B.B.C. looks at Navajo life

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34048, 12 January 1976, Page 4

B.B.C. looks at Navajo life

On a remote plateau in one of the most inaccessible parts of the North American continent. traditional Red Indian life continues ai- , most unchanged. A new B BC. film shows the fight for survival of .America’s largest and most (enduring Indian tribe — the (Navajo. It also provides a ■ unique and unscreened reicord of traditional Indian! (“sings.” or healing ceTe-l I monies conducted by medi-| Icine men. i “Navajo — The Last Redi ‘lndians” — has been bought for transmission in New Zea-1 (land. The Navajo have retained their native language, and 40.000 of them still speak no English. The language has only recehtlv been written—their culture having been handed down verbally through the elders of the tribe—medicine men. In New Mexico and Ari- ’ zona the Navajo still go to (the medicine men when they Jare sick, stage 10-day healing ceremonies, and rise bejfore dawn to greet their 'father, the sun. and reaffirm | their bonds with their mother, the earth. Anthropologists say that

their survival is closely linked to the continued occupancy of their ancestral homes. Defeated and exiled by Kit Carson in 1864. they remain the only substantial tribe to remain on their homelands — the Black Mesa iand the stage-coach country of Monument Valley. “Navajo” includes centuries old Indian methods of diagnosing illness by the primitive trance-Hke state of hand trembling; medicine men conducting a 10-day “sing” or curing ceremony; a I medicine man school to! I which white doctors demon-’ jstrate hypnosis; white doc-, 'tors referring Navajo’ patients to the medicine men; land medicine men themselves holding healing ceremonies in modem hospitals. Some of these apparently bizarre situations reflect an understanding that the Indian was not a primitive but had evolved a highly complex culture and mythology highly appropriate to living in an arid land. White doctors claim much of the medical practice was effective and satisfied the Indians’ psychological needs. The key to preventing social breakdown, say anthropologists, is not to pre- • serve this culture (no society remains static) but to main- ■ tain continuity by letting the Navajo change at their own speed and as they wish.