayer goes alone to kill some of the monsters, and Born of Water accompanies him while killing others.

A school where students live while they attend classes. Although some boarding schools have reputations for academic excellence and are notable for the elite and privileged social strata their students represent, boarding schools are also often synonymous with sadistic forms of punitive discipline, hazing, and antisocial behavior. In regard to the history of Native Americans, boarding schools have a particularly dark narrative associated with forced assimilation, cruelty, and disappearing students. Of course, not every Native American boarding school experience was dreadful, but in general, the testimony of several generations of boarding school children and their families bear witness to a system of hateful prejudice and dehumanizing policies aimed at producing a servant class of cultural amnesiacs.

The first Indian boarding school was opened in 1879 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and many more across the country followed. The main goal was to assimilate Native American children into what was understood as dominant U.S. culture: white, Christian, and patriarchal. Many schools went to great lengths to get children to abandon their Native heritage, traditions, and language, enforcing strict punishment if languages other than English were spoken, and even legally changing names to erase familial and cultural linkages.

Because of these conditions, Native American communities were reluctant to enroll their children in Indian boarding schools, and the U.S. Army and even tribal police kidnapped potential students in order to meet enrollment quotas. In 1900, the Bureau of Indian Affairs acknowledged the violence, victimization, and even criminalization inherent within the policy of separating families through the forced enrollment of indigenous youth into enrollment in the Indian Boarding School system. As a result, many boarding schools became day schools, but the education of Native American children in traditions, languages, and communities other than their own continues to this day.

Commonly spelled Blessingway. As opposed to the other Navajo (Diné) Chant Ways, which are used to effect a cure of a problem, the Blessingway (Hózhójí) is used to bless the "one sung over," to ensure good luck, good health, and blessings for everything that pertains to them. It is also thought of as being "for good hope." Blessingway ceremonies can be performed for expectant mothers shortly before birth is due, or young men leaving for the armed forces. The Blessingway ceremony is performed frequently.

The name of the rite, Hózhójí, is translated Blessingway, but that is certainly not an exact translation. In the Navajo language (diné bizaad) the term encompasses everything that is understood as good, as opposed to evil, for man. The root of the Blessingway ceremony, hózhó, encompasses such concepts as beauty, harmony, success, perfection, well-being, order, and ideal.

Black God (Haashchʼééshzhiní), sometimes referred to as Darkness to Be One by Tony Hillerman, is the god of fire and creator of the stars in Navajo mythology. Not all accounts credit him with the creation of the constellations, but all credit him with the creation of fire and light as found in the stars. As one story goes, when the Black God entered the hogan the Holy People noticed Pleiades, the Hard Flint Boys, attached to his ankle. When asked why the constellation was there the Black God stomped his feet and the stars leaped up his leg until they reached his head. After he did this impressive act, the Black God was allowed to place all the other constellations in the sky. However, while he completed this task Coyote came along and also wanted to place stars; he grabbed a handful of stars and threw them in the sky. This is why there are named constellations and other random non-clustered stars in the night sky.