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The Navajo and the Animal People
Native American Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Ethnozoology
By Steve Pavlik, Benton Yazzie Fulcrum Publishing
Copyright © 2014 Steve Pavlik
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-938486-66-1
CHAPTER 1
The Powerful Mountain People
This chapter was originally presented as a paper at the Western Social Science Association Conference held in Reno, Nevada, April 19, 1996. An edited version was published as "The Role of Bears and Bear Ceremonialism in Navajo Orthodox Traditional Lifeway" in The Social Science Journal, Volume 34, Issue 4, 1997.
The high mountain trail was wide and well worn by generations of humans and animals, both wild and domestic. Ahead of me a few feet walked Will Tsosie. From time to time, Will would stop to point out a particular plant growing along the trail and explain how the Navajos traditionally used this plant. We were making no particular effort to be quiet, which surprised me considering the nature of our quest that morning on the mountain: we were hunting for bear.
The genesis of this trip had come the evening before, when Will and I sat in my living room in Chinle drinking coffee and talking about the Navajo traditional relationship to the natural world. As usual, much of our conversation dealt with Navajo religion and ceremonialism and, on that particular evening, a topic that I was especially interested in, the Mountainway — a Navajo healing ceremony that focused on illnesses brought on by bears. At some point in our discussion, I mentioned the fact that despite the considerable amount of time I had spent hiking and hunting the mountains of Navajo Country, I had never seen a bear. Will was surprised. "Really, you haven't seen a bear? We'll go up to Yellow Gate tomorrow morning and I'll show you a bear."
And so here we were. An hour earlier we had passed through the yellow gate from which this area of the Lukachukai Mountains received its name. Soon after that we crossed a pasture where Will's aunt and uncle kept their sheep in the summer, to a point where a trail began that climbed higher up into the mountains. Almost immediately upon reaching the trail, we began to see bear sign. The unmistakable tracks, raspberry and serviceberry bushes smashed down as if by small tanks, rocks turned over in the quest for the tasty insect life that hid beneath, and scat — bear droppings so saturated with berries that one could seemingly scoop them up and put them right into a pie for baking. Everywhere I looked I saw evidence of bear.
And then we saw one. We had rounded a slight bend and found ourselves face-to-face — and I do mean face-to-face — with a very large black bear standing right in the middle of the trail in front of us. The bear, which was actually brown rather than black in color, looked up at us with an alert, yet somewhat disinterested, look. I would guess that no more than ten feet separated us. This sudden encounter brought all three of us to an immediate halt. I remember that my initial thought was how "ratty" the bear looked. Strands of dead, shaggy hair hung like drapes from its body. Still, he — perhaps it was a she — was obviously in good physical condition, a beautiful, if somewhat disheveled, animal in the prime of its life. For what seemed like minutes but was in fact only seconds, men and bear stared at each other. Then the spell was broken by the sound of Will's voice. I don't recall the exact words he said, but the gist of it was a clear message to the bear to let us humans pass by. Will said these few words as if he was speaking to another person — which indeed in the Navajo way he was. He said them politely, yet firmly. The bear blinked once or twice and then seemed to understand the message. He slowly ambled a few feet off the trail into the bushes, where he began to contentedly munch away at the succulent berries. We passed by.
Will and I continued up the trail to a point where we could turn and watch the bear foraging below us. For a few minutes we watched this powerful animal, who never once gave us a second look. Obviously we were not that interesting to him. For my part, I could not take my eyes off of him. He was beautiful; he was awesome. I had never been that close to a wild bear before. When we had first blundered into him I had been feet away. Another step or two and I could have reached out and touched him. I would guess that he weighed about two hundred pounds — and all muscle. Had he chosen to attack us, there would have been nothing we could do about it. But he chose not to, and I am sure that the thought never crossed his mind. We were no threat to him, and he knew it. I had felt no fear, not even any nervousness. Perhaps it had all happened too quickly. More likely, however, this was due to the calmness with which Will handled the situation. He had treated the bear not as a wild animal, but rather as a fellow being that could be talked to and reasoned with. The bear had responded accordingly.
In time we resumed our hike. About a mile farther up the trail, we found our second bear. Incredibly, this encounter mirrored exactly the first. In fact, this second bear could have been an identical twin to the first. Again, he — or she — blocked our way only feet in front of us. Again, Will talked to the bear, asking him to allow us to pass, and again the bear complied with his request. This time I was not surprised.
Eventually Will and I reached the top of the mountain, where we found a shady spot beneath a large ageless pinon pine. Here we spent the next hour or so eating our lunch as we looked out across the Defiance Plateau. We talked of Navajo things. We talked of Navajo religion and ceremonies, and we talked of men and bears. We saw no other bears that day. We did not have to. The day had far exceeded my wildest expectations. I had been given a rare glimpse into another world. I have since thought a lot about that day, of Will's communicating with the bears. I know now that it was not a trick, novelty, or simply an act of bravado. It was a vestige of another time and perhaps another place. Traditional Navajos have long been known for their ability to communicate with bears (see, for example, McPherson: 88–89). This was the way that Will's ancestors — and perhaps even my own — had normally dealt with life-forms that were different from our own. And, sadly, it is a way that is quickly passing from this Earth.
The Bears of Navajo Country
Navajos use the generic name shash to refer to all bears. They also commonly refer to bears are as being the "Mountain People," a term applied to all animals that reside in the mountainous regions of the Navajo Reservation but most regularly used to denote bears specifically. Sacred names — names used ceremonially to refer to bear — include "Reared in the Mountains," "Fine Young Chief," and "That Which Lives in the Den" (Franciscan Fathers, 1910). Historically, two species of bears, the grizzly and the black bear, inhabited Navajo Country.
The grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) possesses a number of names in the Navajo language that translate to white bear, speckled bear, silvertip bear, long back bear, frosted-faced bear, and tracker bear (Franciscan Fathers). This last name reflected the Navajo belief that the grizzly tracked down and hunted man (Pavlik, 1992). The grizzly, which can weigh more than 600 pounds, is now extirpated in the American Southwest, having been killed off mostly by ranchers and government hunters. By 1923, grizzlies had been eliminated from New Mexico and Utah, and by 1935, the last of the great bears had been killed in Arizona (Housholder; Brown). The last grizzly in Colorado was believed to have been killed in 1951. Incredibly, however, a female grizzly materialized from the shadows of extinction in 1979 only to be killed by a bow hunter it had attacked and severely mauled. The killing of the bear proved to be very controversial, with many people believing that the hunter must have provoked the attack, quite possibly by shooting the bear with his bow. The true details of this event will never be known. It happened along the Navajo River in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado, land historically traveled by the Navajos. The San Juans are also a mountain range that figures predominantly in a number of the Navajo mythological stories involving bears, including grizzlies. A few individuals, myself included, cling to the hope that grizzlies may still exist within the sanctuary of these rugged mountains (Brown; see also Bass; Peterson).
On the Navajo Reservation, grizzlies historically inhabited the Chuska and Lukachukai Mountains. One particularly notorious outlaw grizzly operating out of the Chuskas destroyed an estimated $5,000 worth of sheep and goats from 1905 until his death at the hands of a professional hunter in 1911. The hunter received $180 in reward money for killing this bear (Housholder). In all probability the grizzly was exterminated from the Navajo Reservation sometime in the 1920s. It is interesting to note that when C. Hart Merriam, biologist and research associate for the Smithsonian Institution, published his then-definitive taxonomy of grizzly and brown bears in 1918, he included an Ursus texensis Navaho as one of his eighty-six recognizable species of grizzly bears. This classification of the "Navajo grizzly" was based on one badly damaged skull of a bear killed in the Chuska Mountains in 1856 (Merriam). Although biologists have long since discredited the Merriam classification and today recognize only one species of grizzly — with an open number of subspecies — the Navajo name will forever be linked historically with the great bear.
The second bear that continues to inhabit Navajo Country is the black bear (Ursus americanus). This animal is the dominant being among the Mountain People. It is estimated there may be as many as three hundred black bears inhabiting the forested and mountainous regions of the Navajo Reservation (McCoy). Full-grown male black bears average 250 to 350 pounds, females 120 to 180 pounds. As their name indicates, most black bears are black in color, although on the Navajo Reservation most are brown, blond, or cinnamon (O'Conner).
The relationship between the Navajo and bears is a long one, dating from when the Athabascans first moved into the Four Corners region. This is evidenced by the existence of a magnificent bear track etched into the sandstone in Gobernador Canyon in Dinétah. It is believed that this petroglyph was made sometime between 1696 and 1775 (Schaafsma: 14, figure 6).
Bear Sickness and Other Bear Beliefs
Bears play a major role in the Navajo stories. In Sandoval's version of the origin story, told to Aileen O'Bryan, Bear appears in the Third World as one of the four "chiefs," along with Big Snake, Mountain Lion, and Otter, who advised First Man and the other Animal People (O'Bryan: 6). Bear or bears serve as the guardians and protectors of Sun and Changing Woman, and later Changing Woman assigns the bear to be one of the special companions or "pets" to the people — the others being Mountain Lion, Weasel, and Porcupine — to protect them on their travels (Reichard: 384). In addition, bears form a special kinship with the Kiyaa'aanii clan, who once wore bear-fur caps given to them by the Bear People (Haile, 1981: 170). At one point in the origin story, the four original Navajo clans are attacked by an enemy — the "Arrow People" (probably the Ute Indians) — and initially it is only Bear who fights to protect them. Before doing so he sings ten "bear songs," including the following:
My hogan,
I being a whirlwind,
My hogan,
I being a gray bear,
Lightning strikes from my hogan,
There is danger from my hogan,
All are afraid of my hogan,
I am of long life of whom they are afraid,
hihinyi hi'
I blow my breath out.
They are afraid of my black face,
I am a whirlwind,
They are afraid of me.
I am a gray bear,
They are afraid of my black face,
It lightens from my black face,
They are afraid of the danger issuing from my black face,
I am long life, they are afraid. (Goddard, 1933: 171)
After Bear's initial attack, all of the clan's animal protectors joined together to destroy the enemy of the Navajos in a horrible massacre. When the killing was completed, the pets were sent into the mountains away from humans to be the Animal People we know today because they presumably had tasted human blood and could not be trusted. The bear was sent away to Black Mountain, and it is for that reason Navajos say that bears are mean there. But in appreciation for protecting them from their enemies, members of the Kiyaa'aanii clan will not kill or harm a bear (ibid.: 179; Haile, 1981: 172).
At least two Monster Bears also play an important role in the Navajo stories. The origin of these beasts could be wholly mythical or perhaps even derived from the grizzly bear that once inhabited Navajo Country. The first of these bears, Tracking Bear, was one of the monsters hunted down by Monster Slayer with an arrow of zigzag lightning given to him by his father, the Sun (Haile, 1938: 125–127). The second of these Monster Bears is Changing Bear Maiden. Initially a beautiful young girl with twelve brothers who were great hunters, she was taught the art of transformation by her husband, Coyote. When her brothers killed her husband, she became a fierce bear that tracked down each and killed all of them except for the youngest, who was finally able to take her life. He did so by shooting his arrows into her heart and lungs, which she had hidden. Afterwards he cut out her sexual organs and threw them into a tree, where they became the pitch that is found on cedar and pinon trees. He cut off her breasts and threw them into a tree, where they became pinon nuts (O'Bryan: 44–48; Tsosie).
Bears are considered to be the most powerful of the Animal People and even in contemporary times are known to still possess considerable supernatural power — including the ability to transform into the shape of an inanimate object, like a tree stump or a boulder, or into another animal or even a human. Bears can also cause illness — or as it is commonly called, bear sickness. Killing or offending a bear, eating its meat, coming in physical contact with a bear or its body parts (especially the head and hide), or the mere acts of handling an object such as a stone or piece of wood touched by a bear, drinking at a bear's watering place, stepping on bear tracks, or crossing its path — all can lead to bear sickness. Even the breath of a bear coming from a distance can do harm, as can dreaming about bears or speaking the bear's name aloud. Most bear sickness falls into two general categories: swollen, painful arms, legs, and other extremities; and mental illness (Wyman). Several years ago, I attended a Mountainway, the major ceremony used to deal with bear sickness, for a woman in her late sixties who was experiencing what Western physicians would describe as a severe case of arthritis. Her grandson explained the true cause of her illness in the following manner:
When grandmother was three years old she wandered off and became lost. She was gone for three days. Several times they found her tracks which were always accompanied by the tracks of a bear. When she was finally found she told them she had stayed with an old woman and that they had done many things together including butchering a sheep. Since that time she has always felt poorly (Pavlik, 1992).
On another occasion, I had the opportunity to sit in on a ceremony conducted for a young woman who was experiencing emotional problems, which were manifested, among other ways, in her hearing voices that she responded to by taking off her clothes and running off in the middle of the night to roam in the woods. The family attributed her problems to the girl having petted a bear while visiting a zoo as a young child. In the words of one family member, "The Mountain People have taken her mind. So now she wants to run with the bears" (Pavlik, 1992). Other similar cases have been documented (see Morgan).
Because of fear associated with the powers of the bear, Navajos make every effort to avoid the animal. If one is met, it is prayed to as a "Holy being" and not molested (Hill). Seldom are bears hunted — quite possibly because of the close resemblance of a skinned bear to a human body hunted, an obvious sign of close kinship, and almost never is its flesh eaten except for ceremonial reasons. Sometimes a bear may be hunted and killed if its body parts are needed for ceremonial use. Bear paws, for example, are used to make the medicine bag or jish used by medicine men who practice the Mountainway ceremony. Bear claws are also used in conjunction with this ceremony, as well as for wristlets worn by patients during the "blackening" portion of several ceremonies. Bear claws are also historically attached to wristlets worn by warriors to give them power (Frisbie, 1987; Hill.)
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Navajo and the Animal People by Steve Pavlik, Benton Yazzie. Copyright © 2014 Steve Pavlik. Excerpted by permission of Fulcrum Publishing.
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