Code Talker

by Chester Nez

  “Three,” said Uncle. “That’s enough for this trip.”

  We turned the horse toward the building site. After unloading the three logs, we headed out in search of more.

  I could sense Grandma’s pleasure. A hogan was a real home. Grandfather and Grandmother had lived in a rough shelter made from tree branches and logs since before I was born. They stayed in that shelter through all seasons, not moving from pasture to pasture with the sheep and the younger family members. Their home was cold in winter, hot in summer, but Grandmother did not complain. No one had life easy on the Checkerboard.

  Nevertheless, Grandfather, Father, and Uncle had decided it was time for Grandma to have a permanent home, a hogan. She chose the site for the traditional one-room dwelling, a slight rise, backed up to the western side of the box canyon where we lived. The project carried an energy with it that made me hum while we worked.

  Logs, cut in uniform lengths, would form the eight sides of the hogan. No windows.

  “The straight sides will each be the length of a log and will come about this high.” Father held his arm out at shoulder level. “Then we will cut the logs shorter and shorter so they step in, making a rounded roof.”

  I nodded. Of course I had seen hogans before. Lots of them. They made a round, solid shape on the landscape.

  We labored for several days. Each log had to be notched so it would fit and hold tightly to adjacent logs. At the center of the roof dome, a hole was left open for smoke. This was the only opening in the new dwelling, other than the door. I dug dirt to fill the chinks between logs and to keep out the cold in winter, heat in summer. More dirt, shoveled onto the roof, provided additional insulation. The doorway, as always, faced east. Wooden hunting bows were hung over the door on the inside and the outside for protection. When everything else was finished, Grandmother hung a blanket—one of traditional design, that she had woven herself—to cover the door opening.

  Before Grandma and Grandpa entered the hogan, they sent someone to fetch a medicine man from his home. The family watched as he performed a traditional blessing. I noticed that Father, who had trained for a while as a medicine man before Mother’s death, watched with an intent, serious expression.

  The man entered the door and moved clockwise around the dwelling, blessing each of the four directions with corn pollen. Then he stepped outside, walking clockwise from the east to the south, west, then north. At each compass point, he again blessed the hogan. Last, he blessed the door.

  Life in the new dwelling was now ready to start—in harmony and balance, the Right Way.

  Grandma continued to bless her snug home before sunrise each morning. I watched her many times as she walked outside, took a few pinches of corn pollen from a pouch, and made her blessing to the east, south, west, and north, always moving clockwise. The four directions were very important in Navajo belief. East (ha’a’aah) was where life began, the sunrise. South (shádi’ááh) was where you got warmth. West (e’e’aah) had to do with the way you spent your day, what was ahead and behind, also where the sun was carried away at sunset. North (náhokos) was where everything was put to rest.

  The pollen used in Grandma’s blessing was collected at harvesttime, in September. The women in my family harvested the corn and saved the pollen. They shook the corn tassels into a pan or used a rag to remove the pollen. Then they sorted out any impurities—like corn silk. The pure pollen was stored in a jar or a flour sack and, usually, blessed by a medicine man. Medicine men went from house to house in the summer, blessing corn pollen. Only blessed pollen could be used in a medicine bag.

  Most families had lots of pollen on hand, but several times I saw Grandma use ash when she ran out. She put a pinch on her shoes, not her tongue. Then she made the blessing. Ash helped Dora and me when we couldn’t sleep. It got rid of nightmares. Grandma put ashes from the fire on our arms or our forehead.

  In the new hogan, Grandma’s cook fire, built right on the dirt floor in the center of the room, was no longer threatened by wind or rain. Eventually, Father hauled a large oil can, with no bottom, from the trading post. The can had a fireplacelike opening. It did double duty as stove and fireplace, sitting in the middle of the hogan. In its lid was a hole, into which Grandpa inserted a pipe. The metal pipe stuck up through the roof, letting smoke exit the room.

  Once the hogan was built, I savored the days like today, when the sheep grazed close to home, and we returned at night for dinner. Eating with Grandmother and Grandfather was much better than cooking meager fare over a campfire. As I approached the hogan, I was hit by the full, rich aroma of roasting mutton, Grandma’s home-cooked meal.

  When I entered, a litter of prairie dogs slept curled up inside, near the cook fire. It was a cool day, topping out somewhere around seventy. Not like the ninety-plus-degree days we’d often endured in summer.

  I picked up a prairie dog, stroking its soft back. The little “dog” burrowed against my chest. I offered it some goat’s milk, which had been strained through a flour bag and boiled for human consumption. It sucked it from my finger, eating hungrily.

  I put the little rodent down and stepped outside. The prairie dog followed, standing with his front paws up, like a little man. When I went back inside, the prairie dog barked bravely at the outside world. Then a real dog barked somewhere off in the distance, and it scampered back inside.

  I helped Grandma spread flour sacks that had been ripped open and sewn together in a circular shape. They made a table on the dirt floor. The mutton sizzled over the fire, fat spitting onto the open flames. I could hardly wait to wrap it up in a tortilla and eat it like a sandwich.

  When it was finally time for dinner, everyone sat on the dirt floor, with the bowls of food placed on the flour sacks. I looked around at my family, raising my brows at my sister, Dora. She smiled and nodded at me. Everything about the hogan felt luxurious after the makeshift shelters on the trail. There were no books, no electricity, and no plumbing, but we were snug and secure. I reached for a tortilla and rolled some mutton inside.

  Oil lamps cast wavering shadows across the single room. Outside, the relaxed nasal bleat of a lamb and the higher cry of a goat let us know that all was well. A puppy’s bark, a litter from one of the sheepdogs, rose above the soft whisper of wind in the evergreens. And inside, the almost magical fragrance of burning juniper lulled the family after a hearty meal.

  I asked Grandma, “Will you tell us a story?”

  A cricket chirped just outside. Grandma looked up at the ceiling, then down at the empty dishes sitting on her burlap table. She turned her gaze to me. “When I was only a girl . . .”

  Grandma told us about her childhood. My eyes drifted closed. It had been a long day. In less than a month, school would resume for me, Coolidge, and Dora. I wished that I could stay home and spend the winter with my family. As I drifted to sleep, I pictured snow, deep around the hogan. When I was very young, sometimes my brothers and I stripped naked in the snow, and Father rolled us in a snowbank. This Navajo tradition toughened us children against winter cold. Afterward, we rushed to sit by the fire and warm up. The laughter of my brothers still chimes in my head.

  I woke when it was still dark, the remnants of a dream tugging me back toward sleep. With my eyes closed, I reconstructed the dream. It was autumn. Neighbors, aunts, uncles, and cousins had come to stay for several days, maybe even a week or two, bringing blankets and food—fresh and dried meat and canned goods. There would be feasting and storytelling around the fire.

  I loved spending days with the sheep and goats, but I also looked forward to the social gatherings. There, stories I knew and loved were told for the hundredth time. With everyone squatting around a big fire outdoors, tales of current events were spun, things like new hogans being built, or animals being sold or traded. We children listened as adults traded stories about weather and crops. The Diné had no electricity and no radios. News was spread at these gatherings—things like births and deaths, the price of wool, the amount being off
ered at trading posts for our Navajo-design blankets and rugs. It was exciting just to think about it.

  But I would be back in school by then. A feeling of dread lodged in my stomach. I wouldn’t be there when winter came, when the range of the sheep would be limited and they’d stay in the big box canyon surrounding Grandma’s home. I wouldn’t be there when Father boiled the unhusked corn to feed the animals, and sometimes the Diné, too. When snow covered the grass, the livestock would also eat juniper and piñon branches. Along the road to Chichiltah, the trees were bare up as high as the sheep and goats could reach. And herders cut branches for their livestock when the animals couldn’t reach them on their own.

  I turned over, thinking about how snug Grandma’s hogan felt. I liked that it backed up to the west side of the canyon, only a hundred yards or so from the steep red rock cliffs that formed the canyon’s rim. The cliffs provided the back wall for a sheep corral and also gave shelter to Grandma’s home. They helped protect animals and people from frigid winter winds.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sweat Lodge

  Early 1930s

  I bathed in the arroyo, where a spring bubbled up to the surface of Grandma’s land. The new hogan had no indoor plumbing, and in hot, early September a bucket, used to rinse my hair, made the arroyo into an outdoor tub. The cool water refreshed and relaxed me in the dry summer heat.

  I lay back and closed my eyes, letting the sun dry my chest.

  Better than the arroyo bath was the cleansing Coolidge, Father, Grandfather, Uncle, and I performed a few days later—a cleansing of both body and spirit—the sweat bath.

  Grandma, Auntie, and the younger girls stayed at home. Back then, only males entered the sweat hut. A first sweat bath was a kind of coming-of-age ceremony for a young boy. I think I first went into the sweat hut when I was five. My dad taught me the prayers that must be said and told me where to sit. We prayed not only for ourselves, but for our tribe.

  Coolidge, the three men, and I hiked toward the quiet place where the hut stood. The location had been carefully selected. Disturbance there was unlikely.

  As we crested a small hill, I glimpsed the compact lodge, built into a wide, flat hole. Years ago, my relatives had dug that foot-deep hole into the cement-hard desert earth. As a result, the structure sat slightly below ground level. Entering it was like entering into the earth’s womb.

  Poles, their forks joining together at the top like strong fingers, fanned out from a central point in the sweat lodge. This created a round structure that was similar, at first glance, to a hogan. But the sweat hut had no horizontal logs and there was a peak rather than a hole at the center of the roof. The solid roof was needed to hold the heat in. Small branches filled the wide gaps between supports at the bottom of the lodge, and dirt shoveled over the wooden poles provided insulation and strength. Heavy blankets and rugs were piled over the dirt on the outside of the lodge.

  That morning, I had helped collect the finest sand from the riverbed, carrying it to the lodge and placing it outside the door. Now Father, Uncle, and Grandfather built a fire outside the lodge. They searched for rocks, especially dark volcanic rocks, and threw them into the fire to heat. Coolidge and I then carried the hot rocks into the sweat hut, balancing them on the fork of a stick. We piled them inside, to the left of the entrance, in a shallow depression, approximately four inches deep.

  We and the men then entered the lodge on hands and knees, an act of humility. A special prayer was recited upon entering. We wore just a breechclout. When the entrance blanket lowered, sudden darkness filled the room. I couldn’t see the others inside the shelter. Grandfather poured water mixed with sage and juniper over the rocks, and billows of steam rose in the dark lodge—entering deep into our lungs.18 Aromas of juniper and sagebrush filled the small room, the sage smelling much like Vicks VapoRub and having the same effect. Nasal passages opened, and congestion cleared. Father had made medicines from the two plants. Each of us drank some. We smeared the rest on our bodies to discourage things like arthritis or swelling.

  I sat at the back with my brother. Hot steam made me groggy, and I wondered how the adult males stood it, sitting so near the steaming rocks. The three men and we two boys filled the compact, heated space.

  The men sang traditional songs, celebrating our relationship to the four compass directions. Coolidge and I joined in on the songs we knew, but on many we just listened to the men. Heat grew more intense, like a fever, melting away energy and any thought of the outside world. Sweat streamed down my forehead, stinging my eyes.

  Coolidge and I knew we couldn’t leave until the adults had finished singing. Only then would the ceremony complete its work, uniting us with the physical world so that nature became a part of our hearts, bodies, and systems. This assured that impurities left us and that we were taken care of from sunrise to sunset and through the nights to come.

  After an hour, we emerged, saying an exit prayer. I squinted in the bright sunlight, and late-summer air cooled my body. Standing on a blanket, I splashed sand carried from the riverbed over myself. The sand, fine as powder, didn’t stick, but it removed the sweat. No towel was needed.

  I felt good. Lighter. A sweat bath was not to be taken heedlessly, and I had prepared carefully, examining my life both at school and at home. I knew I’d entered into the sweat hut with the proper attitude. So I felt sure that the ceremony had provided me with what I sought—protection, strength against bad influences, and a cleansing of the soul.

  Many products of the earth were utilized in the bath. Sand, rock, fire, air, water, and wood all went into the building of the sweat lodge or the ceremony itself. We, as participants, created a connection to the earth by utilizing its products. The four principal elements—earth, water, fire, and air—were an honored part of the sweat hut ceremony.

  Like all Navajo ceremonies, participants had their own individual reasons for taking part. The benefit gained depended upon the seriousness of the individual partaking in the ritual. Bad thoughts could spoil everything. Only those who threw their hearts and minds into the ceremony, invoking the Right Way, received the fullest blessing.

  When I did that, the sweat bath cleaned my soul and everything else in my day-to-day life.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Great Livestock Massacre

  Mid-1930s

  The summer day at Chichiltah sizzled with heat and expectations. Father and Grandma counted the days and months of summer, making sure they knew when my school resumed in the fall. Hot days filled with freedom raced by, and that back-to-school date would come too soon. But right now I was free again—of teachers, of that heavy feeling that I was about to answer a question incorrectly, and of volatile matrons.

  I rattled the fence I’d just mended to test its strength. Good. It formed part of the family sheep corral. I stretched and sipped from a canvas jug of water.

  The far-off rumble of heavy equipment, a sound not often heard in Navajo country, gave me warning. If I had known what was coming, my heart wouldn’t have pounded with eager anticipation. But the sound, and then the sight of a flatbed truck carrying a huge bulldozer, was uncommon—and intriguing. I wiped the sweat from my eyes. What could it be for?

  Then in my thirteenth or fourteenth summer, I didn’t connect the heavy equipment with any kind of problem. I raced down to the dirt road to watch. Navajo men dismounted from the flatbed. They worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, government employees, they said. With a good deal of sarcasm, reservation Navajos called government workers “Washing-done.”

  Grandmother and Grandfather looked at each other, numb expressions frozen on their faces.

  The men drove the heavy-duty bulldozer off the flatbed, down a hastily placed ramp. My family and I watched. The big machine lumbered across Grandma’s property, raising clouds of dust. It stopped not far from the hogan. We heard scraping sounds as a huge trench was dug. When the trench was complete—about 150 feet long and four or five feet deep—the men and machine moved to a pl
ot of land inhabited by another family and dug another long hole in the ground. They dug three or four trenches, each on property owned by different neighbors.

  Were they preparing for some new ceremony? The workers left with no explanation. I imagined a huge sing with multiple bonfires. But my adult relatives were strangely quiet.

  A week or so later, the BIA men returned on horseback. My family gathered at the hogan.

  The BIA workers blocked one end of the trench on Grandma’s land, leaving the other end open. “You need to round up your sheep and goats,” one man said. “Herd them into the trench.”

  Grandfather’s face had turned to stone. “But—”

  “Do not protest, Grandfather,” one of the BIA workers said, using the polite form of address for a younger man addressing an elder. “Haven’t you heard, you’ll get thrown in jail?”

  My stomach knotted as I helped herd all but three hundred of Grandmother’s sheep and goats into the deep trench. The willing, domesticated animals moved readily into the trench through the open end. Then the BIA workers sealed that end. A flammable material was sprayed on the animals, and they were set on fire.

  We couldn’t believe what we were witnessing. I covered my ears, but could not block the shrieks of the animals, especially the goats, who had a high, piercing cry. The stench of burning wool and flesh filled the normally fresh air.

  That night, as I lay sleepless, the screams echoed in my head. Across the hogan, Grandmother and Grandfather cried softly.

  Through years of hard work Grandma’s herd had grown to around a thousand animals, mostly sheep, with a scattering of goats. The entire family had worked hard to build up our herd, and we were happy and grateful for our healthy animals. In Navajo country, sheep were a measure of wealth. So, despite the Depression afflicting the rest of the nation, my family had worked their way to success. I knew that Dora and I had helped. With the herd reduced by seven hundred head, all those years of labor came to nothing.