Living as a Navajo
ˇ°WANTED,ˇ± the ad said, ˇ°loving Navajo babysitter for three children, six, four and two.ˇ±
I asked Bessie Yellowhair if I might borrow some of her clothes --- even her name. I rode a bus out to Irvine, California, and the woman who hired me met me. When we arrived at her large home she gave me her first rule: The children, she said, are never allowed in her bedroom.
On the reservation I had seen an almost complete absence of things. But in that large house I saw an abundance of things, an absence of love.
Sometimes people ask, what was more difficult - living for a moment in time as a "black" woman or as Bessie Yellowhair?
The Indian experience was more difficult. For my "Soul Sister" experience, I had changed myself with make-up.
I had changed the color of my eyes, the color of my hair, the color of my skin. But I was always me, raised with
the same values and judgments all of us --- black and white --- have grown to share in this country. We've been
taught the work ethic; We've been taught to want the good things in life, as we define them: good salary, good house,
good car, a good carpet on the floor. None of us really wants to go back to sleeping on dirt floors.
But the Indian, if he remains Indian, is tied to the land. He worships the land, which he calls his Mother Earth.
He never attempts to conquer nature, but to live in harmony with it. He wishes to be like a fish in the sea, a bird
on the wind: to pass by without leaving a trace of his existence. Being, not achieving, is important.
The Indians have not lost what is basic: They have a "connection" to all of life. They see, smell, hear, taste --- with a directness of perception.
Many young people are saying : let's learn from the Indians, let's look at their values, let's respect nature. They see that in our attempt to conquer nature, we have polluted our streams, our air.
The Indians have stressed cooperation, and we have stressed competition and look at our waste : those sent to homes for the mentally ill, those sent to prisons, the old who are sent to nursing homes.
Should you ask Bessie Yellowhair, What is your religion? That would be the same as asking, What is your life?
Religion is all of life. Religion is being in harmony with nature. A church, then, can be as little as you want
it or as big as all humanity.
Let me share with you My Truth. It is this: I try to abandon myself --- to my life. I know that no one --- on one church, no one creed, no one government --- has Truth for me. I have to find my own. I do not assume that Life has a meaning. Already written out. For all of us. I do not ask: What is the meaning of Life? Rather, what is the meaning of my life?
Out in the vastness of land and sky, you can look out infinitely, into space, and somehow you can see so far that you begin to see --- inside of you. And there is your happiness .
From Human Dimensions in Nonfiction,
ed. , Woolf, New Jersey, 1979.
Approximately I , 200 words.
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