Navajo Healing

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ritual healing and the politics of identity in

contemporary Navajo society

THOM AS J. CSORDAS— Cas e Western Reserve University

M y p oint of departure is the intersection of three heavily traveled co nceptua l highwa ys that

w in d across Am erican anthropology. The first is ritual he aling, w hic h has preo ccup ied anthro -

pology as religion, performance, therapy, and, broadly speaking, as cultural process (Csordas

and Kleinman 1996; Dow 1986; Kleinman 1980; Levi-Strauss 1966). The second is identity

pol i t ics—that is, the deployment of representat ion and m obil izat ion of comm unity w ithin plural

societies in the name of gender, sexual orien tation, ethnic ity, race, or re ligion — wh ich in recent

years, has captured the attention of scholars in both cultura l an thropolog y and interdisciplinary

cultural studies (Calhoun 1994 ; Friedman 19 92; Giddens 199 0; Lash and Friedman 1992). The

third is Navajo society, which remains one of the most heavily documented, most frequently

plundered for ethnographic examples, and most irritated by the persistent probing of anthro-

pologists of all stripes (Farella 1984; Kluckhohn and Leighton 1946; Lamphere 1977; Wither-

spoon 197 7). In this article, I elaborate the relation be twee n ritual h ealing and id en tity p olitics

in contemporary Nava jo society by presenting a conc eptual framew ork that can pote ntially be

app lied across a wi de r range of societies.

W hat is the purpose of questioning the relation betwe en ritual h ealing and ide ntity po litics?

Doing so allows me to address in specific fashion the perennial issue of the relation between

religion and polit ics, both of wh ich are forms of powe r but wi th ostensibly different motives an d

modes of operation (Fogelson and Adams 1977). It allows me to address the parallel issues of

the individual in relation to the collective and of microsocial in relation to macrosocial

Ritual healing a nd identity politics interact on three levels in contempo rary Navajo

society: representation of Navajo identity in relation to the dom inant Euro-Ame ri-

can society, interaction am ong religious healing traditions within Navajo society,

and transformation o f individual experience with respect to dignity and self-worth

as a Navajo. The first is illustrated with two e vents: an epidemic ofhanta virus and

a serious drought. The second is examined with respect to the coexistence of

traditional Navajo hea ling, Native Ame rican C hurch healing, and Navajo Christian

faith h ealing. The third is discussed in terms of case studies of Navajo patients who

have used these forms of heal ng. hese levels constitute a framework for analyzing

the relation between healing and identity po litics that is potentially more nuanced

than either the position that ritual healing is a futile expression of frustration—the

opiate o f the masses interpretation—or that ritual healing is a subtle form of political

resistance—the postmode rn liberation of the indigenous voice interpretation.

Future studies using such a framework could begin to distinguish more clearly

between a personal politics of collective identity, in which individual actors w ith

clear commitments struggle to assert a shared identity, and a collective politics of

personal identity, in which each actor amon g a group of actors with ambiguou s

commitments struggles to attain individua l identity, [ rel igion, healing, r i tual, iden-

t ity polit ics, Navajo, Native American Church, Christianity]

American Ethnologist

26(1):3-23. Copyright© 1999, American Anthropological Association.

healing and identity polit ics 3



processes. Stated strongly, ritual healing Is a form of identity politics, as suggested by Rudolph

Virchow's famous dictum that polit ics is nothing but medicine on a grand scale. Stated

somewhat less strongly, ritual healing Is a window onto larger cultural processes, as in the

anthropological notion of cultural performance (Geertz 1973; Singer 1972).

W h y ask this question in the particular context of Na vajo society? The Nav ajo sett ing requires

us to confront an empirical situation that further undermines the already shaky distinction

between tradit ion and modernity. To be precise, on the one hand typical accounts treat ritual

healing as "tradit ional" and backward-looking in values and goals even though it is practiced

in many postmodern sett ings, including that of Navajo society (see the literature reviewed in

Csordas and Lew ton 1998). On the other han d, scholars often discuss ide ntity p olit ics in terms

of mo dernity, diaspora, postcolonial ism, and globa lizat ion (Calhoun 1 994; Lash and Friedman

1992), whereas "tradit ion" itself is a central orienting concept in everyday life for Navajos

struggling for sovereignty as a fourth -wo rld n ation .

In this art icle, my purpose is to show that the relation between ritual healing and identity

polit ics in Navajo society is played out on three different levels of social generality. On the

broadest level, healing articulates Navajo identity in relation to the dominant Anglo-American

society. Here I will be concerned with cultural representation of events in which identity is at

stake in the public sphere defined in part by the news media. On an intermediate level within

Na vajo so ciety, healing and iden tity are closely interrelated in the interactions am ong relatively

distinct forms of healing. Specif ically, I w ill high light n egotiation am ong participants in these

healing forms around issues of competit ion and cooperation. Finally, on the individual level,

healing frames the relation between personal and collective identity in terms of dignity and

self-worth as a Navajo. Here, my focus is on behavioral and experiential transformation of

patients and their imm ediate social relations. Basing my presentation on this threefold ana lytic

f ramework,

I

w il l return in the conclusion to the above -me ntioned series of conce ptua l relations

between rel igion and pol i t ics, t radit ion and modernity, individual and col lect ive, microsocial

and macrosocial.

1

Navajoland in the nineties

The Navajo

(Dine)

are an Athabaskan people w ho , along with the kindred Apache peoples,

migrated south from Alaska and Canada to wh at is now the U.S. Southwest appro xim ately 500

years ago, rough ly the same time as Spaniards were migra ting no rth from M ex ico into the same

region.

The contemporary Navajo Nation comprises more than 17.5 mill ion acres (roughly the

size of West Virginia) in the four corners region where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and

Colorado meet. It l ies immediately to the east of Grand Canyon National Park and completely

surrounds the H op i Indian reservation. The reservation and its boundaries are an institution of

the U.S. federal governme nt, established by an impose d treaty in 1868 as the con dit io n for the

Navajos' release from captivity at Bosque Redondo near Fort Sumner in eastern New Mexico.

The col lect ive trauma of the Long Walk—their forced march into col lect ive exi le from their

homeland, following military defeat by U.S. government troops using a scorched-earth policy

at the com m an d of the infamous Co lonel Kit Carson— is crit ical to contem porary Na vajos' sense

of iden tity as a peo ple. Today, the Nava jo reservation is div ide d into f ive federal adm inistrative

districts or agencies as well as into 110 indigenously recognized localit ies or chapters. Each

chapter sends a delegate to the Navajo tribal council established in the 1930s. The chief

executive of the Navajo tribal government is a president chosen in a general election for a

four-year term.

According to the 1990 U.S. census, the populat ion of the Navajo Nat ion was 155,276, of

whom 96 percent were American Indian. Although precise f igures are not available, as many

as 50,000 Navajos may live in other regions of the United States, many maintaining close t ies

american ethnologist



to their hom eland , for

a

total of rough ly 2 00,00 0 Navajos. These figures make the Na vajo , along

w ith Cherokee and Sioux, among the largest Indian tribes in the Un ited States. Given the size

and g eog raph ical expanse of Na va jola nd , it is not surprising that there exists

a

degree of reg ional

cultu ral variation am ong Navajos. This variation corresponds to differences in mic roe colo gica l

zones w ith in Na vajoland a nd, more recently, to develop men t of semi-urban ad ministrative and

com me rcial centers. In add it ion, residents of some areas of western N ava jolan d are relatively

isolated either by the stark physical landscape around Black Mesa or by the interposition of

Hop i land ;

wh ile in areas of eastern Nav ajolan d residents' contact w ith non-N avajos has been

qu ite com m on d ue to the checkerboard pattern of land holdings. Regional variations doubtless

are bec om ing less salient as more p aved roads have decreased isolation over the past 20 years.

There are, nevertheless, slight dialectal differences in lex icon , accent, and the co nstruc tion of

certain expressions, and there appears to be some variation in the distribution of ceremonial

know ledge among traditional Navajos.

Navajo society is tradit ionally organized around a system of exogamous matril ineal clans.

There is com m on agreement on the ide ntity of the four origina l clans said to have been created

by the deity Changing Woman, but the system is quite complex and several versions of clan

classification are extant. Several clans are regarded as extinct, and a good number are adopted

clans representing groups of foreigners who at various historical moments were incorporated

into Navajo society. Tradit ional subsistence is based on a combination of farming (primarily

corn) and livestock raising (primarily sheep). The Navajo undertake farming and livestock

produ ct ion in varying comb inat ions, depending on their ecological zones within Na vajoland .

In the 20th c entury, these have been supplem ented by wage labor, first in railroad cons truction

and the mining of coal and uranium, and more recently in service occupations in the vast

bureau cracies of the federal Bureau of Indian A ffairs, the federal Indian He alth Se rvice, and the

Navajo tribal government. Many of the debates over tribal sovereignty in Navajoland have to

do with tribal control of services rather than issues of legal jurisdiction, although the topic of

whether the Navajo Nation will open itself to the casino industry has recently entered public

debate. In general, though Navajos remain an economically poor people, their

land,

natural

resources, population, and cultural and linguistic base place them as relatively well off in

comparison to many other Indian tribes in the United States.

healing and the representation of social self and other

Popular awareness of Navajo society outside Navajoland is based largely on media reports

of disputes between Hopi and Navajo tribes over reservation boundaries that were never of

their own making. Popular awareness is also based on f ict ional accounts of the Navajo,

including the detective novels of Tony Hillerman whose heroes are a tradit ional Navajo

policeman (who wants to be modern) and an acculturated policeman (who wants to be a

medicine man). Perhaps even more influential (especially for travelers to the Southwest) have

been the marvelou s wo ole n rugs and silver jew elry sold at reservation tradin g posts and roadside

stands near Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon. Popular awareness of the dominant

"Anglo" society among Navajos comes from direct interaction in the four reservation border

towns of Gallup, Farmington, Flagstaff, and Page, as well as in the four more distant cities of

Alb uq ue rqu e, P hoenix, Salt Lake, and Denve r.

2

O n the reservation, Navajos encounter tourists,

missionaries, and employees of the Indian Hea lth Service, Bureau of Indian A ffairs, and Nav ajo

tribal b ureau cracy. Awareness of Ang lo culture is also deve loped du ring m ilitary service, w hi ch

is not uncommon among Navajo youth, and via cultural and technological innovat ion. Over

the past generation, the Navajo have readily adopted the pickup truck and, with the dramatic

extension of paved roads on the reservation, have enthusiastically put it to the service of their

love of travel and visit ing. They have also adopted television and, more recently, computers

healing and identity politics



and faxes. Traces of the postm odern pervasiveness of electronic media are apparent in th e image

of the tradit ional chanter who takes appointments for ceremonies by cellular phone from his

pickup t ruck.

All of the preceding points of contact are occasional sites of cultural activity that could be

define d as iden tity po lit ics, wh ethe r expressed overtly

as

the literal polit ics of triba l sovereignty

or covertly in the form of humorous stories about the curious ways of white people.

3

In this

section,

I w il l exa mine tw o events in recent Nav ajo history that bring healing to the fore as an

articulation of the relations between Navajo and Anglo-American societies.

ref lect ions

on

a myste ry i llness In Ma y 1993 , the news media reported the sudden outbrea k

of a mysterious and deadly illness in the southwestern United States, centered in the eastern

area of the Navajo reservation. The il lness typically began with f lu-like symptoms and, within

scarcely m ore than 24 hou rs, progressed to total respiratory collap se. By m id-A ug ust, the Centers

for Disease Control (CDC) had recorded 30 cases, 20 of which had resulted in death (Centers

for Disease Control 1993:612). Signif icantly, the f irst patients were all Navajo. The CDC sent

an emergency team onto the reservation to try to identify the source and vector o f the m ystery

illness, and the y set up

a

ho tline tha t reported possible leads and kept

a

tally of n ew

cases.

A long

with the federal investigators, an army of national and international media personnel invaded

Navajoland, prying into isolated communit ies and poking microphones into bemused or

em bittered faces. From there, the situation d eteriorated.

Early med ia reports referred to the un iden tif ied illness w ith names like "reservation f lu " and

"Navajo f lu" (see Bales 1994). Some Navajos had diff iculty gett ing service

tn

restaurants, and

tourists were observed driving across the reservation wearing surgical masks (Grady 1993). In

early

June,

a front-page story in

The Washington

Post reported that schoo l officials in Los Angeles

had canceled the visit of a class of Navajo third-graders who had flown there to meet their

suburban C alifornia pen pals (Pressley 1 993). Navajos were p rofou nd ly insulted at the apparent

implication that they were a disease-ridden people or, worse, that they were somehow

responsible for the outbreak. At the least, transformation of the epidemic into a global media

event focused negative a ttention on the reservation a nd its peo ple. In the frantic ten-day period

before the illness was iden tif ied, the intensity an d contrast between on-reservation and off-res-

ervation opinions were particularly vivid to me because the opinions were being voiced in the

weeks before my wife and I were to leave for a summer of f ieldwork in Navajoland with our

then six-month-old twin chi ldren. Friends in the university community, including our family

ped iatrician , expressed serious reservations about the wisdo m o f our departure before kno win g

the nature and degree of contagiousness of the mystery illness. Friends on the reservation,

including Anglo physicians, were nonplussed by the episode, pointing out that l ife there was

proceeding much as usual, that the outbreak seemed to be quite localized, and that, in any

case,

fatalities occurred e veryday for a variety of causes among w hi ch this was on ly on e m ore.

W ith ou r appraisal of

the

situation suspended between these poles of pan ic and com plac en cy,

we set out, hoping that by the time w e reached Albuqu erque the mystery wo ul d be resolved.

W e checked the CDC telephone hot l ine at every night 's stop along the high wa y. The day we

reached Albuqu erqu e was the day the CDC ann oun ced the cause of the illness: a new strain of

a rare Asian virus called hanta that had p revious ly been kn ow n to attack the rena l system rather

than the respiratory system. Acting on advice of tradit ional Navajo elders who observed that

several outbreaks of severe illness earlier in the century had been associated with seasons of

high rainfall, abundant pinon crops, and correspondingly high rodent populations (Schwarz

1995), investigators concluded that the virus was spread via the saliva, urine, and feces of deer

mice. The deer mouse is a species not known to encroach on human habitation except

occasionally in cold weather. The disease did not appear to be comm unicab le amon g huma ns.

The Centers for Disease Co ntro l, the Indian He alth Service, the state of N ew M ex ico , and trib al

6 am erican ethnologist



health agencies we re all invo lved in spreading the

w o rd .

The tribe issued guidelines for trapp ing

and safely disposing of mice . Ma ny Navajos heeded the health warnings a nd took prec autions.

The polit ical situation deteriorated again, however, when one agency suggested that Navajos

refrain from tradit ional ceremonies conducted in hogans with dirt f loors. The implication that

their sacred ceremonies were conducted in structures potentially made filthy by mouse waste

was again dee ply insult ing . Hogans are used

as

dw ellings or for ceremo nies, and the earth inside

them is carefully swept and regarded as very clean, indeed ho ly, by Navajos.

The pre dicta ble result of the episode was a degree of resentment an d resistance. O ne Na vajo

w o m a n , a sophisticated, bicultural person

(i.e.,

equa lly conversant in Na vajo and Anglo culture)

who was active in tribal polit ics and health care issues, drew the following parallel between

the hanta virus outbreak and the serious f looding that was occurring at the same time that

summer throughout the Mississippi Valley region. She indicated that the two events were

linked—that given the proclivity of Mother Earth for keeping all nature in balance, it was not

surprising that "w hite s" w ere having to undergo this hardship insofar

as

wh ite peop le had slurred

the Navajo with regard to the mystery il lness. As evidence, she pointed out that due to the

flooding many whites along the Mississippi were being forced to haul their own fresh water,

just as Navajos had been do ing for many years in their arid ho me land .

Even more telling was the understanding expressed by an elderly healer of the Native

American Church (see below). He had been consulted by the relatives of a young couple who

had been among the f irst to perish in the outbreak. They were co ncerne d a bout sp iritual danger,

wondering what had caused the deaths and whether they should now be taking some

cerem onial steps. His response was that it was inco rrect to blam e the m ice , for they are harmless

creatures with no apparent capacity to bear il l will to humans. In his estimation, the couple's

death was caused by exposure to atmospheric conta min ation— poiso n in the air from some kind

of government testing, or poison that had drifted over the ocean from a foreign source

(e.g.,

Chernobyl or the Gulf War). The young people had succumbed because they had recently

attended m ore than one fun eral, thereby m aking themselves vulne rable by exposure to the dead

in

a

way that is today quite com mo n bu t is considered high ly inap propriate in tradit ional Nava jo

practice. Traditionally only a few of the closest relatives take responsibility for

a

dead body and

then only w ith careful cerem onial procedures that enable them to de al safely w ith the person's

spirit and belongings. The healer's dua l explanation is etiolo gica lly rational in invok ing a factor

of individu al vu lnera bility co m bine d wi th an agent to w hic h others are also exposed but do not

necessarily succumb. More impressive, however, is its cultural logic with respect to identity

polit ics, whereby it combines lack of adherence to tradit ional practice by Navajos with the

pathogenicity of the dominant society.

Stories of atmospheric pollution, occasionally l inked to conspiracy theories, are relatively

common on the reservation, which is to say they predate the hanta virus episode. Such stories

are neither fictional nor delusional. Revelations over the past several years confirm that there

have indeed been enviro nm enta lly dangerous tests in the Southwest (e.g., ABC News' Turning

Point 2/2/94). Governm ent secrets only recently divulge d in the med ia (to the surprise of most

Americans) may well have been known from observation over decades by people living in the

areas where such tests were carried o ut. G iven the variety of ways in w hi ch Navajos (and others)

see the environment and lifestyle of contemporary society as seriously out of balance, the

authorit ies' implication of the humble mouse stimulated addit ional suspicion. It was common

at the t ime to hear comments like, "My grandmother has mice around her house, and no one

there has ever gotten sick." Some Navajos pointed out that people had lived side by side with

mice for centuries, and only recently had it been reported that mic e co uld be harmful— just as

they had used the same water sources for years and only recently (e.g., since the advent of

uranium mining) had water contamination become a concern. In the rare instances in which

healers acknowledged a possible role for mice, the mice tended to be regarded as messengers

healing an d identity polit ics 7



bearing a wa rnin g rather than as carriers of disease. In the even rarer instances in w h ic h m ice

were recognized as potential carriers of disease, they were more likely to be regarded as

malevolent spirits in disguise than as vectors for a virus.

The denoue me nt of the episode occurred as more cases began appe aring amon g non-Ind ians

living beyond the reservation boundaries. As the affected area expanded, fewer cases were

reported, and survival rates improved for those identif ied early. The media's appetite for the

illness subside d, thou gh o ccas iona l reports still appear, the most recent as of this writ ing) bein g

a brief New York Times art icle in Octob er 1996 about a case in U tah . Perhaps the cr ow nin g

irony—or crowning insult—of the hanta virus episode was reported by the New York Times in

February 1999, as part of a story on mismanagement of funds held by the U.S. government on

behalf of American Indians since the 19th century. At the document center in Albuquerque,

New Mexico, records of the trust accounts were so poorly maintained that, according to

government off icials, they were contaminated with rodent feces that could contain the hanta

virus (Egan 1999). With respect to the identity politics of healing, the outbreak had two effects

on the ethnographic work we were doing. First, it largely precluded conducting interviews in

the eastern area of the reservation where people had become most embittered about outside

intrusion by the media. Second, it provided the occasion to include in interviews conducted in

other areas a question about how the mystery il lness, along w ith other " ne w " diseases like AIDS ,

fetal alcohol syndrome, and drug addiction, were being incorporated into Navajo under-

standings of health and healing.

the drought appari t ions A second episode in spring 1996 also illustrates the identity p olitics

of healing with respect to cultural representation. Two Navajo deit ies appeared to two elderly

wo me n in a remote area of the Na vajo reservation. The appa rit ion occ urred in the context of a

serious drou ght that lasted throu gh the spring and into the fall of that year. Regarded as the wo rst

drought since the 1850s, it caused considerable hardship for Navajos who were forced to sell

part of their herds at a loss. On the reservation, the drought resulted in the largest livestock

reduction since the government-enforced stock reduction of the 1930s. Aberle (1982) argued

that the early popularity of the peyote religion among the Navajo was a religious response to

conditions during the 1930s; similarly, I regard the 1996 apparitions as a religious response to

the drought and its acco mp any ing hardship. Of greatest impo rtance , the deities left a message

for the N avajo peo ple. For reasons I w ill elaborate in a mom ent, I do not have the exact wo rds

as reported by one of the women to whom the deit ies appeared, but I did hear several

interpretations of that message reported by Navajos in different regions of the reservation.

Though these interpretations range in urgency and import, they bear a distinct family resem-

blance . The m ildest interpretation was that the ap parit ion w as a wa rnin g that the drough t was

coming and that chanters (tradit ional Navajo ceremonial leaders or medicine men) should

undertake the approp riate ceremonies to prevent or ame liorate the effects. Ano ther was that the

drought and other diff icult ies were occurring because the proper ritual offerings had not been

made. The strongest was that the drought had occurred because Navajos were neglecting to

learn about their own language and culture. Offerings should be made on the site of the

apparit ion,

and fai lure to heed the warning cou ld lead to the end of the wo rld .

These reports po int to the relevance of the divine message to both h ealing and ide ntity polit ics

among contemporary Navajos. The requested offerings can be understood as healing rituals

insofar as their intent is to remove obstacles to human existence and restore balance in nature

and human affairs. The idea that this disorder is the responsibility of Navajos themselves for

having forsaken their own identity is explicit in the strong form, while in the mild form it could

be construed that the deities are simply doin g the Na vajo p eop le a favor by instructing them in

the ritual means for ove rcom ing a diff icult situation. The central theme is not a new reve lation,

but reflects the sentiment of many Navajos concern ed about cu ltural v iab ility. It was w el l stated




by a chanter I interv iew ed several years before the droug ht. For

h im,

the central feature of chants,

dances, and ceremonies is that they heal people. Not doing the ceremonies so often as in

previous t imes, not knowing the older generation's teaching and planning, disharmonizing the

ceremonies by secularizing them as "song and dance," or making fun of and fancifying them

are all reasons "w hy w e are easy targets for illnesses, tornado es, lig htn ing , things that harm us."

In other wo rds , he was suggesting that illness and n atural disaster b elong to the same ca tegory

of even ts, that h ealing ce remonies address

both,

that both are exacerbated by failure to perform

ceremonies, and that such failure is a consequence of wea kened Nava jo identity.

The critical feature of this episode for our present understanding is not in the message itself,

how eve r, but in the pub lic response to it. In this respect, I must say, first, that the direct ap pa rition

of Navajo deities or Holy People is rare,

4

although they are pantheistically present throug hout

nature and hum an existence. Indeed, accord ing to Navajo m yth they terminated their im me diate

presence on earth long ago, departing with the following statement: "This day and this night

alone yo u have seen H oly People. From this day on un til the end of days you shall not see them

again (in person), that is

f ina l "

(W yma n 1 97 0:32 4-3 25 ). Second, as Aberle (1982) observed in

his discussion of early Nav ajo resistance to the peyote relig ion , Nava jo culture does not typ ica lly

place high value on individual vision or mystical experience, and there is no clear tradit ion of

publicly recognized visionaries.

5

Third, Navajo ceremonies are customarily organized around

specif ic kin groups on a relatively small scale. W hi le in Roman Ca tholic societies the app arit ion

of the Virg in M ary or saints to gifted in divid ua l visionaries is wid ely pu bliciz ed and leads to the

establishment of permanent shrines (such as those at Lourdes or Guadalupe) as sites of

pilgrimag e, in Na vajo society apparit ion to such individuals is not a typical mode in wh ic h

tradit ional Ho ly People manifest themselves, and pub lic pilgrima ge is not a typical ritual practice

among Navajos.

Thus it is all the more important that in this instance news of the apparition spread rapidly

throughout Navajoland, and Navajos began arriving en masse—literally by the busload—to

make offerings at the spot where the deit ies had appeared. A tradit ional diagnostician deter-

mine d wh ich of the H oly People in particular requ ired offerings, and a variety of me dicine men

reportedly came to the site. On e reno wne d and respected chanter performed a ceremony that

included the appearance of masked dancers representing the deit ies who had come as

messengers. A steady stream of pilgrims arrived, finally tapering off during the winter months.

The president of the Nava jo Nation granted time off to all tr ibal employees w ho w anted to make

the trip, and he also made the pilgrimage. At the same time, however, he issued an appeal for

Navajos not to talk about the sacred event, and for there to be no publicity about it. A few

articles appeared in regional newspapers and then noth ing. No t until December 31 , 1996, did

the tribe's own newspaper

The Navajo T imes

carry the headline "19 96 Top Story Is On e That

Never Ran." The article acknowledged the apparit ion but quoted the paper's publisher and

managing editor as saying that the family of the two women had requested that no details be

printed until they decided to give out the "correct story" of their experience and the Holy

People's message, wh ic h at the t ime they had no t yet done.

6

The requests for circumspection by both the president and the family may or may not have

been conn ected— that is, the president may or may not have been relaying the family's request

to the N avajo pu blic at large. The stated concern for accuracy of detail may be re cogn it ion of

the stakes for the Navajo people in the transmission of a sacred message, or it may have been

an attempt to co ntrol the message by requiring peo ple to com e to the site of the appa rit ion to

get the real story. In either case, the identity politics of this episode of collective environmental

healing have important dimensions with respect to cultural representation both internal and

external to Navajo society. Further, there is a sacred and a pragmatic aspect of each of these

dimensions. Let me elaborate.




For Navajo people, sacred knowledge is powerful and potentially dangerous bihidzid), and

it must be treated with a respect that requires circumspection and even secrecy. Spreading

knowledge too far could weaken its spiritual power, abuse its power, or turn its power

destruct ively against the original know ledge h older. Widespread and unco ntrol led dissemina-

t ion of detai ls of the apparit ion could be inherent ly dangerous in an analogous way. This

understanding of potential danger dovetails with the pragmatic aspect of the polit ics of

representation. Recall that the apparit ions occurred within immediate memory of the media

invasion surrounding the hanta virus episode. If a media circus is distasteful in itself, it is even

more distasteful when it promotes misunderstanding and ridicule by outsiders who have no

appreciation for Navajo tradit ions of spirituality. No less disruptive could be an invasion by

well-meaning but unschooled New Age Indian "wannabes" who might have al l manner of

outrageous notions of w hat constitutes a proper offering to deit ies that are not the irs. From the

tradit ional standpoint, that would be a dangerous situation indeed. In these respects, the

remarkably widely heeded cal l for circumspect ion was a notable pol i t ical act of col lect ive

self-identif ication vis-a-vis the dominant non-Navajo society.

Internally, b oth sacred and pragma tic issues surrounded the interpretation of the app arit ions,

partic ularly w ith respect to their authen ticity. M ed icin e m en from some parts of the reservation

objected that they had already been performing ceremonies and performing them correct ly;

therefore, they w ere skep tical of the apparent need for the deities to descend and de liver such

a message. In ad dit io n, plans for a pu blic cerem ony at the site of the apparit ion for the benefit

of the entire tribe seemed unorthodox to some elders who thought ceremonies for rain were

more appropriately carried out in a localized and private manner by individual families. Yet

others were concerned that tradit ional Navajos were (again reminiscent of the hanta virus

episode) being unduly singled out and that the message of the Holy People was also relevant

for Navajos of other religious persuasions and even for non-Navajos. In this view, all people,

inc lud ing Christians, need to return to their tradit ions. Pragm atically, some Navajos expressed

concern that the legit imacy of the apparit ions, or at least their posit ive impact, was being

undermined by f inancial profit being made from the events. Making profit from a sacred event

is strictly distinguished from the fees paid to a chanter that establish respect for his ceremony

and legit imacy before the Holy People. In this case, some people complained that the host

family was "selling tacos" out there and that there was a medicine man (hataatii) asking for

mon ey from visitors. In contrast, a respected m edic ine man w ho did perform a ceremon y at the

site said that even w ith all the money being taken in , the fee he received was too sm all to pay

his ceremonial helpers appropriately.

healing and the negotiation among traditions

The above discussion presumes a certain uniformity among Navajos both with respect to

healing and ident i ty. Within Navajo society, however, rel igious ident i ty, mult iple forms of

heal ing,

and interpersonal pol i tics among Nava jo make the picture considerably more com plex.

The crit ical ethnographic fact is the coexistence of three forms of spiritual healing in contem-

porary Navajo society:

7

Tradit ional Navajo healing, Nat ive American Church healing, and

Navajo Christian faith healing. Tradit ional healing is practiced by the medicine man with his

chant and sandpaint ing and the diagnost ic ian w ho works by methods such as hand-trem bling,

crystal-gazing, or star-gazing. Native American Church healing is practiced by the road man,

with his earthen altar, sacramental peyote, and Plains Indian-style sweat lodge. Finally,

Christian faith healing is practiced by the independent Navajo Pentecostal preacher, with his

revival meetings and laying on of hands, and by Catholic charismatic prayer groups with their

com mu nal integrat ion of Navajo and Roman Catholic pract ices.

10 american ethnologist



A ll o f these forms of hea ling are resources on the N avajo reservation, but on ly the one based

on the tradit ional religion is indigenous to the Navajo people (Farella 1984; Reichard 1950;

Witherspoon 1977). The Nat ive American Church (NAC) is a pan-Indian movement that

developed the sacramental use of peyote in its contemporary form beginning around the turn

of the 20th century with Plains Indian tribes. With its introduction to Navajoland in the 1930s,

adherents faced legal pressures from their own tribal government, which decreed peyotism

illegal in 1940 and did not move for tolerance until 1966 (Aberle 1 982 ; La Barre 19 75 ; Stewart

and Aberle 1984). The introduction and influence of Christianity in many of its contemporary

forms has been only sporadical ly do cumen ted for Navajo society (Bowden 19 81 ; Hodge 1969;

Sombrero 1996). Catholicism came largely with the influence of Franciscan missionaries, and

Mormonism arrived with missionaries from Utah. Many of the major Protestant denominations

are represented, but as is true am ong C hristians in other societies, most ritual he aling is carrie d

ou t by adh erents of various forms of Pentecostal

ism.

These includ e branches of de nom inations

like the Assemblies of God and participants in charismatic prayer groups within Catholic

parishes. Notably, however, they also include a number of independent congregations and

networks of congregations that appear to be proto-denominations, all headed by indigenous

Nava jo pastors. They constitute an emergent and distinctly Nav ajo form o f C hristianity.

It is possible to outline a model of the relationship among the forms of healing associated

with these three religious tradit ions with respect to what they have in common as aspects of

Navajo culture and w hat distinguishes them as compo nents of

a

cultural system of health care

vis-a-vis one ano ther. To sum ma rize a longer a rgumen t (Csordas 1 992 ), all three have as a

com mo n goal that the patient unde rstand— Nava jo healers typically say that

a

healer "m ust talk

to them so they understand." In contrast with a psychoanalytic emphasis on "insight" into the

conflictual origins of the problem, this kind of understanding has to do more with a person's

current place in the world, and is in accord with the often observed preeminence of language

and thought in N avajo culture (Farella 198 4; W itherspo on 1977). Howe ver, each of the three

Navajo healing forms approaches the goal of understanding in terms of a distinct philosophy

and by means of a distinct therapeutic principle. Tradit ional Navajo healing is predicated on

what might be called a philosophy of obstacles. Nothing happens without a reason, and the

reason for misfortune is encountering an obstacle. The therapeutic principle of tradit ional

healing is didactic, as the healer engages the patient in the therapeutic process using methods

that guide thought toward the goal of understanding. In contrast to tradit ional healing's

philosop hy of obstacles, Native Am erican C hurch (NAC) hea ling is predicated on a ph ilosop hy

of self-esteem. Through the sacramental ingestion of peyote, patients achieve a profound

personal connection with the sacred, and their voices and presence are valorized. The

therapeutic principle in Native American Church healing is confessional, as patients pray,

confess, or tell of their problem s, are m ove d, and cry. N avajo C hristian h ealing is chara cterized

by a philosophy of moral identity, answering the question "Who am I?" in a way that among

fundamentalists often includes the understanding that the person answ ering the question is not

a tradit ionalist or peyotist. Finally, the therapeutic p rincip le of Christian healing is con versio nal,

with healing typically predicated on adopting Christian values and a Christian way of l ife.

Beyond these relatively abstract relations in prin ciple , identity polit ics wi th in Nav ajo society

are playe d out in the interaction and ne gotiation amo ng these three healing forms in everyday

practice. The three tolerate varying degrees of eclecticism with respect to mixing forms, the

most among peyotists and Roman Catholics, the least among fundamentalist Christians and

conservative traditionalists. Fundamentalist Christians, including Protestant Pentecostals,

typ i -

cally require converts to burn ceremonial paraphernalia pertaining to Tradit ional or NAC

prac tice— givin g such objects away to unconverted relatives is not suff icient. O n the other ha nd ,

conservative tradit ionalists regard Christianity and the Native American Church equally as

foreign intrusions with no proper place in Navajo life. In practice, however, particularly in the




pragmatic matter of trying to f ind the most effective type of healin g in any episode o f i llness or

distress, Navajos often have recourse to a ll three forms w ith lit t le or no sense of co ntra dic tion .

The 1996 drought provides an init ial example of this on-the-ground process of negotiation

among religious forms writ large across the social field of therapeutic practice. It was reported

that some Christian employees of the tribal government were none too pleased at the off icial

leave granted to Trad it ional Navajos for m aking the pilgrimage to the site of the ap parit ions. A

Tradit ional chanter who prayed at the site felt that one of the problems that needed to be

ceremonially addressed was that the family had allowed a Native American Church meeting to

be conducted on their

land.

On the other hand, a major public event was held in the tr ibal

capital of W in do w Rock and broadcast across the reservation by the tribal radio station KT NN ,

during which a Tradit ional chanter, an NAC road man, and a Christian minister took turns

offering prayers for the end of the drought.

In the remainder of this section, I will begin to elaborate on this complex situation through

an examina tion of healers' understandings of one another's practices and w orld vie w s. There is,

to begin, a profound am ount of cultural cross-poll inat ion between Tradit ional and N AC among

Navajos today. Amo ng Tradit iona l healers interview ed, a very small numb er dismissed peyo tism

outrigh t. These were no t always the eldest, contrary to the expectation that older Navajos w ou ld

be most conservative. Indeed, some of the eldest have consented to be patients or lay

participants in peyote meetings, and may have children w ho are active. Some appear to have

integrated peyote into their pharmacopeia, treating it simply as another among tradit ional

healing herbs. One tradit ionalist who objected to peyotism appeared to do so on pragmatic

grounds, and not witho ut humo r:

That's a new fad. That is a new practice. They claim it is a Navajo ceremony, but you hear them sing

happy birthday within their NAC songs. Us Navajo medicine men don't sing like tha t.. . . Now with the

Native American Church, they use the peyote button and they sing songs. I don't understand the songs.

But there's a lot of, still too much emotionalism in it. Also, the peyote button, it works as a paink iller. So

to really say it's real healing, there is two sides to it and doubtful.

Among NAC healers, mult iple participation is also quite likely, especially as patients in

Trad it ional ceremonies w hen illness strikes. Those wh o cite ignoran ce of tradit ional ways often

appear to do so with the humility of an untutored layperson rather than with an att itude of

aloofness or rejection. Today many of the most devout younger tradit ionalists appear to have

been inspired by peyote to learn more about their own cultural roots. Some say that peyote is

not an impo rt from the Plains Indians, but was origin ally g iven also to the N avajo and lost, on ly

now to return. Yet even among those who blend the two religions there are certain ways in

w hic h they are distinguished in practice: certain tradit iona l prayers sho uld not be said from the

peyote altar, one shouldn't participate in tradit ional and NAC ceremonies on the same day,

some prefer to hold peyote meetings in a Navajo hogan rather than a Plains t ip i , certain

tradit ional herbs (as well as certain hospital medications) are known to be incompatible with

peyote, and some N avajo road men insist on the leg it imacy o f hold ing funeral services (despite

tradit ional constraints on prox im ity to the dead) on the grounds that people sh ould co ntinue to

feel connected to deceased relatives w ho w il l a lways be a part of them .

Am ong Christians, one striking example of mu lt iple particip ation is that of the devou t C atholic

woman interviewed as a Christian healer who regularly attended Native American Church

prayer meetings and wh o made use of our interview hon orarium to pay for a Trad it ional blessing

ceremony. O n the other hand a conservat ive pastor made the fol low ing pronou ncem ent: "W ith

Christianity, our prayers f loat up to God spiritually. With NAC and tradit ional, the prayers go

to the devil. In NAC, they have to go to Texas (where the peyote cactus is gathered] to get the

medicine. In tradit ional, they get herbs from the mountains. We Christians don't have to go to

the mountains or Mexico or Texas."




These varieties of conflict and cooperation are not only matters of principle and doctrinal

posit ioning but have everyday implications for social interaction among individuals and

especially w ith in families. For exam ple, three brothers pa rticipated in our study: one is a

tradit ional chanter, the second a peyote road man, and the third a Christian pastor. The

often-strained interplay of interpersonal relationships, religious commitments, and family

loyalt ies among these men is evidence of the crit ical role of religion and ritual healing in the

negotiation of contemporary Navajo identity.

healing and personal transformation

Examining the experience of individual patients in ritual healing calls attention to the

litt le-addressed need to specify a theoretical connection between personal and collective

iden tity. As a step in this directio n, I have selected from amo ng the patients interviewe d in our

work three persons, one treated in each healing form. For these three patients, the issue of

iden tity is a life them e or locus of therapeu tic a ttentio n. Each of these cases revisits the tensions

anim ating the two levels of analysis I have treated thus far—the tension between Nava jo a nd

Euro-American values and ways of bein g-in-the -wo rld, and the tension among the three he aling

forms and their implicit visions of what it means to be a Navajo today. Here on the level of

indiv idua l exp erience, these are diffracted by the tensions between illness and w ell-be ing and

between aimless existence a nd dignif ied self-worth.

Traditional healing Sylvia is a 30-year-old wo ma n in her third year of college at a small

branch state university in one of the reservation border towns. She is very close to her family,

especially her mother whom she admires for her strength, respect, comfort, and support. She

regards herself as a we ll-rou nd ed person confiden t in her tradit ion al backg round in the face of

non-Navajo friends, despite early problems with self-image because of being heavy-set in

comparison to her "beautiful" sisters. She spoke explicit ly about the relationship between

self-identity and the tradit ional l ife philosophy summarized in the phrase "to walk in beauty":

To me to walk in beauty would mean to know your whole self identity, to walk in harmony, you know

wit h nature, your surroundings, and even, you know , having your who le family, being aware of everything

around y o u . . . .W alk ing in beauty wil l also be the person themselves. You kno w that u h, getting, know ing

their traditional beliefs, their culture. Arising from that, once y ou know the who le b ackgrou nd, that can

be your backbone, to

growth,

kno win g that's your self-identity, and from

there,

you w on 't get discouraged.

You won't get disappointed. A lot of the negativity that one must feel won't be with you forever 'cause

you'l l know how to deal with it, once you know your self-identity. And that begins, I think that should

begin at an early age. I believe that, you know, walking in beauty.

Her problem began with her father's death seven years previously when, as the eldest of six

children, she assumed much of his role and responsibilities. Since then she has quite literally

been carrying the weig ht of his death on her shoulders, w ith the onset of shoulder and arm pain

on her left side. At the hosp ital, x-rays were incon clusive, and she develope d a depende ncy on

a pain m edica tion that inflame d the lining of her stomach. Frequent treatment by chiropractors

helped te mp orarily, but the pain always returned. She felt that there was a spiritual co mp onen t

to the prob lem and that this com ponen t co uld be addressed only throu gh

a

t raditional cerem ony.

This feeling may be due in part to the fact that her father was a strong believer in traditional

relig ion , an d, as in other aspects of life, she felt the need to ca rry o n in his ways. Inde ed, there

was a significant emotional component to her distress. She reported that she wasn't herself (a

common self-description among Navajos in illness or distress) and that she was lonely and

unhappy. She said that she thought and dreamt about her father, had thoughts about the deaths

of others, and experience d negative feelings: "Like there was some thing heavy we ighted on me

so much, on my shoulders, and I just couldn't take it anymore."

healing and identity politics 13



The most vivid dream she recounted was one shortly after her father's death. In this dream,

he spoke to her lov ingly, sho wing her where he was and w ho he was

w i th ,

assuring her that he

was fine and that he was watc hing over the fam ily. Despite the posit ive nature of this pa rticular

dream, in Navajo culture dreams of the dead are invariably problematic. They require ritual

treatment to determine the effects of the deceased spirit on the living. Sylvia herself acknow-

ledged unce rtainty ab out whethe r the dream was a good or bad thin g, and her uneasiness was

evident as she made it a point to report that every t ime she visited a medicine man he would

ask about such dreams. Her f irst consultation was with a Tradit ional diagnostician who, by the

technique of crystal-gazing, determined that Sylvia required an Evilway ceremony.

8

This

diagnostician resolved the contradiction between a posit ive and negative interpretation of the

dream with an elegant therapeutic move. He determined that her father's sudden death was

due to witchcra ft, the effects of w hic h lingered in the fam ily and were augmen ted by a dd it iona l

witch craft performe d since the death. He also determine d that Sylvia and her second youn gest

brother, the two family members who were emotionally closest to their father, were most

affected.

It was thus possible to attribute any evil effects to the malicious intent of outsiders,

removing blame from the father's spirit and preserving the posit ive emotional valence of his

mem ory, whil e im plic i t ly recognizing the two sibl ings as vulnerable to an internal psychological

process ide ntif iable in clin ica l terms as bereavement or grief reaction .

In the meantime, the diagnostician ritually extracted objects from Sylvia's shoulder. He

claimed that these were the immediate source of her pa in , whereupon it subsided. She had to

return to the diagnostician on several occasions for this procedure while she delayed having

the more elaborate cerem ony. Ac cord ing to Sylvia, she delaye d the ceremo ny because she did

not know how to prepare or how to f ind the right chanter. Only after becoming involved in a

significant new relationship with a man whose family, coincid enta l ly, knew a chanter with the

appropriate ceremonial knowledge to conduct her ceremony, did Sylvia become ready to leave

behind her debilitating emotional attachment to her father's memory. She found the most

com pell ing elemen t in the ceremony the moment in wh ich she accompan ied the healer outside

the hogan to confront the evil and to pray that it no longer affect her. Subsequently, during the

final mo rning prayers, she likened her experience to that of an eagle, f lying high in the sky. She

said she felt clean and as if her senses were he ighte ned .

Sylvia stated quite exp licit ly that for her the cerem ony w as the be ginn ing, not the cul m ina tion ,

of

a

healing process. Three m onths after the cerem ony, she reported :

For me personally, I'm a traditional person and when I know I have the prayer done, to me that means a

lot. It motivates me, and it know s that I can . . . it tells me that I can do it. An d that whatever obstacles

that may lay ahead that may be hard, hard to do wha tever, you kno w, hearing the prayer and having that

protection I need. All that stuff I feel. I guess that's what a tradition al person does. .. . It's given m e a lot

of courage an d determ ination in saying that won 't fin ish . I guess that it's a motivator for, you know, within

me not just the English way but also the Navajo traditional way. It just makes you want more, to strive for

more and, you know, knowing that wherever you go, you're always protected. .. . After I knew—once

the ceremony or the main part that was done — wha t I was there for, and what it was supposed to have

done to m e, it did because, you kno w, they say that prayer is very p ow erfu l. And you kno w the stuff you

hold like they have the arrowhead and that stuff. Those are very powerful. All that comes w i t h , you know,

stories and behind that there's a meaning for all that I co uld feel it w ith in me. I co uld feel a mixture

of all that he was praying abou t. An d I could feel it. You have to really understand, you kn ow , why your

ceremony was being cond ucted , you know , and the reasons for it and the purpose of what it's gonna d o

for you in the outco me . You kn ow wh y they used those prayers. An d also behind every prayer and every

song that's sung traditionally, the medicine man always tells you why that song originated and what its

purpose is and what it served for. So kno wing that, kno win g after he tells yo u, you kn ow , you think , " Ok ay

this is ho w I'm gonna get you over this thought process." . . . So I think everything has diminish ed I

don't know exactly when it was, or you don't know exactly, "Okay after that song I'm healed." It takes

usually time .

Thus, Trad it ional hea ling in it iated a series of changes for Sylvia. She was ab le to make sense of

her father's death witho ut blam ing h im ; to feel reassured of his well-b ein g in the afterlife w h ile

letting go of his distressful afterlife presence in her life; to learn to experience positive rather




than negative mem ories of her father; to question and fina lly reaff irm her o w n identity in terms

of asp irations, past, fam ily, and culture; to relieve her physical p ain a nd negative thoughts; and

to become closer to her boyfriend and his family.

Christ ian heal ing Nancy is a wo ma n of 47 w ith three chi ld ren . At the t ime of this writ in g,

she was twi ce ma rried and twice divo rced . Two years previously, she was diagnosed wit h breast

cancer, which is currently in remission. In addition to suffering from the after effects of surgery

and ch em otherap y, she was trouble d by aband onm ent issues; after her diagnosis, her second

husband left her for another wo m an . She recounted a troub led early l ife of violent abuse by an

aunt wi th w ho m she

l ived,

by boa rding school person nel, and by her father, follow ed by a first

marriage to a violent alcoholic who left her a widow. Of her recent abandonment she

commented, 'This is l ike a recycle." Despite this history of diff icult ies, she demonstrated her

resiliency in two ways. First, she pursued her second husband in court and won a signif icant

settlement, and second, she reenrolled as a full-t ime college student.

Nancy encountered Christianity after being diagnosed with cancer and before her husband

left her. A friend invited her to attend a small independent Navajo congregation. Nancy

characterized the atmosphere at the church as peaceful and open and said she felt more at

hom e there than w ith her ow n fam ily where everyone was constantly argu ing. Prayer meetings

at the church include prayers for healing by the pastor. On one occasion, Nancy asked for

prayers for her daughter's strength and health and for her own education in the context of

upc om ing midterm exams. Such healing prayers are available o n a regular basis for pa rticipants

in the Christian prayer m eetings, services, and revivals. Na ncy said the prayers gave her strength,

determinat ion,

faith,

peace, wis do m , renewed so ciality, and help w ith the stress of pursuing her

edu cation . She adde d, however, that she did not understand the m eaning of the songs sung in

church until she had the experience of being saved. In her words, the overall effect has been

to be more open and to be like, I feel it did

a

lot for

me.

It really, I feel more at peace, and I feel they can

make me stronger like health-wise, and I can communicate better w ith people now than before because

I was always locked up in bedroom, you know, studying, studying, studying. I'd be with my books, and

I feel like I just came out into the world again, and I just went with them. And you know I love those

prayer meetings. I like to go to those prayer meetings. I like to be with Christian people. They're more

understanding. They help me

a

lot.

Critical to understanding this overall effect in the case of Christian healing is that it is

com po un ded of participa tion, healing prayer, and salvation. Mo reover, particularly am ong such

independent Navajo congregations

(i.e.,

those not aff i l iated with a major denomination), the

Christian c om m un ity w ith its distinct l ifestyle is an insulated society with in a society.

Nancy's experiences with the other two spiritual healing forms say much more about the

politics of personal identity acted out in social relationships than about those healing forms per

se:

an exceedingly negat ive experience with the Nat ive American Church, of which her

unfa ithful second husband was an adherent, and a highly p osit ive one wi th T radit ional h ealing ,

in which her father is a medicine man. She recalls her second husband threatening her that

peyote would somehow "come after you and do something to you" if she did not l isten to and

respect it . She allo we d him to practice and keep peyote at hom e, and she even allow ed a road

man acquaintance to live with them for a t ime and to hold a peyote meeting for her. She felt,

how ever, that this road man was also "using peyote for sex and love ," causing her husband to

leave her by involving him in this abuse of peyote's spiritual power. She chased the corrupt

road ma n out of the house, saying she w ou ld go the route of chemotherap y instead of su bm itt ing

to his treatment; she was skeptical that a one-night ceremony could heal her in any case. She

claimed she was told by a physician that peyote could make cancer grow, and she concluded

that her husband and the road man had been consp iring to bring about her demise.

On the other hand, though in principle she feels that she should no longer participate in

Tradit ional ceremonies because she has "dedicated myself to the

Lord,"

shortly after her




husban d left she had a Blessingway cerem ony performed by a chanter contracted b y her father.

In this

case,

pragmatism in the logic of therape utic cho ice, in the form of accepting an alternative

treatment that may not on ly prove to be eff icacious but that w il l also please a fam ily me mb er,

impinges on identity polit ics at the personal level. Although Nancy belongs to a classic

independent Navajo fundamentalist congregation, the friend she asked for advice beforehand

said to go ahead as long as it was a Blessingway and not an E vilway cerem ony and as long as

she said a prayer, "so you can get the color of the Lord's light." In effect, her friend advised her

to give the Traditional ceremony a Christian be ned ict ion. Nancy reported the fol lo w ing effect

of the ceremony:

[It] kind of cleared my

mind,

and I used to cry

a

lot, and I couldn't eat, and I couldn't even think. And it

just kind of fu lfill my spirit

again.

It's like it just woke you up, like you were dead for

a

while and you just

came back to life, you know. Kind of

made

me feel that way, and then the medicine man told

me,

"Don't

think about your past, don't think about, don't think about your ex-husband. Don't think about what he's

doing,

what he's saying to

you.

Don't listen to the gossip. Don't listen to rumors." And he told me, "Just

think about yourself." That's what the prayer was, just for myself, just to get my life back together. .. .

And after that, that took

a

lot of pressure off my back.

Nevertheless, she dec lined the chanter's offer of further treatment because it w o ul d have cost

addi t ional money.

For Nancy, the experience of "being pulled three ways" was resolved by being saved. She

expressed the need to "know where I stand," to "f ind myself," and "to know what's going on

in my life." This knowledge emerged through an act of commitment to Christianity. She says,

"A nd so wh en I got saved, I had to say my ow n prayer from m y ow n heart, from my inner-self,

just give everything, all my problems, everything back to the

Lord,

let him take care of it."

Native American Church heal ing George is a 24 -yea r-old student at a state univ ersity in

one of the reservation border towns. His experience is diametrically opposed to that of Nancy

in that his grandm other was an early an d strong adhe rent of the N AC . He refers to her as a

"p illa r" and speaks of her "teach ings" about "p eyote a nd the impo rtance of l ife ." The fam ily has

long used the same road ma n— he ran meetings for George's grandmo ther and w atch ed George

and George's siblings and cousins grow up. This stability and the long-time friendship and

respect between the family and the road man is important to G eorge, and the role of road man

as an anchor for social relationships stands in sharp contrast to the marginal and corrupt

practit ione r portrayed in the previous discussion of N ancy. George had a tradit io na l up bring ing

centered around caring for the sheep. His father was a heavy drinker w h o regularly abused his

wife. He is very close with and concerned for his mother— for h im the Nava jo wo rd shima refers

equally to one's mother and to one's home, the earth where one was born. He cites the

conn ect ion symb olized by the custom of burying a baby's um bil ical co rd where i t is bo rn.

After boarding school, high school, and a year of college (all on or near the reservation),

George enlisted in the M arines, traveling w ide ly in the Far East and M idd le East. He participate d

in the Gulf War, having peyote ceremonies both before his departure and after his return for

protect ion. A prevail ing theme for him is comparing the Navajo worldview, rel igion, and

lifestyle with those of the larger society, trying to come to terms with and integrate his

experiences, to f igure out how he wants to live and where he wants to f it in. His problems

am oun t to a general malaise comp ou nde d by he lping his mother care for an alcoh olic brother's

chi ldren, his own lack of mot ivat ion concerning his goals of f inishing school and joining the

Peace Corps, problems in his relationship with his girlfr iend, and several physical complaints

including back pain from an old injury and respiratory problems that began during the Gulf

W ar. He used to run reg ularly (as is prescribed in tradit ion al spiritual discipline) but says recently

he has stopped running because of "low self-esteem." Behind these issues, there is a sense

shared among family members that the influence of witchcraft perpetrated against his grand-




mother years ago has been passed on through the whole family, causing them to f ight among

themselves.

George and his mother asked for help from their family road man during a brief ceremony

he was con du ctin g for some other close relatives. This request initiated

a

process, allo w ing them

to identify their problems explicit ly. According to George, the simple effect was "just knowing

yo u'r e getting he lpe d. That's about it. I me an , I've attended it since

I

w as sm all, so you just k now

it's going to work, I guess. It's an idea. And, you relate your problems to other things, maybe

see the source of your p rob lem , w hy it's going on , wh y yo u are blind ed by it." Later, as a result

of

a

full-scale all-night peyote m eeting, he described a feeling of fam iliarity a nd self-knowledge

that brought him back to the basics and let him know who he is. He strongly got the message

that "it 's all up to yo u" and was able to engage in signif icant self-evaluation. In ad dit io n, he was

able to "release a lot of emotional baggage," as well as to express some feelings and issues in

prayer that he knew his girlfriend, sitting next to him, could hear. Three months after the

cerem ony, he reported doin g better in schoo l, having better m otiva tion, and having an im prove d

fam ily situation. He remained w ith his girlfr iend , and several months later she became pregnant.

George appears to be exp licit ly co ncerned w ith his ow n identity and proud of his op en -m ind -

edness and experience . He is a youn g m an wh o wants to do e verything , wh o is interested in

everything , and wh o says, "M y w ho le life is an expe riment." A cco rding to G eorge, his religion

teaches h im "h ow to carry yourself." He is concerned that "society is going to take us all do w n ,"

and he is concerned a bout "ne w Nava jos" wh o "keep themselves bli nd ," are materialist ic, and

do not want their peers to know they speak the Navajo language or that they participate in

ceremonies. For him, peyote itself is less a spirit or entity than a means of protection and a

medicine that allows clarity of thought, expression, and the ability to release emotions. In this

case, healing was a way to move beyond a diff icult transit ional period, one in which identity

as a Navajo—a responsible adult bicultura l Navajo m an with de ep ties to fam ily and significant

aspirations in the contemporary world—was immediately at issue.

healing and politics the politics of healing healing politics political healing

How then to formulate this relation—how are identity polit ics being played out through the

practice of ritual he aling among Navajos? Answering this question requires taking a posit ion on

the series of conce ptua l relations

I

identif ied at the outset between re ligion and po lit ics, tradit ion

and modernity, individual and collective, microsocial and macrosocial. In elaborating such a

pos it ion, I wa nt to review some of the literature in wh ich anthropologists have begun to discuss

the w ay ritual hea ling, itself

a

form of cultural pow er, is relevant w ell beyo nd

a

specif ic problem ,

illness, or disorder. Arthur Kleinman (198 0,198 6) pioneered this area through studies of he aling

and psychiatric disorder in the aftermath of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, showing that

suffering must be understood in the context of both larger political realities and local moral

wo rlds. Also work ing in China, Thomas Ots (1994) docu me nted changes in bod ily practice and

em otiona l experience in a cathartic h ealing moveme nt based on qigong (breathing therapy) in

relation to the course of the prodemo cracy movement that culm inated in mass demo nstrations

at Tianenmen Square. Marina Roseman (1996) described a ceremony involving Sri Kelantan,

spirit of the Malaysian state of Kelantan, showing how ritual action articulates interactions

among Malay, Chinese, and indigenous Orang

Asl i .

Drawing on material f rom the Newar of

the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, David Gellner (1994) took up the issue of the predominance

of women in the role of medium by considering both tradit ional notions of gender roles and

contemporary pol i t ical changes.

In Africa, Jean Comaroff (1985) examined Zionist healing within the legacy of colonial

repression as a "mode of repairing the tormented body, and through it, the oppressive social

order itself. Thus the signs of physical disorder are simultaneously the signifiers of an aberrant

healing and identity politics 17



w o r l d "

(1985:9). Matthew Schoffeleers (1991) disagreed with Comaroff, arguing that polit ical

acquiescence, rather than resistance, is a characteristic of chu rches in South Afric a. In his v ie w ,

Zionist churches are acquiescent because healing, the central component of their practice,

individualizes and depolit icizes the cause of i l lness. Lesley Sharp (1990, 1993) understands

possession by

tromba

spirits in northwest Madagascar in relation to psych ologica l consequences

of conflict ing moral orders and anomie. In a sett ing where ethnic boundaries had been blurred

by colonialism and polyculturalism, tromba possession articulates themes of ethnic and

individual identity and resistance to capitalism. Sharp focused on female participants who

become involved in a f ict ive kinship system requiring adherence to restrict ions that provide a

rationale for manipulating economic relations and thereby undermine processes of capitalist

exploitation. This process provides them with work as healers, l iberating them from ordinary

agricultural labor.

In the Americas, Michael Taussig (1980a, 1980b, 1987) regarded shamanism in southwest

Co lom bia as part of the context of colo nial v iolenc e an d its aftermath. This violen ce is intricately

linked to conceptions of persons, self, and other, to constructive appropriation of the other, to

various healing systems of the Indians, and to cultural understandings of Indians as mysterious,

powerful, and dangerous. Shamanic practice and its hallucinatory possibil it ies thus transcend

the mean ing of healing as an attempt to am eliorate the distress of ind ividu als, b eco min g a central

f igure in the cultural discourse of colonialism. Libbett Crandon (1989) examined mestizos'

ado ption of Aymara he aling methods during rural Bolivia's transit ion from a co lon ial society to

a class-based agricultural society. These methods serve to explain social group participation

expectations and to integrate the person into a new sociopolit ical posit ion in the cosmological

system. In Ecuador, S. A. A lch on (1991) show ed that wit h the ad vent of the Spanish presence

and the rise in m ortality, indigenou s conce ptions abou t etiolog y cha nge d, but healing practices

changed lit t le. A crit ical sense of cosmological balance based on the need to propit iate both

Andean and Christian deit ies became increasingly diff icult to maintain, and preservation of

tradit iona l healing practices became a form of p olit ica l resistance. Ramirez de Jara and Pinzon

Castano (1992) discussed how Sibundoy shamans in Colombia integrate indigenous thought

structure and the challenges of national society with Columbia's diverse manifestations of

popular culture. J. W aldram (1993) examined symbolic healing in Canad ian p enitent iaries,

looking specif ically at aboriginal offenders in cultural awareness programs. The programs

provide new me aning to disrupted lives and help inmates resolve iden tity conflicts. Since many

offenders are from different native groups, the establishment of

a

com mon cul tural ground and

mythic world is also an adaptation to a situation of increasing cultural plurality.

Integrating these few sources is only a small first step in fleshing out a problem area where

discussion too easily defaults to a po larity of simp listic in terpre tations . Either ritual he aling is a

futile expression of frustration— the opiate of the masses interp retation— or ritual he aling is a

subtle form of polit ical resistance—the postmodern liberation of the indigenous voice interpre-

tat ion. I propose that the kind of analysis I have begun of the Navajo situation offers a more

nuanced opportunity to clarify relations among the conceptual pairings that I have identif ied

here.

To make my po sit ion exp licit, scholarship must move b eyo nd de fining the project as a

study of ritual healing in the context of pol i tics, or as the opening of a performative w in do w

onto larger polit ical processes, and toward an understanding of the kind of experiential

transducers operative between the religious and polit ical domains. Bodily experience may be

a prime example of such a transducer, and moreover one that is relevant at all three levels of

relation between hea ling and ide ntity po lit ics I have iden tif ied (see Figure 1).

Indeed,

this notion corresponds w ith the kindred attempt by Scheper-Hughes and Lock (1987)

to situate the "mindful body" of medical anthropology with respect to broader social issues. To

elaborate briefly, cultural representations of the mystery il lness and the drought apparit ions

contr ibuted to the ongoing const i tut ion of what Scheper-Hughes and Lock term the "body




Ritual healing

Representation

between societies

Body polit ic

Negotiation

w ithin society

Social body

Identity polit ics

Transformation

Person in society

Individual body

Figure

1.

Relation between ritual healing and identity politics.

po lit ic" of N avajo society in its vulnerable yet resistant con frontation w ith the dom inant society.

The ongoing n egotiation amo ng healing tradit ions is a process of constituting the "social bo dy"

by situating it within Navajo society as a subject of one tradition or as the node of intersection

among traditions. The experience of personal transformation narrated by patients constitutes

the "individua l bod y" as

a

person w ith

a

contemporary Nava jo identity in the po lit ically charged

space between trad it ion and postm odem ity. In this form ulatio n, each of the cultural processes

I have singled out in the relation between ritual healing and identity politics (representation,

nego tiation, and transformation) is inherently po lit ica l, and not only those occu rring on the level

of the body po lit ic per

se.

In sum , reading Figure

1

horiz on tally, recall that it is no coinc iden ce

that the term power is essential for analyses of both religio n a nd po litics (Fogelson and Adam s

1977); reading the figure vertically, recall the contribution of feminist theory's lesson that the

personal is also po lit ic al.

Again, in con tempo rary analyses of the relation between tra dit ion and m ode rnity, aside from

an interest in fundamentalism of various stripes, there have been relatively few efforts to

understand the place of religion in the contemporary world system or in the process of

globalization (Beyer 1994; Csordas 1997; Friedman 1994; Ong 1996:745-747; Robertson and

Ch irico 1985 ; Schieffelin 1996 ; W uth no w 1980). In this respect, it is crit ical both that the appeal

to tradition is just as likely to be heard on a global as on a local scale (witness the recent

proliferation of "fundamentalisms"), and that themes of modernity (and postmodemity) are

evident not only in the global ecumene but equally in fourth-world enclaves such as Navajo-

land.

For con tem pora ry Nav ajos, tradition thrives in itself but also comes to be define d in re lation

to Christianity and the NA C, as we ll as in relation to mo dern tech nolog y, na tional p olit ics, and

global movements of indigenous peoples. The college-educated Navajo who declares in an

e-ma il message, "I am a trad it ional pe rson," means something quite other than the stereoptypical

image of the old person adorned in turquoise or tending sheep in the desert. Especially in its

religious aspect, tradition is more than a badge of ethnic identity; it is a mode of engaging the

wor ld .

Finally, just as power belongs to both the religious and political spheres, the concepts of self

and ide ntity be long b oth to the psychological analysis of ind ividua ls and to the social analysis

of collective processes. As Calhoun notes, in the historical context of democracy and the

Protestant Reformation, "problems of individual and collective identity were joined, both

because indiv idu al identity was shaped by wha t Foucault calle d new d isciplines of pow er, and




because the question was raised of what sort of individual identity qualif ied one to participate

in the public discourses that shaped policy and influenced power" (1994:2).

I w o ul d argue that these issues need to be teased ou t by m ore exp licit a nd frequent dia log ue

between psychocultural and sociopolit ical approaches, by more attention to these issues

beyond the locales where democracy and Protestantism have been cultural touchstones, and

w ith respect to particular em pirical p roblems such as that of ritual he aling. In this way, they can

con tinue to be made problem atic as the point of intersection betw een , for exa mp le, Friedm an's

(1992) conce rn for the relation be tween the cons truction of identity and larger global processes

and the concern raised by the study of ritual healing for the relation between construction of

identity and smaller psychocultural processes.

One way to advance this problematic in future work might be to distinguish between a

personal polit ics of collective identity, in which individual actors with clear commitments are

struggling to assert

a

shared iden tity, and a co llectiv e polit ics o f personal identity, in wh ic h ea ch

among a group of actors w ith am biguous com mitme nts is struggling to attain ind ividu al iden tity.

Such a distin ction w ou ld ce rtainly serve to set up compa risons by iden tifying relative emphases

rather than absolute differences in the substance of identity polit ics. In contemporary North

Am erica n so ciety, for exam ple, it w ou ld suggest

a

degree of com mo nali ty between a movem ent

for gay rights to define a personal homosexual identity and a religious m ovem ent that places a

priority on personal salvation or transformation. Likewise, it would suggest a commonality

between a feminism that aims for a collective identity based on sisterhood and an ethnic

movement intent on creating a community. With respect to the particular case of the Navajo,

such a distinction would facil itate a specif ication of the senses in which individuals, though in

iden tif iably Nav ajo w ays, are struggling for personal iden tity, and the senses in wh ich a personal

commitment to the community is a contr ibut ion to col lect ive ident i ty. I f , in pract ice, the

distin ction is diff icult to tease out because both personal an d colle ctive sensibilities are hig hly

relevant and because bo th center around the crit ica l issue of being N ava jo, it may by the same

token serve as a useful tool for understanding the pairs religion and polit ics, individual and

society, microsocial and macrosocial, tradit ion and modernity, as complementary aspects of

the same ph en om eno n, sides of the same huma n

co in .

notes

Acknowledgments. The section su btitled "R eflections on a Mystery Illness" is based on a paper presented

in 1993 to the symposium on "Symbol and Performance in Healing: The Contributions of Indigenous

Me dical Thou ght," a preconference of the XIII International Congress of Anthr opo logical and Ethnological

Sciences in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. I am grateful to the colleagues who offered

com men ts and questions du ring presentation of earlier versions of this article to the Scholars Seminar at the

Russell Sage Foun dation, to the Seminar in Clinica lly Relevant Medic al Anthro polog y at Harvard University,

and to the 1997 meetings of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion, particularly John Logan,

Michael Hout, and Arthur Kleinman. I am also grateful to Janis Jenkins for her insightful critique of my

argument. The article was completed during my tenure as a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation

in 1997.

1. This article is based on data from a five-year project on ritual healing in contem porary Navajo so ciety

funded by National Institute of Mental Health grant MH50394-05. The Navajo Healing Project was carried

out under Navajo Nation Cultural Resources Investigation Permit C9708-E and with the endorsement of f ive

Community Health Advisory Boards in regions of the Navajo reservation in which the project was

conducted.

Research was conducted by four teams, each cons isting of an ethnographer and an interpreter,

and by a psychiatrist w ith substantial clinical experience w ith Nava jo patients. As princip al investigator, I

supervised all research cond ucted . The initial phase of the project consisted of ethnograp hic interviews wi th

95 healers distributed across Trad itional, Native Am erican Ch urc h, and Christian forms of

healing.

W ork ing

with a smaller selected group of healers, we followed a total of 84 patients for a minimum of four to six

months through e thnograph ic and clinical interviews, as we ll as observation of healing ceremonies and

domestic environments. Interviews with the three patients discussed in this article were conducted by the

team of Elizabeth Lewton and Victoria Bydone.

2. Ang lo is the generic English term used by Navajos for Euro-Am ericans; the correspo nding Nava jo term

is Bilaga ana. African Americans and Mexicans are recognized as distinct groups.




3. As Keith Basso (1979) has docum ented am ong the neighboring Apache, such stories constitute a major

genre

of

contemporary Navajo expressive culture.

4. Such rare pub lic hierophanies

may be

particularly associated wi th moments

of

colle ctive stress such

as

the 199 6 drought. Clyde Kluckhohn (194 2:59-6 0) reports tw o apparitions

of

Holy P eople

in

1936, during

the traumatic period of U.S. government forced livestock redu ction on the reservation. In these instances,

the divine message also included instructions that ceremonial activity

be

carried

out

5. There

is

evidence, how ever, that some N avajo cerem onials have originated in dreams

or

visions (H aile

1940; Kluckhohn 1942).

6. This request

for

silence brings

the

Navajo politics

of

identity face

to

face with

the

politics

of

ethnographic representation

in

that, although

at the

t ime individua l Navajos were wil l ing

to

discuss

the

apparit ion with

me it was

unclear

in

what

way I

could respectfully write about

the

incident

in an

ethnographic article. In the present discussion , I take my lead from the tribal newspaper article cited in the

text, maintaining cautious respect

for

the sacred

by not

publishing the names

of

the particular Ho ly People

who appeared, or the details of their mode of appearance.

7.

A

comprehensive account

of

the Navajo health care system wou ld have four compone nts, inclu ding

biomedical care practiced

in

facilities

of

the Indian Health Service and private

or

public hospitals both

on

an d

off the

reservation (Csordas

and

Garrity 1992). Interaction

of the

spiritual traditions wi th biom edica l

care

is

beyond

the

scope

of

the present argum ent.

8. Some Navajos

are

critical

of

the term Evilway

as the

English rendering

of

the HochxtfO'jf ceremony.

In their opinion ,

the

adverse effects

of

exposure

to

spirits

of

the deceased

are not

we ll described

by

a word

that

in

English connotes profound m alevolence and even dem onic influence.

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accepted November 3, 1997

final version submitted January 7, 1998

Thomas

J.

Csordas

Department of Anthropology

Case Western Reserve Un iversity

Cleveland, OH 44106-7125

[email protected]

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