Seba Dalkai, Arizona · By Roger Clark
Healing Tradition through Innovation
The sun has barely risen as Morgan Yazzie walks out to his fallow cornfield in Chandler Springs Valley on the southwestern edge of the Navajo Nation. It sits in an arid landscape, treeless for miles, that to the untutored eye looks profoundly ill-suited to agriculture.
Yet in this sun-baked place Morgan and other Navajo – or Diné – farmers are addressing modern problems through attention to both tribal traditions and modern innovations.
With Morgan is Hank Willie from nearby Seba Dalkai. After the traditional “Yل’لt’ééh” greeting, the conversation turns toward the weather and the extended drought that has gripped the Southwest in recent years. On this day, the soil underfoot is still moist from a late winter storm, but snowfall on the shining San Francisco Peaks to the west is less than half of what’s normal for the season. “Last year at this time,” Hank notes, “things were looking pretty good. But then the spring winds dried out the soil and some people decided not to plant anything.”
Morgan Yazzie has been growing food and helping neighbors do the same in this high desert country for nearly thirty years. In 1999, he joined others in creating new educational and food-production opportunities through an organization called “Developing Innovations in Navajo Education, Inc.” Diné, Inc. began its work by successfully obtaining funding to build and administer the construction of a new elementary school at Seba Dalkai. It broadened its scope by developing a community education program centered on nutrition and agricultural sustainability from a traditional Navajo perspective. Today the group’s work includes demonstration farms, advisory councils, educational workshops, and agricultural curricula for local schools.
Hank Willie serves as coordinator of the Diné Community Food Project that assists and supports Navajo families in the communities of Teesto, Dilkon, Birdsprings/Leupp, Tolani Lake, and Whitecone/Indian Wells in revitalizing dryland agriculture. The project’s goals are to meet the food needs of low-income families; to increase these communities’ self-reliance through growing their own food; and to foster an appreciation for healthy foods and a healthy lifestyle.
Driven by drought, Diné, Inc. participants have adapted traditional practices when necessary. “Mother Nature and the elders are my mentors and teachers,” says Hank. “We’ve been advocating drip irrigation as an alternative to traditional dryland farming only because of the continuing drought situation. We don’t want to replace traditional agriculture, but to promote it.” Even Morgan has added a drip irrigation system to water beans and other vegetables growing near his house on the hillside overlooking the valley.
But Morgan’s unirrigated cornfield has remained productive despite the drought. The field is located in the valley bottom, where it catches runoff from occasional thundershowers that usually begin in July. He points to a section of the field where rainwater flowed in abundance during last year’s growing season. “We had ears of corn that were over a foot long from there,” he says. The multicolored corn he plants is from seed well adapted to the harsh growing conditions. It has been handed down from one generation to the next, and ultimately is descended from genetic sources that pre-date modern agriculture.
As is the tradition, he plants seeds in clusters spaced about a yard apart. The depth of planting varies with the depth of moisture in the sandy soil, where seeds will germinate and develop an extensive root system in advance of the late summer rains. He thins the clustered corn plants as needed. As the corn matures, it looks more like an orchard of bushes rather than the densely planted rows of sweet corn growing throughout the Midwest. When the corn ripens, family members and neighbors help harvest it by hand, keeping some of what they pick for food and ceremonies. If any is left over, it is shared and bartered.
Integrated with these traditional practices are more modern
techniques. One of Diné, Inc.’s projects funded the purchase of a tractor for use throughout the community. Morgan drives and maintains the tractor and, in April, begins plowing fields for farmers in outlying areas. “Morgan didn’t get around to planting his place until June last year,” Hank notes. A raven lands on a nearby fencepost, and another arrives soon after. “They’re scouts, always traveling in pairs,” Morgan says. “I pull my horse trailer into the field when the corn and squash appear to make the ravens and coyotes think someone is living here.” The field is fenced to keep Morgan’s horses and cattle out until after the harvest; then they’re penned inside it to feed on the corn stalks and to fertilize the field.
With the exception of a few head of livestock, food produced here is not sold to outside buyers. Rather, it is a tangible continuation of ancient traditions that rely on intimate local knowledge, as well as dedication and attention to the appropriate songs and prayers. As one Diné, Inc. report puts it: “traditional agriculture is not driven by economics, but rather a commitment to sustaining life, kinship, and tradition.”
The work of Diné, Inc. is only a small step toward solving serious economic, social, and health problems within the Navajo Nation, where some 60 percent of residents live under the poverty rate, the employment rate hovers around 50 percent, and median annual income is $4,500. Roads, utilities, telecommunications, and housing are in poor shape. Yet over the last century the Navajo people have become less self sufficient. Communities that once raised much of their own food no longer do so. This has resulted both in a departure from traditional diets and in a decrease in physical activity – which in turn have led to an increased prevalence of diabetes and of many other acute and chronic health problems.
The challenges seem enormous, but, as Morgan closes the gate and exits the field, so are the possibilities. Morgan needs to go to a healing ceremony for an ailing friend. Hank is headed to a health fair over at the Dilkon Chapter House. They speak briefly about their plans to develop gardens near homes for elderly Navajos “to give them something to do with their grandkids.” It is not only heirloom corn, but also new hope, that springs from the sandy soil here when it is tended with care.
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