This Is the Place

by Margot Kahn

  13 “In the early 1970’s, there were school-based efforts at reversing language shift, approved by the Tribal Government and supported in large part by the Federal Bilingual Education funds. A number of schools were active, but the movement did not take hold.… No more than 10% of Navajo children receive any Navajo courses” (Bernard Spolsky, “Language Management for Endangered Languages: The Case of Navajo,” Language Documentation and Description 6, 117–131).

  14 Sept. 13. ’15. On the drive to Tucson along I-40, my cousin-sister points out the black-tar roofs of our family’s houses. She tells me our relatives in Sanders called her Dibé Yázhí, Little Sheep, after the animals our great-grandmother raised. Dibé Yázhí points out the cemetery—a small, square piece of land—where our great-grandmother is buried. The cemetery is barely distinguishable from the rest of the landscape, and when I follow her gaze, look away from the highway, I see only the stark, white faces of the headstones and the silver glint of a ribbon in the wind.

  15 In 1968, a decade after the first dictionary was published, 90 percent of the children on the reservation who entered school spoke Navajo; in 2009, only 30 percent knew the language (Spolsky, “Language Management for Endangered Languages,” 117).

  16 Sept. 22. ’15. The second time I pass our allotment on I-40, I try to find the spot Dibé Yázhí showed me. I look for the headstones; I think of stopping and trying to find my grandmother’s grave. My cousin-sister told me that if you don’t do the proper blessing, the spirit will follow you home. (“What is the difference between a spirit and a ghost?”) I don’t know the blessing, but it doesn’t matter; I can’t recognize the cemetery or my family’s land.

  17 Sept. 19. I catch a cold from my students. Might be the flu. I tell Dibé Yázhí to stay away, but she says she won’t get sick. We spend all day curled up on the couch watching Shameless. She rests her head on my shoulder, on my hip.

  18 How are these words (kindness/molestation) that sound so similar, so different? My second dictionary is no help: it omits the second incident. My aunt tells Dibé Yázhí that our maternal grandmother molested her sons. My mother tells me that my paternal grandmother molested her sons. (“Why would they tell us that?”) It’s hard to believe, but it isn’t. There will never be a trial. These are words better left unspoken, forgotten, erased.

  19 Sept. 16. ’15. Dibé Yázhí is told that if she doesn’t appear for the court date, a warrant will be put out for her arrest. I agree to drive her back to Window Rock on Monday night, after I am done teaching for the day. It is a six-hour drive, but I am almost happy to make it. I will be in Window Rock, with my family, on the two-year anniversary of my mother’s death, not by plan but by circumstance.

  20 I am sick with fever, alive with fever dreams. I dream of a two-story, sandstone motel, its three square walls opening onto the desert. A sun sets between two mountains, and heavy drapes are drawn across all the windows. My mother and my aunt and all my sisters are running in and out of the rooms, slamming doors, shouting at each other from the landings. I understand that each door is a choice, each room a potential future, and that my mother’s and my aunt’s and my sisters’ doors are closed to me. Standing on the landing and looking into the sun, I notice a solitary woman’s figure in the desert. She wears a loose blouse and a long skirt, cinched by an elaborate concho belt, and though I never met her, I know this woman is Pauline Tom, our gnomon, casting her long, indecipherable shadow on our lives.

  ’áaji’, up to that point; up to there; toward there; to that point and no farther.

  ’ááji’, in that direction; on that side.

  ’aak’ee, fall, autumn.21

  ’aak’eed’, last fall, last autumn.

  ’aak’eego, in, or during the fall or autumn months.

  ’aak’eejí’, near or close to the fall season.

  ’ąą kwáániił, it is expanding; it is getting bigger.22

  ’ááłdabidii’ní, we (pl.) mean by that.

  ’ááłdeiłní, they mean by that.

  ’aa’na’ (ee’na’), yah, he crawled in (an enclosure, as a hole, house, etc.).

  ’aaníígóó, t’áá, the truth.23

  ’aaníinii, that which is true.

  ’aaníí, t’áá, it is true; truly; really; verily.24

  ’aaníí, t’áásh, is it so; is it true?25

  ’ááníłígíí, that which is occurring; the happening; the event.26

  ’a’át’e’, sin; injustice; meanness.

  ’áát’įįdę, what he did; his aforementioned act.27

  ’aa yílyáii, donation.

  ’abąąh náát’i’, border, strand (of the warp of a rug).28

  ’abaní, buckskin.

  ’abe’, milk, teat, dug, pap.

  ’abe’ ’astse’, udder, mammary gland.

  ’abe’é, ch’il, milkweed.

  ’abéézh, there is boiling.

  ’abda’diisdzil, they were forced to………29

  ’abid dijoolí, duodenum.

  ’ábi’diilyaa, he was made to be………30

  21 I start teaching my first freshman composition class in the fall. I’m convinced, like most first-year teachers, that I have no idea what I am talking about; I spend the entire hour sweating in front of my class. But afterwards, two dark-haired, dark-skinned girls walk up to me and ask me: What are your clans? Where is your family from? We are Navajo, too. We are all three nervous and unsure where the conversation should go, but I want to grab hold of them and root them next to me; graduation rates of native students are abysmally low.

  22 Sept. 22. ’15. Dibé Yázhí disappears in the middle of the night and leaves us a note: Went to Gallup with Heather and Faith need to get pads and face wash. Should be back soon. She leaves us a number, the wrong number. (“She prolly went to see that guy.”)

  23

  24 Dibé Yázhí tells me she didn’t see her boyfriend again. That she went over to Shorty’s and helped him set mouse traps in the middle of the night. He couldn’t do it himself, he kept catching his fingers. But she would tell me if she saw him.

  25 The answer is, in many ways, unknowable; for our mothers, the surest protection from the past was to spin truths and falsehoods into one story, one thread, impossible to distinguish in the weave.

  26 I have been walking around the thing that happened, stepping around the truth, trying to protect Dibé Yázhí from myself.

  27 Sept. 8. ’15. My cousin-sister calls me at 4:30 in the morning, and I answer; her voice is thick with tears. She tells me her boyfriend got drunk and beat her up. She found out he was cheating, and she started a fight. He hit her, threw her down. I know this story. I know it. These are words better left unspoken; a story better lost to time. Still, I have no words to help her. I will come get you, I tell her. I will bring you home with me.

  28 A Navajo blanket is woven on a loom and will never outgrow its frame. Do we finish the story our mothers began, or do we rip out the weaving and begin anew? It is not so easy to erase or forget the things that have come before us.

  29 See footnote 53.

  30 the kind of man who hits women. He crawled inside his father’s shadow and filled it out.

  ’ábidííniid, I said to him.

  ’ábidiní, you say thus to him.

  ’ábidiní, ha’át’íí shą’, what do you mean?31

  ’abi’doog, he was hauled away.32

  ’abi’dool’a’, he was sent; he was commanded to go.

  ’ábi’dool’įįdii, t’áá ’aaníí bee, that with which he was really harmed.33

  ’abi’doolt’e’ígíí, yah, the fact that he was imprisoned.

  ’abi’doolt’e, yah, he was jailed, confined (as within an enclosure), imprisoned.34

  ’ábidoołdįił, it will annihilate them.35 ’ábidoołdįįłgo, since it will annihilate.

  ’ábidoo’niidę, what he was told; what he had been told.

  ’ábiilaa, it made him.

  ’ábíłní, he says to him.

 
’abíní, morning.36

  ’abínídóó, from the morning on…….

  ’abnígo, in the morning.37

  ’ábi’niidįįd, it started to dwindle; it began to run out.

  ’ábísdįįdii, that which caused them to disappear, or become extinct.38

  ’ábizhdííniid, he said to him.

  ’abízhí, paternal uncle or aunt.

  ’ábizh’niilaa, he started to make it.

  ’ach’, hunger for meat.

  ’ách’h, in front of.39

  ’ach’h na’adá, protection.40

  31 One of my Navajo students interviews her aunt, who teaches Navajo language classes, and she writes a paper about revitalizing Diné Bizaad. I ask her if she would put me in contact with her aunt to answer some of my own questions. Her aunt agrees to email me her responses, but I am so lost, I don’t know the right questions to ask. I write a rambling email about adjectives and verbs and the state of being, and she never responds.

  32 When I was little, my mother called the cops on my father, often. Usually after they had both been drinking. I remember standing on the street with our neighbors, watching the cops chase my father down the road, shove him into a police car, and haul him away.

  33 What are the roots of domestic violence on the reservation? Inescapable poverty. Powerlessness. Untreated mental illnesses. Self-medication through alcohol. Cycles of abuse: fathers beating mothers beating sons beating their lovers and future mothers.

  34 Sept. 8. ’15. Dibé Yázhí’s boyfriend is arrested and thrown into the Window Rock jail. It isn’t his first time there, but he isn’t held long. He goes home to his mother. My cousin-sister is told not to contact him before the trial.

  35 Rates of domestic violence and sexual assault are higher among Native Americans than any other ethnicity in the United States. A report by the Department of Justice estimates assault rates to be 50 percent higher than the next-highest demographic. A CDC study from 2008 reported that almost 40 percent of Native American women identified as victims of domestic violence during their lifetime. These are conservative figures; many assaults go unreported.

  36 Sept. 13. ’15. My first trip to the Rez. I wake before everyone and slip out of bed and out the door with my aunt’s binoculars. My aunt’s dog, Toro, follows me down the twisting dirt road and into the flowering sagebrush hills. Toro follows his nose off the path, under bushes, over piles of gravel and rock. He misses a pair of cotton-tails, who bolt out from under my feet as I cross the same ground minutes later; they reach the safety of a hidden burrow before he turns around. The cedar trees on higher ground are full of birds. As the sun climbs higher, I decide to head home; I call Toro’s name, and he circles back to my heel. I pat his rib cage, scratch under his collar, talk cheerfully to him and the birds and the morning as we walk back to my aunt’s house.

  37 Sept. 22. ’15. I wake up to the sound of water lapping stone. I sit up in Dibé Yázhí’s bed, peek through the blinds, am disappointed Tropical Depression Sixteen-E has followed us to Window Rock. If I were better rested, I would walk into the hills, look for waterlogged birds, but my cough has kept me up all night.

  38 The Navajo-Churro is a breed of sheep descended from the domestic Churra, brought to the Americas in the sixteenth century by the Spanish. The sheep were quickly integrated into Navajo life because of their low maintenance, resistance to disease, and ability to survive extreme climates. But the US government sanctioned programs to eliminate the Navajo-Churro: Before the Long Walk, Kit Carson slaughtered thousands; beginning in the 1930’s, the government culled hundreds of thousands; and by the 1970’s, there were fewer than 450 remaining.

  39 Sept. 22. ’15. My aunt and her neighbors clear the summer weeds out of the front yard and sweep them into piles. Toro has made a small rabbit’s nest of them; he lies in a tight little ball. I call Toro’s name, and he lifts his head, fixes me with red, watery eyes, but he does not move.

  40 In 1977, Robert McNeal, a veterinary scientist at Utah State University, founded the Navajo Sheep Project, which rounded up Churro sheep from the hidden mesas and canyons they had scattered to as early as Kit Carson’s campaign against them. They created a core genetic flock, and today the Navajo-Churro are threatened but not extinct.

  ’ách’h neilyéii, that which he protects himself by.

  ’ach hwíídéeni, addiction.

  ’ach’é’é, daughter, niece (daughter of one’s sister) (female speaking).41

  ’ach’é’éd’, one’s yard, or dooryard.42

  ’acheii (achaii), maternal grandfather.43

  ’achí, the act of giving birth.

  ’ách’į’, toward oneself.

  ’áchh, nose, snout.44

  ’áchįįshtah, nostril, sinus.

  ’áchshtah dóó ’adáyi hashch’íí’, catarrh.

  ’ach’į nahwii’ná, to have trouble; to have difficulty; to suffer.45

  ’ach’į na’ílyé, payment; to receive pension.

  ’ach’į niná’ílyá, repayment.

  ’acho’, genitalia (male).

  ’achó, maternal great-grandfather.46

  ’acho’ biyzhii, testicle.

  ’acho’ bizis, prepuce.

  ’ach’ooní, comrade, partner.

  ’ada’, nephew (son of one’s sister) (male speaking).

  ’ádá, for self (myself, yourself, etc.).

  ’ádaa, to, about-self, concerning, to one-self. ’ádaa ’áhojily, he takes care of himself; he is on the alert.47

  ’adaa’, lip.

  ’add, yesterday.

  ’ádaadahalni’go, when they tell about themselves.48

  ’ádaadįįh, they are disappearing, about to disappear.

  ’ádaadin, they are none of them; they are non-existent, they are absent.49

  ’ádaadinídíí, the ones that are gone; absentees; decedents.50

  41 After my mother dies, my aunt tells me that I am her daughter now—that she is my “little mother.” This is how she introduces me to everyone: This is my niece! She’s a teacher at the University of Arizona! This is how everyone responds: Hello, niece.

  42 My maternal great-grandmother froze to death, and my aunt is shocked that I did not know. I don’t understand because freezing to death in the desert, in the sun, surrounded by yellow sagebrush flowers doesn’t make sense to me. My aunt tells me Pauline Tom fell while checking on a noise outside, and she broke her hip in the fall. My aunt curls her hands on her skinny little wrists, mimes our grandmother, crawling in the dirt, but she could not crawl far enough. My grandmother froze to death in the winter, in the deep dark of the night, in her own backyard.

  43 I met my maternal grandfather once when I was very young. He was a Navajo police officer. When he got sick, my mother and my aunt started fighting over who would take care of him. My aunt talked too soon about pulling the plug, and they stopped speaking for years.

  44 Sept. 22. ’15. I call Toro’s name again, and he stands on quivering legs. He hobbles over to me and leans his entire weight against me. “Toro,” I whisper, and I trace the black line between his eyes, smooth my hands over his head, down his sides. I rub his soft ears, over and over. “It’s so hard, I know. It’s so hard.” I think of the stories Dibé Yázhí told me. All the times Toro has been hit, flipped over the hoods of cars. Gotten up, shaken it off. Has he been hit again? My aunt won’t take him to the vet. He’s a Rez dog, now.

  45 My mother was homeless the six months leading up to her death, and she never called to ask me for help.

  46 Young and Morgan’s dictionary tells me ’achó means maternal great grand-mother, that ’acho’ is not gendered. I am too embarrassed to ask, too scared my voice will betray me on the rising O.

  47 My father would never admit his own violence, though I remember it like a mirage in the desert—the images came back to me in shimmers, a disturbing gloss over the horizon.

  48 When my mother dies, I am the one who must go through her things: her diaries, her letters, her phot
ographs. She says things in writing she would never say to me herself, and I feel some validation. I let my cousin-sister read some of her entries: there is truth in their stories, truth in our memories, if only we could let ourselves believe them.

  49 Dr. William Morgan, Sr., the linguist and translator for both Navajo dictionaries, passed away in 2001. He was eighty-five years old, more than twice the age of my mother when she died. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of New Mexico and taught at Cornell, the University of New Mexico, and the Navajo Community College. According to his obituary, he left behind nineteen grandchildren and nineteen great-grandchildren. And though he is gone, he left a cultural legacy that will survive him and his children’s children’s children, perhaps.

  50 I am unsure how many grandchildren and great-grandchildren survived Pauline Tom; there are too many blank spaces on the family tree my mother left behind. Many of my questions have no answers; the ones who could answer them are gone.

  ’ádaadzaa, they did.51 ’ádaadzaa yégi ’át’éego, like they did.52 ’ádaadzaaígi ’át’éego, like they did.53

  ’ádąąh, upon oneself. ’ádąąh áahast’, he committed a crime; made a serious mistake. ’ádąąh dahosíst’, I committed a crime.54

  51 The court date is cancelled. I find out after I leave that Dibé Yázhí is back with her boyfriend.

  52 My mother would leave the men who hit her, but she would always take them back.

  53 I should know better, but I don’t. I hook up with men from the Internet and drive long distances to meet them in hotel rooms. I let them tie me up, bruise my skin with ropes and clamps and leather, tear me up, and make me bleed. I tell myself that it’s okay because I let them—that I am the one with the power. I cannot tell if it is a lie, or if there is truth there, too.

  54 I should not have taken her home. I should have spoken the words I meant to say. That we are worthy. That there is another path. That we can weave a rug of our own design. I started to look for those words but did not find them; I found only the same ghosts haunting the page.