I was finishing lunch with my husband on the patio outside the newsroom recently, when I mentioned that I had to go back inside and finish a column on Oprah Winfrey’s recent visit to the Navajo Nation.
“Oprah visited the Navajo Nation?” he asked.
Frankie is usually on top of the news. But long work hours — he’s a senior engineer on an Interstate construction project in Oregon — have kept him from his normal online news sources.
“Yes,” I said.
I told him I was writing about how Oprah had asked the Navajo to stage a powwow when she and a film crew arrived in Window Rock, Ariz.
“What the hell?” said Frankie, a Navajo who grew up in the Four Corners area of the sprawling 17-million-acre Navajo reservation land base that reaches into Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
His reaction to Oprah’s powwow request isn’t lost on many Navajos.
Asking the Navajo to stage a powwow is like asking Catholics to get Evangelical. But when Oprah’s Harpo Productions asked Navajo Nation representatives to get some dancers together for a powwow in June, it was done.
Contemporary powwows are popular social gatherings where spectators watch dancers compete in different men’s and women’s categories, such as traditional buckskin or jingle dress competitions. And while the dancing can be fun, the dance arena is considered sacred because of all the eagle feathers and sacred items carried or worn by dancers.
Unfortunately, powwow venues seem to be one of the few ways Native people make the news. The powwow photo is always a quick, easy hit for newspapers. It’s a lot more difficult to find substantive news stories and photos about Native communities.
It’s not hard to see why the Navajo were eager to please. If Oprah wanted to visit any community in the country, plenty of people would move boulders to accommodate her.
While powwows reflect the beauty of Native people, they also stand as a roadblock between Natives and those who know nothing about them. The powwow dancer reinforces the public’s stereotypical image of Indians donning beads and feathers.
Oprah’s request for a powwow in the heart of Navajoland was a disservice to the Navajo, who call themselves Dine’, because the powwow culture has its roots among tribes of the Great Plains. The United States is home to 560 federally recognized tribes, all incredibly diverse. All these tribes have great stories.
One could certainly find some interesting powwow stories, but I’ve never seen one written. And it will be a safe bet Harpo Productions won’t be telling one either. Michelle McIntyre, a spokesperson for Harpo Productions, said the show’s producers confirmed that powwows did take place in Window Rock. But it’s not the story anyway, if you’re in Navajoland.
The Navajo Nation — home to some 200,000 Dine’ — could easily produce a trove of stories for any news gatherer. After all, this is the land of the Yeibichai. This is the land that has sustained the Dine’ art of rug weaving. This is home to some of the world’s finest silver-and-turquoise jewelry makers.
The Navajo have a rich, vibrant culture and a living language, something atypical of most tribes in the country. The use of traditional languages is a strong indicator of a tribe’s cultural stability.
A stranger might feel out of place in the Navajo Nation’s tribal council chambers, where all the tribal delegates conduct governmental meetings in the Navajo language. Priests on the reservation know the language defines the Navajos’ cultural and religious existence. Knowing a language is a way to enter a closed society. I’ve seen white Jesuit priests conduct funeral rites entirely in Navajo.
They do so out of respect for the Navajo.
My visits to Navajoland have left many indelible memories — and they don’t include any powwows. I’ve sat with my husband’s grandmother outside her home in Chilchinbeto at the foothills of Black Mesa in eastern Arizona on the Navajo Reservation. We sat below rocky hills and ate mutton roasted over a fire pit. My husband’s grandmother didn’t say much. The family says the most English words she ever spoke were, “Same to you.”
A storyteller could write volumes on the magnificent Navajo landscape nestled within the Four Sacred Mountains. And the tribe’s cultural cuisine is something to write home about.
My mother-in-law, Lilly White, ranks among the best of Navajo cooks. She’s whipped up delectable batches of frybread and mutton stew for me and some two dozen U.S. and international journalists. We enjoyed every bite.
Lilly and I have made trips to the Saturday flea market in Shiprock, where we ate warm blue corn mush on a cool fall morning. She has also kindly packed kneel-down bread for me, a roasted-dried-then-baked corn concoction she makes that suits my Mandan and Hidatsa taste buds.
Last summer, my mother-in-law graced us with a visit in Montana. My husband and I took her to the Coeur d’Alene Julyamsh powwow in Idaho. It was the first powwow my 59-year-old mother-in-law had ever been to in her life, which illustrates how far removed the powwow culture is from the traditional Navajo lifestyle.
Oprah has been educating, entertaining and enlightening television audiences for 20 years. The cultural icon has made viewers cry, hope and believe.
She’s given us angels, book clubs and life-changing stories. Her world-wide credibility keeps viewers tuning in, not tuning out.
Oprah and her crew have yet to truly discover Indian Country. But Harpo Productions is stepping in the right direction by stopping in Navajoland. The powwow was reported to be the first Native dance Oprah had ever seen.
“Oprah is our key to let the world in,” said Priscella Littlefoot, a Navajo who helped arrange Oprah’s visit [PDF]. “This program is going to be shown in the United States, it’s going to be international. … Hopefully, Oprah’s visit will portray that … we’re still rich in our heritage, our culture and language.”
Unfortunately, that’s not likely to happen. If the Navajo are claiming powwows as part of their heritage, something’s wrong.
“That (powwow) was out of the ordinary,” Ryan Williams, 17, of Window Rock told the Gallup (N.M.) Independent. “That is only during fair time. It’s nontraditional.”
Said Isabel Deschinny, 62, to the paper: “I love Oprah, I love her show … but we’re not giving her the real look of the Navajo people.”
The Navajo Nation’s willingness to put on a powwow for Oprah shows how far Native people are willing to go to see themselves reflected in the media.
When Oprah’s road show finally airs, viewers will probably not see an accurate reflection of one of the country’s’ largest and most vibrant cultures.
A word to Oprah: Keep it real.
