In a Western world that suppresses Indigenous culture, members of the Navajo Nation actively engage in artistic cultural revival as a means to keep their history alive and to create vibrant futures. During a fellowship, Shawna Yazzie, a P.h.D. student in Native American studies at the University of California, Davis, has been looking at and learning the ongoing rug weaving practices at a Body of Water in a Sunken Area, also known as ʾñDz, Arizona, her family’s homeland.
She writes of her family, below, in Dé and English:
Ya’atééh shik’é dóó shi’Dé’é. Totsohníí nishtłı̨́. Tłaaschíí’í bashishchíín. Kinyáá’aanii ei dashicheíí. Tanéézahnı̨́ı̨́ei dashínalí. Ákót’éego Dé asdzáá nishłı̨́. Beʼekʼid Baa Ahoodzánídéé naashá. Shí ei Shawna Yazzie yíníshye. á é Bernita Edgewater ɴDZé ááóó é’é éi Michael B. Yazzie Sr. ɴDZé. á é áíódí naaghá ááóó é’é ei Beʼekʼid Baa Ahoodzánídi naaghá. á sání é Lena James wDZé ntéé ááóó shicheii é Howard James ɴDZé ntéé. áíódiéé naa’ash ntéé. Shinálí asdzą́ą́ é Helen Mae Yazzie wDZé ááóó shinálí hastiin é Kee Bahe Yazzie Sr. ɴDZé ntéé. Beʼekʼid Baa Ahoodzánídéé Բ’a.&Բ;
Hello to my family, friends, and people. I am of the Big Water. I am born for the Red Bottom People. My maternal grandfathers are the Towering House. My paternal grandfathers are the Tangle Peoples.
I am a Dé woman. I am from A Body of Water in a Sunken Area. My name is Shawna Rae Yazzie. My mother is Bernita Edgewater and my father is Michael B. Yazzie Sr. My mother is from Jeddito, Arizona. My father is from ʾñDz, Arizona. My maternal grandmother was Lena James and maternal grandfather was Howard James, who were from Jeddito, Arizona. My paternal grandma is Helen Mae Yazzie and my paternal grandfather was Kee Bahe Yazzie Sr., who are from ʾñDz, Arizona.
Yazzie is spending time in her native homeland of ʾñDz after being selected for a 2022 Cobell Graduate Summer Research Fellowship. She is one of five fellows from a highly competitive pool of over 100 graduate applicants who were selected for the Sixth Summer Research Fellowship cohort, each receiving $5,000.
Her research project titled, “Tł’ááschí’í Da’atłʼóh: Dé Weaving Stories of Survivance through the Warp of a Fingers of Red Bottom Girl,” amplifies Dé ways of illustrating history — privileging Dé knowledges and practices — as a means to Indigenize academic theories, methods and practices. Her project shares how Dé women in ʾñDz, Arizona, build a long-lasting connection to rug weaving.
Weaving as healing
She comes by this heritage, and yearning for healing, quite naturally.
“A few months ago, I sat at my grandmother’s kitchen table on an early Saturday morning. We discussed the practice of rug weaving and how she wove beautiful rugs years ago. With an ache in her heart, she expressed in Dé Bizaad (Dé language), ‘I once had an auntie who gave birth to a son. Unfortunately, my auntie died in childbirth, but her newborn baby was taken by the missionaries.’”
“While I cannot understand what she felt, I understood that healing needed to take place,” Yazzie said. “By referencing the violence, my grandmother declared a history of colonial disruptions and acknowledged the survivance of Dé, a reason why she does not weave anymore. I declare and call on a (re)awakening and art resurgence of rug weaving into existence to bring healing.”
Rug weaving as shared with me is a breathing life form, it has a life of its own in which I (as a weaver) embark on creating healing for a vibrant future.” — Yazzie
Through community-based, Native feminism-centered research, her work seeks to understand how Dé women continue to reclaim and heal their identities through rug weaving, she said.
“This is the type of healing that has led me to successfully reshare and remember this practice with other community members across the Navajo Nation.”
Dé women from what is currently known as ʾñDz, Arizona, practice the creative art of Da’atłʼóh (rug weaving). Today, the Tł’ááschí’í (Red Bottom Clan) continue to weave despite having endured many colonial disruptions.
In the 1860s, Dé were forcibly removed from their homelands and imprisoned at Bosque Redondo in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. This period ended with the signing of the Treaty of 1868, which has subsequently left an indelible mark on the transfer of cultural knowledge.
“As a community member, I have played a role in the ongoing survivance of rug weaving practices primarily through (re)learning the teachings and lessons from family and community members,” said Yazzie.
Reawakening wellness
Yazzie seeks to remember the history and protocols of Dé creative arts by reawakening women’s rug weaving practices in ʾñDz and restoring the community’s health and wellness. Her research uplifts the significance of Dé creative arts outside of settler capitalist frameworks and argues that weaving acts as an extension of Dé philosophical and intellectual traditions that teaches humans one’s existence in the universe and how to live a life in peace and harmony.
After completing her doctoral coursework and qualifying exams, Yazzie relocated to ʾñDz for the entirety of summer 2022. The primary goal for this phase was completing, submitting, and gaining approval for her research protocols from the Navajo Nation Human Research Review Board and the 鶹ý Institutional Review Board.
Yazzie’s summer project focused on learning from master weavers in her home community to document how their practices embody Dé history. “I began the process of engaging with community grandmothers through listening, talking, and remembering what it is that they are willing to do and share. By fall 2022, I will be ready to present and submit a final report that includes reflections and assurances with, by, and for the community.”
Yazzi