Dan Y. Begay interview

Dan Y. Begay
My name is Dan Y. Begay, and I'm of the (in Navajo), that's my clan (in Navajo) my father's (in Navajo).  I am really originally from Blue Gap, Arizona, west of Chinle, Arizona.  Right now I'm residing here in Shiprock, and got married.  I've got my wife and two kids, a young man and a young lady.  I ended up here on this farm because I got married to my wife. 

Interviewer
Tell me a little bit about the Long Walk.  What did your grandfather tell you about the Long Walk?

Dan Y. Begay
One day as a little boy I was playing around and he and another man were talking, and I was playing there.  I was probably around four years old and he and that man were talking about some of the people that were decedents from that Long Walk.  And after that man left I turned around and talked to my great grandfather and told him that I read about that Long Walk and he asked me, he said, "What did you read about that Long Walk?"  And I told him that there was an individual by the name of Kit Carson, along with the United States Government and the United States Army, that came around and rounded up the people there in Chinle area around Canyon de Chelly area, and from there they were taken down to Fort Sumner, Heewldi.  I told him that the people spent a couple of years down there, and they were brought back eventually after a treaty was made, and that they got back into that area.  What I read I told him.  At the time that I told him he asked me, "Is there anything else that you read about that trip and the Walk?"  And I told him that was about it—that the people went down there, and in spite of the hardships, and came back also.  And then he asked me, "anything else?" And I told him, "that was it."  And then he told me that there is a lot of things that happened on that journey down, and what people were there, and also the journey back.  Going down that there was a lot of people; some of them sick, some of them old, and some of them were children, babies, old people; that some of them were left along that trail because they couldn't keep up—they didn't have the strength.  So they were left along that trail maybe with just a little bit of food and water and fire—and that was it.  A lot of them never made it down there.  And coming up the same thing: there was a lot of people that were left along that trail. Also, even some of the mothers that had babies—and the mothers couldn't produce milk because she was so malnourished that she couldn't keep that baby—and as small as those babies were, some of them became very heavy.  So in the course of walking and trying to keep up, because the mother couldn't produce milk, some of those babies were left along that trail too.  Old people, sick people were left along that trail again, and those people never made it back.  That is what he told me. 

Interviewer
When you think about them today, how do you feel about your ancestors who made that trip? 

Dan Y. Begay
For me at this day and time, so many sacrifices were made.  I heard that the struggle, and how the people were taught: we need to survive for our children to be, for our grandchildren to be, that the Navajo, the Dine people, the culture, the tradition, the spirituality, that we must go on for the sake of our children.  That is what they talked about.  So that way, being a grandchild to those people that made it back, I feel proud that they made that journey. That in spite of all the adversities that they made it back so I could be here to be alive; to be able to experience life, to see my children grow up and become educated and have good jobs and to experience, also my grandchildren that they can have a good life also. 

Interviewer
Tell me about the coyote ceremony that we were talking about earlier.

Dan Y. Begay
While the people were there, they wanted so much to come back here to this part of the country and to the Four Corners area back up into the Black Mountain area, that one of the people there, that made that journey there, my great grandfather told me, was a great great great grandmother.  Her name was (in Navajo... as sa sana jenee) and that she had the hand-trembling way, and along with other medicine people, they did diagnosis how can we get back up in here?  So according to those diagnosis, ceremonies were done, and somewhere at the time the treaty of 1868 was going to be formulated that there was a coyote that was brought in to one of the ceremonies and the people stayed up there, that the coyote is going to tell us where we're going to be going.  At the end of that ceremony if the coyote heads south, we're going to be taking east, but if it goes north, we're going to be able to go back to our country—Navajo land within the Four Sacred Mountains. 

Interviewer
How did people feel when they made that journey home?

Dan Y. Begay
According to my great grandfather, some of the people cried as soon as they saw the Sacred Mountains.  As far as Mount Taylor around Grants area, when they saw that mountain, the peaks, people cried because you know they were coming close to their homeland.  People sang songs, what we call "Sacred Mountain songs," to honor the Sacred Mountains that they were coming home. They cried and they were elated.  From then on they came back into this area, and that they were happy, and although the struggle and the pains and also the physical effort and the emotional and mental trauma of keeping up and just the strength of everybody to make it back up into this area, that it was a happy journey from then on once they saw the Sacred Mountains—the landmarks.

Interviewer
What do you think the Long Walk meant to the Navajo and how they were treated on the Walk?

Dan Y. Begay
To me the Long Walk represents at this time that we are a people that are survivors; that we have the strength physically and emotionally, mentally and also spiritually to be able to overcome whatever obstacle may loom in our path; that we are unique and can experience such trauma, and yet be able to survive—and that we have survived.  My people have survived, and we will survive from here forth. 

Interviewer
Lets talk about your boarding school experience.  You mentioned what it was like when you were left at boarding school and your parent's left, and soon after you were being hit.  Tell me that story.

Dan Y. Begay
There was a time that I was taken to a boarding school, with the insistence by the government people that I'd be taken to a boarding school.  I remember hearing my dad talking about it being told that, “Your son has to go to boarding school.  If you don't, you may have to serve jail time if you don't comply.  We're taking your son to boarding school.”  So he and my mother one day took me to the boarding school in Pinon, Arizona.  And they left me there.  And the minute they left I started to cry, and I wanted so much to run after them but the instructional aides that were there kept me there, and as soon as my mother and my father were beyond hearing distance I was crying and the individual that was there hit me on side of the head—slapped me and told me to quit crying.  I didn't understand the language, the English language at that time, and I guess he was telling me not to cry.  And with the pain of being hit I began to cry louder and louder, and the slaps became harder and harder too, and eventually I realized that I had to quiet down and submit to being terrorized at that time. 

Interviewer
You mentioned some of the boys were hit so hard their ears would bleed.

Dan Y. Begay
There was a time when I saw one of the kids, a young man, and he was hit on the side of the head so hard that he flew across the room and when he got up, after he got up, he had blood coming out of his ears. And I didn't realize what it was about until later on in the years that I knew that he probably had ruptured ear drums from that.

Interviewer
And you were telling me about your experience with cheese?

Dan Y. Begay
One of the things, there at the government schools, that we were served food, and on one day on the menu was cheese, and cheese was foreign to me.  I didn't know anything about cheese.  I'd never experienced cheese until that one day, and when I got done eating I didn't know what it was and so I saw some of the other kids eating it.  But when I picked it up, the stench from it, the smell of it made me kind of gag, so I just put it aside and the individual, the instructional aide, came around.  He told me, "Eat that cheese."  So I picked it up and tried to eat it, but yet again I couldn't put it into my mouth because it stunk to me.  So eventually he grabbed me behind the head and he told me to “open your mouth,” and he grabbed my jaw also with the other hand, forced it open and shoved that cheese into my mouth.  No matter how hard I tried to chew it to where I could swallow, I couldn't do it.  I was gagging on it.  I was throwing up, and yet he shoved it into my mouth.  I don't know how I swallowed, but I finally did.

Interviewer
What happened to you if you spoke Navajo or practiced your Navajo religion?

Dan Y. Begay
One of the things that was emphasized on a daily basis was to talk English, not to talk Navajo, because the Navajo language was what we call, “Satan”; what they told us the language.  That is what we were told.  So I was told not to speak that language.  And then there were certain times when I went home and sometimes when I was home my great grandfather would go ahead and administer corn pollen to my mouth and my head to make my journey.  But when I got back to school, if the instructional aides found that I had corn pollen on top of my head, they would tell me, "rinse it off, you've been practicing the devil's ways again."  So I had to go in there and wash my hair and get rid of the corn pollen. 

Interviewer
 How about your dress?  Did they encourage you to dress a certain way?

Dan Y. Begay
Ya, and some of the things that we were told, and I was told, was the same thing—and how to dress, how to wear my shoes, and even to the point where the haircut was also military style.  I encountered that when… the same kind of haircut when I was drafted during the Vietnam War.  It was pretty, well, military style, and we were checked.  We would stand in line and our gig line, you know, from our buttons, our belt everything.  We had to conform to what was considered regulation as far as dress.

Interviewer
What happened to you if you did not conform?

Dan Y. Begay
If I didn't conform, or any of the kids didn't conform, we were made to scrub the floor, pull extra detail, stand in the corner and be punished.  Some of the things that we encountered at the hands of people; it depended also on the mood of that individual.  If the individual was kind of happy and in a happy mood, the punishment wasn't as severe, yet if that individual came in and he wasn't having a good day, the punishment was severe even to the point of being spanked, whipped, whatever.  Whatever was close at hand he'd grab onto and hit us with it. 

Interviewer
Can you remember any spankings that you got?

Dan Y. Begay
Yes.  I was spanked quite a few times, and one of the things that happened you know... I was told to strip down and I was hit severely even to the point where the individual who was upset with me, the instructional aide, picked out a bigger kid and he would put that kid into a room with me and he told that bigger kid "beat him up, I want you to beat him up."  So he would close the door, and being in that room, that kid, had no alternative than to go ahead and beat me up.

Interviewer
What do you think that did to your identity or the identity of the many children who went through that experience?

Dan Y. Begay
For me I guess there was always the inspiration.  My great grandfather told me in order to overcome the white people and their ways, you have to learn to speak their language—think the way they do.  Do the things that they do, but never ever forget that you are Navajo because by learning to talk English and thinking the way that they do, one day you'll be able to overcome and be able to live a life in a good way.  Some of the other kids didn't and I've gone back over there and I've seen some of them and some of them are grown and I know them and some of them don't have a home.  Some of them are struggling with life being alcoholic.  So these are things that I encountered in the way of punishment— beatings. 

Interviewer
How did that make you feel the first time you left your parents?

Dan Y. Begay
I was angry at my mother and my father because they abandoned me; because they told me that, "You're going to be o.k. at school and they're going to take care of you. You're going to be taken care of in a very good way. You're going to be in a safe place."  But yet, when I was over there, so many times I was terrorized and so many times I was traumatized by a lot of the things that happened. And I was angry at my mother and my father for some time, and yet I didn't show it because I was told that was not the way to respect your mother and your father because they know what's good for you traditionally.  So that's what I was told.  So I had to go submit to the punishments and just live with it.

Interviewer
Tell us about the coyote story and the direction home.  Will you please tell me that story one more time?

Dan Y. Begay
At the time that the people were down there, according to my great grandfather, some of the things that were done at the time that the people were down there at Fort Sumner, Hweeldi that the people did ceremonies and some of the, what we call diagnosis through crystal gazing, also hand trembling, that I had a great great great grandmother that made the journey down there.  She was one of the medicine people that the people relied upon.  She knew the "hand trembling way"—that was what he told me, that together these medicine people would get together and do these ceremonies.  How can we be able to go back to our homeland, go back to the Four Sacred Mountains?  So she was one of those that was at those ceremonies.  There was a time right around when the treaty of 1868 was formulated that one of these diagnosis ceremonies was done and they went ahead and brought in a coyote because that is what the diagnosis specified and they did another ceremony and at the end of the ceremony they released that coyote and during that time, at the time of that ceremony, the medicine people talked to one another and said that the direction that this coyote is going to go... if it takes off to the east, we're going to be going to the east somewhere, maybe Oklahoma... somewhere towards the east.  But yet if it goes north, then the coyote is going to tell us we're going to be headed back to our homeland.  And when that coyote was released, it headed north and the people were happy and they were elated and they started saying we're going to be going home.  That is what my great grandfather told me. 

Interviewer
We were talking about your boarding school experience and you were talking about how traumatic it was when you drove there, and it made you cry.

Dan Y. Begay
Well one day my wife and I made that trip back over there and I wanted to revisit that area where I experienced so much trauma, so much pain, so much hurt physically, mentally and emotionally, even spiritually.  So we went back up there and revisited that area where I went to that boarding school and I pointed out the different places where certain things happened where I experienced certain things, whether it be with me or another kid going through that negative experience with the instructional aide or a teacher.  So at the time I didn't realize how emotionally I was still connected to the things that had happened, and as I was talking to my wife about what happened to me here or there, I realized that I began to cry and it was my wife that told me, "It's o.k. now, it's way way way behind you."  And I took a deep breath and we left from there, and whatever I went through I left behind me.  From that time forth I believe that with that visit to that area, a lot of the anger that I used to feel, I left it behind at that time also. 

Interviewer
Tell me about the boarding school and going back and how traumatic it was for you again.

Dan Y. Begay
One of the things that happened in my lifetime... I had this at times, anger, where if anybody rubbed me the wrong way or said something or did something against me that I didn't appreciate, my tendency was to fight.  At one time my wife and I were driving around and we went back out there to that place where I went to boarding school, and upon going back to that place I talked to my wife and told her about the many things that I encountered and experienced at that boarding school, telling her this happened here, that happened there, and I didn't realize that I had began to cry.  Some of the things that happened to me there, either by the instructional aides, by another kid,  and I began to cry.  That was when my wife told me, "Those things happened a long time ago, this is now.  You need to leave all of this behind you."  At that time I didn't realize how I was very much still connected to what had happened to me way back then as a child.  And as we left from there, with my wife's insistence that I put it behind me; we left from there and I felt a whole lot better, and I didn't realize how much I had been traumatized by all that happened at a very young age to me.  But now after having done that I can sit here and laugh about some of the things that happened and laugh about it and talk about it and not feel so angry or not feel pain—that I can look back because it enabled me to be who I am, a survivor.

Interviewer
Talk about your experience in the Army and your tendency to want to fight and how that was related to the boarding school.

Dan Y. Begay
At the time that I had been drafted during the Vietnam War, and again being ordered to do this, do that by commanding officers, it was pretty well kind of a similar experience to the boarding school days, and it brought out a lot of anger and resentment about the people that were telling me what to do.  But yet I had to do it because  always behind it there was that thing called the United States Military Code of Justice.  But anyway, there was always that threat: “If you don't do what I tell you, I'm going to deal with you; court marshal you.” So again, a lot of the anger also being told to do this and do that, and I had to do it—some of the things that I did and some of the things that happened that I would have never ordinarily done to hurt people and people that I didn't know.  But yet again, I survived that time that I had a tendency to fight at that time whoever rubbed me the wrong way again.  Whoever said anything that I didn't like I'd pick a fight with them, and I fought many people, especially white people during those times.