Literature and Information

Background Knowledge

I grew up on the Navajo Reservation in a home that was comprised of my father, my mother and my three older brothers. We constantly traveled to and from my grandparents’ homestead where I was exposed to many of the traditional ceremonies and cultural teachings of the Navajo. The summer immediately following my high school graduation, I began my post-secondary adventure. All through the times that I was away from the reservation, I maintained my spiritual upbringing and respected the teachings that were passed on to me. Some of the information in this unit is from oral teachings that have been passed down from generation to generation. My maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather would speak of these teachings at times that they thought were appropriate. I respect and value the teachings and would like to continue to pass these stories onto my students.

Navajos and Farming

Farming has been an important part of the Navajo history dating back many years, decades, even centuries ago. It is documented that Navajos learned to farm from the Pueblo Indians in the early 1600’s and farming became a very crucial skill that the Navajos perfected and lived off of for many years. Before that they were gatherers and hunters. For centuries, the Navajos maintained a balanced lifestyle without the convenience of grocery stores, vehicles and many of today’s modern amenities.

To this day, family farming plots are still visible as you travel through the Navajo Reservation. The sad reality is that there are not nearly as many as one would have seen decades ago. In the past few years, as more and more of the younger generations are moving away from home to enter the workforce or attend post-secondary education or for other reasons, the Navajo traditions have been slowly disappearing. For those farms that are still visible, a major crop that they plant on a yearly basis is corn. Corn is significant to our Navajo culture. It represents the basis of life and how one grows from infancy to old age. In this unit, my students will be exposed to the background and basic understanding of the cornstalk in hopes that the oral teachings will continue to be passed onto this generation and future generations.

Corn is one of the main staples of the Navajo way of life. Every spring, many Navajo families plant large fields of corn that they use throughout the fall and winter in many traditional food dishes, such as kneel-down bread, blue corn mush, dried steamed corn and roasted corn. But its use also goes far beyond just nutrition, it also plays a very important part in Navajo prayer. The pollen of the corn, which is dusted off the tassels in the early morning, is then used in ceremonies as well as in prayer. One of the major ceremonies would be when a Navajo girl transitions into womanhood and a large corn cake is cooked underground in a circular pit lined with corn husks. This ceremony concludes the following morning with the cake being cut and shared with all those in attendance and shared with other family members.

As many of the stories are passed on from generation to generation, this particular teaching was passed on to me by my grandmother. The cornstalk is a very sacred plant, sacred because it has its roots in the Emergence Stories as a symbol of life (Emergence Stories can also be referred to as Creation Stories). It has religious importance specifically as an offering of its pollen to the holy deities. Corn symbolizes growth in development that is similar to human growth from conception to birth to old age which is the same understanding as to how plants grow. Just as plants have to have soil to grow, water to nurture growth, air to breathe, and light for its photosynthesis processes, these are also respective to the elements of life on Mother Earth: Water, Air and Fire. It is for this reason that Navajo people have a spiritual understanding and an appreciation for corn. I intend to pass these oral traditions on to my students during this unit in hopes that they relate these teachings into their own life and continue to pass these teachings on to future generations.

In the classroom, some of my students will understand some type of farming responsibilities whereas others will not. Each year, their background knowledge will differ. At the conclusion of each school year, all of my students will be walking away with a wealth of information related to this unit. With a combination of fiction and non-fiction literature, my students will understand that farmers and farming play a major role in our everyday lives. They will then learn that the fruits and vegetables from the farms will be eaten and it will help their body to stay healthy.

Navajos and Diabetes

“Scientists, other scholars, and the popular media have identified Native Americans and other Indigenous populations as being at risk for diabetes based on their genetic makeup. For example, some researchers have used the ‘thrifty genotype’ hypothesis to explain the higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus among Native Americans, compared with other ethnic groups. According to this hypothesis, when humans with ‘thrifty’ gene eat a diet high in fat, such as the modern Western diet, they may be more likely to become obese and develop type 2 diabetes than people without that genotype.”⁴ 

Diabetes is a type of disease in which the body’s inability to produce enough or any insulin causes high levels of glucose in the blood. When you eat, your body turns food into sugars, or what is called glucose. At that point, your pancreas is supposed to release insulin. The insulin then opens up your cells so the glucose can enter and be used as energy. But when a person has diabetes, this does not work. Several major things can go wrong therefore causing the onset of diabetes. Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are the most common forms of the disease.

With Type 1 diabetes, the body’s immune system attacks part of its own pancreas. The immune system mistakenly sees the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas as foreign, and destroys them. This attack is known as autoimmune disease. These cells, called islets are the ones that sense glucose in the blood and, in response, produce the necessary amount of insulin to normalize blood sugars. Insulin serves as a “key” to open your cells, to allow the glucose to enter and allow you to use the glucose for energy. Without insulin, there is no key. The sugar stays and builds up in the blood. The result: the body’s cells starve from the lack of glucose. If left untreated, the high level of blood sugar can damage eyes, kidneys, nerves, and the heart, and can also lead to coma and death. 

Often, type 2 is tied to people who are overweight, with a sedentary lifestyle.⁵ This common form is called Type 2 diabetes, or non-insulin dependent diabetes. It is also called adult onset diabetes, since it typically develops after age 35. However, a growing number of younger people are now developing type 2 diabetes. People with type 2 are able to produce some of their own insulin but not enough. And sometimes, the insulin will try to serve as the key to open the body’s cells to allow the glucose to enter. But the key won’t work. The cells won’t open. This is called insulin resistance.

“Diabetes in Navajo people has been reported since the 1960s, with recent reports in adults suggesting estimates of type 2 diabetes two to four times those of non-Hispanic white populations and rising over the past 20–30 years. However, there are no population-based studies of diabetes occurrence in Navajo youth, although earlier reports suggested that type 2 diabetes in youth was a relatively rare condition. It has been assumed that diabetes in Native American youth is primarily type 2 diabetes.⁶

Given the statistics above, this curriculum unit will intertwine food growth, food facts and stress the importance of eating healthy in hopes that the younger generation will adopt a healthy lifestyle and prevent a rise in the number of youth diagnosed with diabetes.