Spring Break
From Dorm To Hogan
A Different Universe
Isabel Pike '11
Issue date: 5/11/08 Section: Opinion
"Your thoughts are so loud when you're out here, aren't they?" Marie Gladue asked me as I returned to her homestead. Sitting beneath the shade of a small shrub where I had been watching a herd of sheep drifting across the Arizona desert, I had never felt so alone, yet so at peace.
Marie is a Navajo who lives on a traditional homestead with no running water or electricity in barren, yet strikingly beautiful, Arizona. I had the pleasure of meeting her this past March when I traveled to Navajo nation on a Pace Center-supported, student-run trip.
We spent only one night with Marie in her Hogan, an octagonal Navajo building. The doorway faces the rising sun in the east, and the roof opens in the center, connecting the Hogan's inhabitants to the "universe," an important cultural symbol for the Navajo. The Navajo greeting "Ya'at'eeh" translates to universe. Throughout the trip, we became increasingly aware of the extent to which subtle linguistic cues revealed cultural values. Another Navajo woman referred to her Hogan as her church, as though the two words were interchangeable.
This homestead was on contested land, fought over by the Navajo and another tribe, the Hopi. In 1974, Congress passed the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act that resulted in the eviction of 12,000 Navajo from their homes. Marie's 80-year-old mother, Katherine Smith, was sent to prison for resisting her eviction by shooting at the tribal police and fence-building crews.
Beneath the vast Arizona night sky, Marie spoke in Navajo to the fourteen Princeton students sitting around the fire about children today and the pace of city life. She said, "Tonight, you will eat without pushing buttons." After Grandma Katherine left on her electric wheelchair, we listened to Marie sing "Relocation Man," a song about the Navajo evictions of the 70's. Marie sang and played so passionately that we feared she would break her guitar strings. The next day, our group split up to help plaster the family home with Adobe, renovate a dilapidated Hogan and herd sheep.
Marie is a Navajo who lives on a traditional homestead with no running water or electricity in barren, yet strikingly beautiful, Arizona. I had the pleasure of meeting her this past March when I traveled to Navajo nation on a Pace Center-supported, student-run trip.
We spent only one night with Marie in her Hogan, an octagonal Navajo building. The doorway faces the rising sun in the east, and the roof opens in the center, connecting the Hogan's inhabitants to the "universe," an important cultural symbol for the Navajo. The Navajo greeting "Ya'at'eeh" translates to universe. Throughout the trip, we became increasingly aware of the extent to which subtle linguistic cues revealed cultural values. Another Navajo woman referred to her Hogan as her church, as though the two words were interchangeable.
This homestead was on contested land, fought over by the Navajo and another tribe, the Hopi. In 1974, Congress passed the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act that resulted in the eviction of 12,000 Navajo from their homes. Marie's 80-year-old mother, Katherine Smith, was sent to prison for resisting her eviction by shooting at the tribal police and fence-building crews.
Beneath the vast Arizona night sky, Marie spoke in Navajo to the fourteen Princeton students sitting around the fire about children today and the pace of city life. She said, "Tonight, you will eat without pushing buttons." After Grandma Katherine left on her electric wheelchair, we listened to Marie sing "Relocation Man," a song about the Navajo evictions of the 70's. Marie sang and played so passionately that we feared she would break her guitar strings. The next day, our group split up to help plaster the family home with Adobe, renovate a dilapidated Hogan and herd sheep.
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 4
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posted 12/23/08 @ 11:49 AM EST
I like the story,it reminds me of what I went thru also. I was raised from a dirt hogan and went to a dorm. It was like a another world. I missed my parents,home,animals, and the land. (Continued…)
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