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Diné Becoming Bahá'í

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Diné Becoming Bahá'í DINÉ BECOMING BAHÁ’Í: THROUGH THE LENS OF ANCIENT PROPHECIES A Masters Thesis Presented to The Graduate College of Missouri State University In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts, Religious Studies By Linda S. Covey May 2011 DINÉ BECOMING BAHÁ’Í: THROUGH THE LENS OF ANCIENT PROPHECIES Religious Studies Missouri State University, May 2011 Master of Arts Linda S. Covey ABSTRACT Most American Indians have remained traditional to their cultural belief systems and have not converted to an outside religious system without prior coercions of some sort, historically embedded in the colonization effect. Yet in 1962 over three hundred Navajos, or, more correctly, Diné Indians, became members of a little known religion that had originated in the East, the Bahá’í Faith. I argue that those Diné became Bahá’í for three primary reasons: 1) the new religion’s teachings fulfilled ancient Diné prophecies; 2) its teachings applied through its institutions provided autonomy and empowered Diné Bahá’ís individually and as a people; and 3) through the religion’s principle of valuing the diversity of human cultures, Diné Bahá’ís can practice most of their traditional ways without opposition or disapproval from non-Diné Bahá’ís. The Diné have two oral prophecies that Diné Bahá’ís believe are fulfilled by the new religion. I examine those narratives from a religious, psychological, anthropological, and sociological standpoint in the historical context of the impact that the Diné’s Long Walk and imprisonment at Bos Redondo (1863-1868) had on the Diné, and subsequent federal mandates on Diné culture that included the boarding school system of education and the failed sheep/land policies—both of which may have provided impetus for consideration of the new religion. Methodology include archival research at the National Bahá’í Archives in Wilmette, Illinois, and ethnographic fieldwork on the Navajo Reservation from 2007- 2009. KEYWORDS: Diné, Navajo, becoming Bahá’í, conversion, eschatological narratives This abstract is approved as to form and content _____________________________________ Martha L. Finch Chairperson, Advisory Committee Missouri State University ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the following people for their support during the course of my graduate studies. First and foremost, thank you to my thesis committee for their patience and guidance, especially to Martha Finch as my Chair. Deepest gratitude goes to the Kahn families for allowing me to interview them, providing hospitality, and arranging other interviews, and to Johnny and Rubie Nelson and Jacky Wilson for sharing their time and thoughts. Gratitude goes to the staff at the Native American Bahá’í Institute who shared their community potlucks with us and allowed interviews on campus. A special thank you to Linda Wilson for her insights on Diné traditions and history and for her interview so soon after her mother’s passing. In particular, gratitude goes to Ronald P. Maldonado, supervisory archeologist for Cultural Compliance in the Historic Preservation Department of the Navajo Nation, for his kind permission for the Diné interviews to be conducted on the Navajo Reservation, and to John Schmalzbauer, thesis committee member, for his much-needed help with IRB human research forms and requirements. Appreciation goes to Bill and Mary Lou Wright for their astonishingly detailed and fun interviews and to Bruce and Sandy Palmberg for starting this process in the first place many years ago. Special thanks to Nancy F. Browning, Professor of Cultural Diversity at Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Missouri, for her reading of Chapter 1; to psychologist Theo A Cope, Lecturer and Foreign Faculty Coordinator, School of International Business, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China, for his reading of Chapter 2; and to my colleagues at Liaoning Normal University-Missouri State University School of International Business, Liaoning Province, Dalian, China, for their listening and support. My deepest gratitude to Joyce Olinga for transcribing interviews, to Roger Dahl and staff at the National Bahá’í Archives office for help with research, to dear friend Marjean Streitmatter who constantly kept me on guard against procrastination, and to my four adult children who supported “Mom doing her thing.” Gratitude goes to Susan Berry Brill de Ramírez, Caterpillar Inc. Professor of English at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, who teaches Native American literatures, ecocomposition, folklore, and literary criticism and theory. This thesis would be remiss without Susan’s extensive insight into the Bahá’í Faith, Native American oral traditions, the spoken word as an instrument of change, and the ability to combine her knowledge into “conversive communication.” I am indebted to John Pappan, Omaha Indian Bahá’í, for his inadvertent email introduction of scholars and Bahá’ís Donald Addison and Christopher Buck, who has written profoundly on Native Messengers, myths, and religions; and to fellow traveler Chelsea Horton, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History, University of British Columbia, for her invaluable help with research issues, friendship, and encouragement. I am deeply indebted to Barbara Brown, editor of Naturegraph Publishing, who provided details for Chapter 5 and for her permission to use Annie Kahn’s “Interpretation of Ancient Navajo Chants” in this thesis. A deep appreciation and love goes to Black Wolf, Sky, Blue Willow, Elk Woman, and Grandfather, a circle of Holy Elders who have encouraged, sustained, and guided me for many years. Lastly, thank you to Jack Llewellyn, thesis committee member, who said to me upon application to graduate school, “I think you will be a credit to us and we will be a credit to you.” Yes, you are indeed, and I can only hope the reverse is true. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface and Dedication…………………………………………………………… ............1 Introduction: Setting the Stage…………………………………………………………… .8 Chapter 1. Between the Four Sacred Mountains..........…………………………………. 23 Chapter 2. Examining Religious Ideology: The Bábí and Bahá’í Faiths………………... 47 Chapter 3. Changing Woman and the Warrior Twins..........…………………………… 64 Chapter 4. A Special Promise to the Indian People…………………………………….. 81 Chapter 5. Religious Imagery: Ancient Navajo Chants………………….………………96 Chapter 6. Bahá’í Institutions: Examining the Religious Matrix……………………… 111 Chapter 7. The Social Scientific Study of Religious Conversion………………………137 Chapter 8. Transformation: Sacred Symbol, Sacred Sound…………………………… 182 Chapter 9. Closure: Being “Who I Am” ………………………………………………. 187 Epilogue: Synthesis…………………………………………………………………… .194 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………… 196 Appendices……………………………………………………... ....................................205 iv PREFACE AND DEDICATION Growing up I felt some justifiable pride (or so I thought) to have been born along the Pecos River, renowned in cowboy novels and western legends, in the high-desert village of Fort Sumner, New Mexico. I had become accustomed to the rocky, scrub brush hills in the Ozark region of Missouri where my mother had been sent as a missionary when I was three years old. When I periodically returned to visit New Mexico as a child, the vastness of the blue skies encircling Fort Sumner like an upside-down bowl, with an occasional glimpse of mysterious, flat-topped red mesas, never ceased to hold my attention and amaze me. We traveled back and forth from Missouri to New Mexico enough to know that New Mexico was really my home. I spent much of my early childhood traveling with my maternal grandmother, who was partially blind. Grandmother Snead’s most frequent circuit was between her youngest son, who lived in the remotest regions of Texas and New Mexico, ranching and raising horses, and her oldest daughter, who lived in Fort Sumner. Aunt Irene lived in a small white adobe house on a rise coming out of “the valley,” three miles or so from the old fort area named Bosque Redondo or Hwééldi, “the place of suffering,” by the Diné, or Navajo Indians, who had been held at the fort between 1863 and 1868. Parts of the old fort were partially outlined with low-lying and crumbling rocky foundations as the only sign that buildings once occupied the land. To the side of the old fort area was (and still is) the Billy the Kid Museum and Visitors’ Center—Fort Sumner’s major claim to fame and tourist attraction. The poignant and painful history of the old fort was seldom acknowledged by local residents or tourists; it was Billy the Kid that visitors from out of town came to see and it was one of the few places where we kids could wile 1 away a boring Sunday afternoon. Over the years it became a family ritual to visit the Kid museum and gift shop. I often found myself wandering out over the grounds of the old fort, sitting on an accessible part of the crumbling foundations, and carrying on deep questioning conversations with myself about the Indians who had been imprisoned and had died there in large numbers. I often wondered if I would meet any of the descendents of those people who had eked out a less than marginal existence at the old fort before being allowed to return to their homelands. My Pecos River of childhood memories and stories meandered just a hundred yards or so from the old foundations, lined with small trees and tall grasses so that it was inaccessible to exploration. Besides, I’d had my fill of red ants, scorpions, and monster tarantulas as a child playing in the red-sand yard of my auntie’s home. Gracing a few yards along the way back to her house were the last of the distinctively large and nearly extinct cottonwood trees that had been planted by the Navajo and Mescalero Apache prisoners.1 Years flew by, filled with schooling, family, and other trips. I investigated various religions along the way, choosing to “become” a Bahá’í in February, 1970. In the early1980s, I became active in my own American Indian heritage. Customarily, in the native way, one introduces oneself by where one’s family comes from.
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