Robert Begay interview
Interviewer
Tell me your name and where you're from, then tell me the significance of the Chuska Mountains to Navajo culture.
Robert Begay
My name is Robert Begay. I'm the Navajo Nation Archeology Department's Director. I am from Crystal. My clans are "Born from Water"... I am "Born from Water; Born for the Edge of Water People." The Towering House people are my paternal grandparents, and my paternal grandparents are the "Red Streak Running into Water" people.
The Chuska Mountains are very, very important culturally. Basically they're one of the mountains that are part of Navajo culture and Navajo history.
The Chuska Mountains are very important in Navajo history, Navajo life ways. It is one of those mountains that are mentioned quite often. It is ordained with what we call Yoda, meaning all the riches in the world. It is considered a male and a counterpart to Black Mesa. There is a lot of history to it ceremonially, and also in more recent times, stuff with Navajo history that has happened in the last several hundred years.
Interviewer
Tell me again the significance of the Chuska Mountains.
Robert Begay
The Chuska Mountains are very important to Navajo people. It is one of the mountains that have our significance not only ceremonially, but also in traditional life. It is considered a male mountain, but also considered and ordained with various riches of the universe called (Navajo). It is one of those mountains that is ordained with that, with all of the jewels and various things, and it's also very important because a lot of events in the last four or five hundred years is significant in that area. It is a mountain range that... the counterpart to the Chuska Mountain is the Black Mesa. The Black Mesa is considered the female part, or the counterpart of Chuska Mountain.
Interviewer
Tell me about Narbona Pass. How does that fit into Navajo culture, and why is it important to you?
Robert Begay
Narbono Pass is actually really, really important to Navajo people. Again, it's part of Chuska Mountains. Back in when the holy deedies(?) were occupying Navajo land, there was some type of dispute between the holy people and they fought right there at Narbona Pass. That's why they call it (Navajo), meaning "that's where they fought with metal and arrows," and so forth. It also identifies right there the travels of Changing Woman--the mother of all Navajos. She had lunch there. So again today, it's very important. In addition to that, it is an area where we called... it used to be known as Washington Pass. Now it's renamed, oh about ten years ago, to Narbona Pass because of events leading up to the Long Walk. Narbona is the name of a famous headman of the Navajo people back in--somewhere in the mid 1800's.
Interviewer
Tell me about Canyon de Chelly. Why is that important to Navajo culture?
Robert Begay
Like everything else, Canyon de Chelly is one of those areas that is also important not only to the history of the Navajo people, but it has a history to various things; there's some ceremonial history that extends from there, (The Night Wayxxx)? There is some clan origins. There's some clans from Navajo today that come from there. It's also a place where... it plays a big part in the Navajo Long Walk and the U.S. campaign against the Navajo in the mid-1800's, around the 1860's and so forth.
Interviewer
What happened there and why did it happen?
Robert Begay
That's a long history what happened in Canyon de Chelly. To put it really generally, in the mid-1800's the United States led a campaign against the Navajos. Before that, the U.S. really did create some treaties, signed some treaties with the Navajos. But the problem there was Navajos in general not only lived, but they lived in different bands, so whatever Calvary came in or the United States Army, they would sign a treaty with one band, but that treaty wasn't binding to the other bands of the Navajo people. Well because of that, that led up to a lot of disputes not only with the U.S. people, or what I mean the U.S. people was the Mexican people, the people that are coming into the Southwest to settle the Southwest, and here they basically ran into some Navajo people that occupied the area. And that created a lot of tensions, and basically there was some raiding and killing and so forth. Canyon de Chelly at that time was also occupied by Navajo people, but at the height of the war, actually between the Navajos and the United States Calvary, that was an area where a lot of Navajos hid out. It was a place where they hid out to hide out from being captured and being round up to the Long Walk or to their way to Fort Sumner.
Interviewer
What happened to the peach trees and orchards at Canyon de Chelly when Kit Carson came in?
Robert Begay
Kit Carson... there's a lot of history surrounding what Kit Carson did and the United States Calvary. The peach trees, the corn fields, because the Navajos were basically in that area and hid out so well using the terrain and the canyon, to get them to come out. What Kit Carson did, and his Calvary, was to burn those, basically, and try to starve the Navajos out of there, which was pretty successful from my understanding.
Interviewer
Why did the Long Walk happen?
Robert Begay
The Long Walk is basically... there's a misconception about the Long Walk. It's not a one-time event. The Long Walk is something that happened over several years. If you look at the military records, the campaign I think accounts for like 50 times. There were 50 trips between the Navajo people to Fort Sumner, meaning there were 50 different trips to Fort Sumner. In all of that, that happened anywhere from 1864 to 1868, generally in that time period.
Interviewer
What happened on the Long Walk?
Robert Begay
The Long Walk, depending on who you talk to… o.k. There is different accounts. The things that you read and hear about today: it was a forced march; there was a lot of death associated to it; there was a lot of suffering associated, in addition to their stay at Fort Sumner. Now depending on who you talk to there is, just because of the 50 times or the 50 times they went to Fort Sumner--the 50 campaigns. You hear different things from different people. Yes there is always suffering involved. There was always hardship, but there's also... you know that was also, probably I would say about 95% of the experiences. But there's other experiences that were associated with that time period, and that was... we have identified people who have talked about it and said back then people actually just volunteered to go to Fort Sumner because they were missing their families so much. So they made a trek just to get to Fort Sumner just to be with their families, just because of the loneliness that was caused by the Long Walk. There's others that... there's another experience where they never went to Fort Sumner. This is really common in the Navajo Mountain area--Black Mesa. There are Navajo people who said we never went to the Long Walk. We conquered the U.S. in dealing with this, and it's very fresh in their minds today. And then there is people that... one interview that we did, which took me by surprise, was that he basically said the Navajo that went along the Long Walk were well taken care of, meaning that he said we didn't have our traditional enemies like the Zuni's, the Hopi's, the Utes raiding on us while we were going along the trail. The U.S. Calvary protected us there, so there are different experiences depending on who you talk to.
Interviewer
What did they find at Fort Sumner?
Robert Begay
Bosque Redondo, or Fort Sumner the Navajos call (Navajo)... it was basically a barren land. It was a land that they, soon after arriving knew was hard to live on. You could not plant. It was... the soil was not suited for farming or for grazing.
Interviewer
Any specific stories you can relate from the Long Walk that were ancestors of yours?
Robert Begay
There is a lot of stories that even just through my work we have come across. There's stories from oral history that's recounted by people from. Talk about various issues... one of the big problems that we ran into when the Park Service did approach us on this was that there was one trail from Canyon de Chelly to Fort Defiance to Fort Wingate to Fort Sumner. We told them that that wasn't true. There are trails that lead into Fort Defiance to Canyon de Chelly and then some not going to Fort Defiance. Some went straight to Fort Sumner that the U.S. Calvary used. Now the only way to ascertain that information is to go back out and talk to the Navajo people, which, the little work that we did work on, we did identify some additional trails to it. As far as personal experiences, my grandmother, or my great grandmother was born in Fort Sumner. My father or my father's father--my paternal grandfather--he never went to Fort Sumner. He basically hid out in the Chuska Mountains. And then there's a whole history to that. There's trails everywhere coming into Canyon de Chelly going into Fort Defiance and so forth. Again, there is a lot of history out there that has not been recorded.
Interviewer
What do you think the Long Walk did to the Navajo identity?
Robert Begay
The Long Walk is basically really, really reaffirmed, from my personal perspective; really affirmed the sovereignty of the Navajo people. Now sovereignty from my perspective really is based on language, culture, and the origins of the Navajo people--their history. This is the basis for their sovereignty. Because of that time after the Long Walk, after the signing of the 1868 treaty, it just reaffirmed that the Navajo people are a sovereign people. Yes it did impact their culture to some extent, and today Navajos have really, really adapted on how to coexist within the modern world because of that. It has changed a lot of Navajo people today. And unfortunately people my age, and people that are older than my generation, and even younger, don't know much about the Long Walk and how it impacted the Navajo culture and Navajo people in general.
Interviewer
One of the components of the 1868 treaty was an educational component. How did boarding schools affect your culture?
Robert Begay
The boarding schools is really the inception. I think if I remember right, title VI of the 1868 treaty. It started out really slow. The U.S. Calvary and the U.S. Government could not get a Navajo to attend school. The first school was, I think was Fort Defiance. But the boarding school really did push forward how education is important. It wasn't really the boarding school, even though you hear a lot of horrible experiences of the boarding school; Navajo children being beaten because of their language use, because of their dress, and because of their culture, and that is still, you know, I was part of that on the tail end of it. But this is... the tail end of boarding schools. It was a terrible experience. What really impacted the change in Navajo lifestyle or life ways or culture was actually WWII. WWII, on the other hand, really changed how Navajo viewed education. If you look at some of the records right shortly after WWII, you see a lot of Navajos just pouring into western education as opposed to, you know, WWII.
Interviewer
How about boarding schools around the turn of the century? What was that experience like for Navajo children shortly after the Long Walk?
Robert Begay
The boarding school, at least from some of the people that I talked to--and also I did some of the reading on that--it was really like you mention; a military-type of school where you're really stripped of your identity and how you're stripped of identity? Basically changing your appearance; cutting your hair, making you dress differently, making you speak a language you didn't know. So it was really, really harsh and it was an alien, basically alien way of life. If you've ever been in boot camp, that is exactly what they did; took your identity and try to assimilate you, and it was very harsh.
Interviewer
Tell me about the Navajo relationship to Chaco Canyon.
Robert Begay
Chaco Canyon, again like everything else, Chaco Canyon's a big part of Navajo history and Navajo origins, Navajo ceremonial origins, Navajo clan histories. There is a conception out there that you see in books where Navajos arrived in the 1400's long after Chaco Canyon was abandoned. That is not true. Depending on how you look at scientific research and who you talk to in Navajo, people, the Navajos, have always been in the southwest, and Chaco is one of those areas that is very important ceremonially and clan histories. In the archeological record, Chaco Canyon has been occupied 1800 A.D. to 1250 A.D. Now Navajos have been in the area when Chaco was at the height of its occupation, which is anywhere from 1000 to 1200 A.D. They learned some of their ceremonial history there. They're also part of that history, and since then Navajos have been in the area of Chaco.
Interviewer
What can we learned from the exodus of Chaco, for example the issue of resources?
Robert Begay
What we can learn from Chaco? There's a lot of traditional history of what we know about Chaco. A lot of that history is sacred. It's explained to you in an area, you know, where this is not what you're supposed to do because of this, because you go against natural law, because you go against social law and so forth, this is what's going to happen to you and like the same thing at Chaco--that you abandoned your area.
Chaco is very important to Navajo people today, and it has always been important to Navajo people. There is a lot of traditional history to it--ceremonial history. There is a history where the, what we called "the Gambler," had enslaved the occupants of Chaco, and he was the one who basically built Chaco Canyon. Well it turns out that he could not rule those people. It was actually the Navajo people who defeated the Gambler, and as a result, the people that he enslaved abandoned Chaco Canyon after the Navajo people did beat the Gambler at his own game. Now, based on that, Chaco is really an area, if you look at it there is a lot of rooms there. There is... totally different than how Navajos live. You look at the Pueblo people today; they all live in closed communities. From our perspective and we can't do that. I mean, Navajos just do not live that way. We have always lived off the land. We have always lived apart, and for Kit Carson to think to implement some kind of system like that at Fort Sumner was trying to change a whole nation's history, a whole people's culture, and that, I guess from anybody you ask, is impossible today. Even after Fort Sumner, you come back and Navajos just went across the Navajo land again. They went back to their origin areas where they lived, and they even went beyond that. So Chaco really, in a sense, does not work for Navajo people.
Interviewer
When you think of your ancestors that made the Long Walk, what are your feelings and emotions about that time?
Robert Begay
The way I think about the Long Walk, and that time period, you know, it does create some kind of animosity towards the United States, but also at the same time, it's history that we rely on to teach our children, to teach not only ourselves but our future generations. This is what part of our history is and I think that Navajos really, really traditionally understand that history is a big part. History teaches you how to live. This is why we rely heavily on ceremonial history, oral history, because that's what builds our future. We go back and inspect and re-evaluate our history and say, "just because of this era, we're not going to make this decision for the future." And I think, yes it was a painful time for Navajo people, but it's also... we have to learn from that.
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