Navajo Nation Ethical Dilemmas

Diné or Navajo Nation borders Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. There are four mountains that act as landmarks are Tsisnaasjini' (Mount Blanca), Tsoodzil (Mount Taylor), Doko'oosliid (San Francisco Peaks), Dibé Nitsaa (Mount Hesperus). Navajo Nation is the largest Native American Reservation in the United States, occupying 17 million acres.

Navajo culture distinctively took hold in the four corners area of the Colorado Plateau around 100 A.D., although they are believed to have been around for centuries before then. Disliking the term “Navajo Indians”, they refer to themselves as the “Diné” which means “The People” or “Children of the Holy People”.

The Diné means “The People” and it is what the people that we know presently as the Navajo went by. The Red Nation article “Considering a Navajo Name Change: Self-Identification, Land, and Liberation” by Majerle Lister states that “‘Navajo’ is not a Diné word or concept, despite its use as our [the Diné] official name for more than a hundred and fifty years.” This is a clear example of how settler colonialism has impacted the Navajo Nation. Settler colonialism has had an impact in the Peoplehood matrix of the Navajo from language and sacred history to place/territory and ceremonial cycles, yet it has not stop efforts from the Navajo Community to mend the damage that settler colonialism has had on their culture over the years.

According to the history of the Navajo Tribe, the Holy People lived in the underworld and helped by guiding the First Man and First Woman to earth (McCoy 1988). The Holy People are said to be attracted to songs, dances, and chants during the ceremony along with the creation of Sandpainting. The Sandpainting is used in the healing process of the ceremony to draw a picture that tells a story of the Holy People. The Navajo culture have amazed so many people to how beautifully constructed the rituals are performed.

Earlier this year the Havasupai Tribe and a coalition of conservation groups sued the United States Forest Service for allowing Energy Fuel Resources Inc. to operate a mine under a 1986 federal environmental review without tribal consultation. The Canyon mine was previously in non-operational status due to low uranium stock prices in 1992. Opponents of the uranium mining operation want the federal environmental review updated and

Throughout Indian Country tribes have their own courts to address legal matters. However, the Navajo Nation has a court system that stands apart from other tribes. Howard L. Brown Esq. wrote, “The Navajo Nation’s Peacemaker Division: An Integrated Community-Based Dispute Resolution Forum” which was published in the American Indian Law Review 1999-2000 issue and was reprinted in the May/July 2002 issue of Dispute Resolution Journal. As a former judicial law clerk for the Supreme Court of the Navajo Nation, Brown gained firsthand experience with the Peacemaker Division within the Navajo Nation’s Judicial Branch. He details the history, development and ceremonies associated with this resolution forum. Two

The Navajo are the largest federally recognized Native American Indian tribe in the United States. The Diné Bikéyah or “Navajoland" encompasses 27,000 square miles residing within Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico and contains a population of over 220,000 natives. The

Every culture has their own way of life, their own religious beliefs, their own marriage beliefs, their own values and feelings on life and the options it has to offer. Each culture has their own way to run things within their own government, and own way to keep their economy up to their standards. Also each culture and society have their own primary mode of subsistence that makes them unique. Among the Navajo culture their primary mode of subsistence are pastoralists.   Pastoralists have an impact on different aspects with in the culture.   The aspects that I will be discussing will be the Navajo’s beliefs and values, economic organization, gender relations and sickness and healing.

"The Navajo traditionalists view their land as representing the essence of their being," says Jennie Joe of the Native American Research and Training Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who conducted a study

The Navajo, also known as the Diné, are one of the largest Native American Tribes in the world. Their culture is made up of very distinct and unique characteristics that have been passed down from generation to generation. They have been taught to adapt to their surroundings and to the land. Each moral, standard, belief and value are what make the Navajo so unique to the Native Americans. In the following, their primary mode of subsistence, kinship system, beliefs, values, and economic organizations will be briefly examined to gain a better knowledge of the Navajo culture.

For miners these risks included emphysema, lung cancer, pneumonia, and tuberculosis (Brugge & Goble, 2002). Currently, research studies report that those who live near abandoned uranium mines have an increased risk for chronic illnesses such as kidney disease, hypertension, birth defects, infertility, and diabetes. Native Americans suffered from more ill effects than miners of other races because the mines were located on Native lands, their homes. All workers of different races left and found jobs elsewhere far from the contaminants when the mines closed. Native American miners stayed near the mines and were more likely to be impacted by uranium exposure related illnesses.

The Navajo people have long been pastoral people since before the first man travel the Bering Strait before becoming submersed in the sea. If they had been more warlike like the Apache maybe the Southwest would not have been so easily overcome by the United States. Through the years they cause the United States many problems. One of which they were cunning and were good at allowing one’s livestock escape and bring them back for a reward or stealing livestock for their own herd. They boast about their thievery and how if they con many Mexicans and settlers out of their belongings. The tribe saw this more of a better way instead of obtaining these things in a more violet way. The military troops were patrolling these areas to

Located at the intersection of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah lies the Four Corners. Their borders form a 90-degree angle. This vernacular region contains deep influences from the culture surrounding it. Their boundaries are not physical, but more so imaginary lines that are perpendicularly intersected. The region resides on the northwestern edge of the Navajo Nation Reservation. “The Navajo Nations operates the site, which is about as large as West Virginal,” and has strong influences from the culture of the Navajo tribe (Seminara 2013). This Native American reservation is the largest area of land occupied by a U.S. tribe.

The world view of the Navajo who had lived for many centuries on the high Colorado Plateau was one of living in balance with all of nature, as the stewards of their vast homeland which covered parts of four modern states. They had no concept of religion as being something separate from living day to day and prayed to many spirits. It was also a matriarchal society and had no single powerful leader as their pastoral lifestyle living in scattered independent family groups require no such entity. This brought them repeatedly into conflict with Spanish, Mexicans and increasingly by the mid-nineteenth century, Americans as these practices were contrary to their male dominated religiously monolithic societal values. The long standing history

Early uranium mining was a profession well populated by Navajos, who were very grateful for the opportunity to work with the Americans Government. However, being the first era for uranium mining, the environment that the miners were surrounded in was not beneficial for their health. Americans did not tell the workers that the material was harmful to their health. Miner mortality rose, and miners began to acquire lung diseases. At that time, no scientifically explanation was given to the miners and left them to worry while the mortality increased. Years after, studies explained the anomaly that was occurring with the miners; radioactive particles from the uranium are continuously being released which emits particles that are extremely hazardous