Objective
Identity from the Past
When Dine’ teachers introduce the concept of who are we as a person or tribe, Diné immediately refer to the kinship and the word keˊ. Ké in in Diné culture is a subject that can be explained in retrospect of lineage. Lineage tells of a person’s history of each parents, traditional homestead, and any prestige recognition such as family coming from a chain of medicine men or traditional practitioners. This pattern of introduction is long and tedious for some Native people. However, many people take pride in it and interweave their existence with origin stories or even family history of moving from one homestead to the next homestead. It is amazing. Some Diné can find family connections of long lost lineage of two or one generation ago. As people visit and study the Diné on the reservation, you will hear these long elaborate introductions
In addition to recognizing self through origination of family, there is the well-known kinship or should I say expressing oneself through clans. Clans are tied back into the creation stories. Diné clans are grouped into four main memberships. Origination stories tell the Dine’ people that existence came from four main clans. Though drawing on different traditional beliefs and stories, author Gene Luen Yang designed his book American Born Chinese with characters who are creators and deities in his exploration of teaching the idea of identity. This graphic novel draws readers in to set the tone of telling stories of gods that portray human behavioral qualities. This representation of gods and deities existence is similar in Dine’ stories of clanship. It is this approach that makes the clanship meaningful.
Hausman’s sentences in his introduction are straightforward in telling about Navajos’ use of origination stories. He states, “Each ceremonial myth consists of hundreds of verses of songs with have been traditionally chanted by medicine men. (Hausman 2011) Since the Navajo did not have a written language, they recorded their mythology through a series of ritual songs which were connected to ceremonies”. (Hausman 2011) It is through these stories that educators and medicine men who can read and write the English language illustrated or explained clanship. It is difficult to separate the two concepts of creation stories and clanship. The interdisciplinary history and religious connection shared in the songs and creation stories are awesome. Diné scholars did a good job in separating them and making the ideas in to teachable concepts without putting a heavy emphasis on religion. The art of teaching clans is tricky but has been done for the past decades in schools and dormitories. The plan to involve every student in their own identity can be captured by comparing two culture’s identities through origin stories.
Identity in Present Time
People from every ethnicity have their cultural stories of what self-identity means to them. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang illustrates that interesting approach. Today children have access to different types of books, media, and personal family oral history. In the past, oral history from families has been the only method of teaching children about their identity. The world is more diverse as we now know it. This leads me to the latest trend, graphic novels. Yang’s book does an interesting job of setting the stage for his readers who want to learn about cultural difference and cultural identity. In the beginning of his book the Gods, the Goddesses, the Demons and the Spirits in the heavens were gathering for a dinner party. (Yang 2006) This setting gives the reader a feel of the gods’ and deities’ human like behavior. These deities act and think like us.
By setting up his book this way, Yang helps the Diné teacher to introduce traditional stories to study identity from the Diné teachings of origination. The book’s mythological approach can be connected to the story of our Navajo Warrior Twin Hero stories. The Navajo Creation stories spark a motivation because it is a story that is told orally time and time again to young Diné children. Navajo Warrior Twin story holds a foundation of identity to many young Diné. Young Diné children can begin to connect the similarities of Chinese creation stories. Of course American Born Chinese is a graphic novel, but it will entice young readers to begin to understand the mythological approach. It was not surprising to connect and begin the correlation of the stories which showed the test and challenges of main characters.
The warrior twins’ stories are easy to read but inserting some background information can help students new to Diné origination stories understand the logic of identity. This background knowledge would be presented as questions that students explore by comparing identity ideas to Yang’s book. It is creation stories that have the bed time story effect that captures our young minds and begin to resonate their way of thinking. Who am I? Young minds begin to question, if the people before us and the Creator, Holy people, and other deities were to set and conquer such situations, how do we the Diné people of Earth function?
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