-Anthony K. Webster
How sad it is that persons bent on debunking Native traditions in Alaska…have used linguistically naive variant spellings of Native place names to assert that the Native toponomy is amorphous and ever-changing. (Kari 1989: 139)
We create trust by hanging out with people in their own environment. We become more humane and treat people with trust, respect, and dignity. (Jim 2023: 151)
I.
Invisibility has been a persistent concern for many Native peoples—invisible to the broader society, invisible to the courts, invisible to the government (Deloria 2004; O’Brien 2010). Their languages reduced to invisibility and inaudibility—unseen and unheard. And yet, that invisibility and inaudibility, is never as secure or total as it might at first seem. It is, instead, a failure (willful or otherwise) to see and to hear. James Collins (1998) noted that in the Tolowa language dictionary produced in the late 80s, the dictionary included a map that remapped Del Norte County with Tolowa placenames. The very first section of the Mescalero Apache Dictionary (Breuninger et al 1982), after the grammatical sketch, is a listing of Mescalero Apache placenames, both on and off the Mescalero Reservation. In both cases, there is an attempt to remap and make visible historic and ongoing connections with places using placenames. These forms of remapping challenge the erasure of Indigenous presence.
Both Tolowa and Mescalero Apache are Athabaskan or Dene languages. The serious linguistic anthropological study of Athabaskan placenames finds its inspiration in the work of Keith Basso (1996) on Western Apache placenaming practices. Basso showed both the ways Western Apache placenames create descriptive pictures of places, but also the moral work that Western Apache placenames can be used for. Apache placenames are often quotations from the ancestors and are associated with particular narratives. Other work on related Athabaskan placenames have confirmed the imagistic quality of placenames and have also noted what James Kari (2010) calls, “geolinguistic conservatism”—that is to say, Athabaskan placenames are remarkably stable over time. Indeed, one way of thinking about this link between “geolinguistic conservatism” and the vivid descriptive quality of Athabaskan placenames, is to see them as essential for wayfinding. The placenames describe, as Harry Hoijer (1953: 557) noted of Chiricahua Apache, “topographic features of their environment with care and precision.” I should add, besides wayfinding, both the Apaches that Basso worked with and Navajos that I have talked with concerning such matters, point out that the placenames are pleasing to say. One Navajo woman described them as “beautiful words.” Beautiful words in Navajo can also be moral words—they can inspire moral reflection. To give a sense of the descriptive quality of such names, the famous monadnock known in English as Shiprock, is called in Navajo Tsé Bit’a’í (tsé ‘rock’ bi- ‘its’ -t’a’ ‘wing’ -í nominalizer) ‘Winged Rock.’ Navajo placenames don’t just vividly describe, they can also, when the placename is built from an ideophone, sonically evoke a location as well—Tóniil’aha’nii ‘sound of something moving in water out of sight’ (where the ideophone niil evokes the sound of hooves). One Navajo I knew enjoyed saying the name Tsé doon ‘popping rock.’
Image: Photo of Shiprock (Tsé Bit’a’í) taken by the author in 2011 from atop Buffalo Pass.
But if dictionaries are one site for making visible Athabaskan placenames, contemporary poetry, in this case contemporary Navajo poetry, seems yet another site to find Athabaskan placenames. For, if, as Basso (1996: 77) notes, “poets and songwriters have long understood that economy of expression may enhance the quality and force of aesthetic discourse, and that place-names stand ready for this purpose,” then Navajo poets may be particularly attentive to the quickness of Navajo placenames for the intertwined purposes of aesthetics and politics. In the early 2000s, I was lucky enough to begin linguistic anthropological work with Navajo poets. I have since worked with Navajo poets for the last twenty-five years. Among the topics that have drawn my interests, have been the uses of placenames, both in Navajo and in English (Webster 2009). In what follows, I want to move along a series of examples, from poems and essays and performances, by Navajo poets. Several of the examples will come from The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature, a book that I helped edit, along with Navajo poet Esther Belin, and two other colleagues, Jeff Berglund and Connie Jacobs (2021).
II.
Many poets write about Navajo places, and they ground those poems through the use of Navajo placenames. Rex Lee Jim (2021: 140), for example, writes of the changes that have been occurring at ‘Tó Háálį́’ ‘water it flows up’ and Laura Tohe (2021: 130) grounds one of her poems in one of the sacred mountains of Navajos, ‘Tsoodził, Mountain to the South’. In each case, a placename is part of the title of the poem. Jim translates Tó Háálį́ as ‘Spring’—but, as Jim well knows and rather enjoys, ‘spring’ has its own ambiguities (a water spring, the season, coiled metal, etc.), it also doesn’t capture the vivid image depicted in the placename. On the other hand, Tohe does not translate Tsoodził, instead she describes it as the mountain of the south, and here we should be aware that for many Navajos Tsoodził is the sacred mountain of the south. Its importance related as well to stories about when Navajos returned to their homeland after four years of imprisonment. It was Tsoodził that Navajos saw first and on recognizing it, they wept because they knew they were home. There is one more point to make here about this placename, and that’s the second element, dził, often translated into English as ‘mountain.’ For many Navajos, when they think about places and placenames, it is often through the connections between words, the way words evoke other words. There is, perhaps, no better example of this than dził. Let me defer to Luci Tapahonso (2008: 18) on the matter:
The word for mountain, dził, is very much like dziil, which means ‘to be strong’ or ‘to possess strength.’ Thus mountains serve as literal reminders that, like our ancestors, we can preserve in difficult situations.
Jim (2023: 140) is a bit more elaborate on the topic in a recent essay:
Breathing in the mountains is one of the major keys to Navajo notion of inherent sovereignty—breathing in. Bił anidziih is the phrase in Navajo: bił anidziih, nidziil, naniłdzil, dził, h0łdzil (breathe it in, you’re strong, exercise, mountain, strong foundation…). The root of all these words is dzi—breathing/strength.
III.
One of the first poems published in Navajo was published by Nia Francisco. The poem, táchééh/ sweat house, was published in 1977 in College English. Here is how the poem begins (the citation is from The Diné Reader):
ałk’idą́ą́ “tóníłts’ílídi”
“tsék’ishalíní” holyéígi
nízhónígo ha’a’ágo
(Francisco 2021: 56)
it was long ago
“where clear crystal stream comes up”
a place called “flowing from between the rocks”
when sunrise is beautiful
(Francisco 2021: 57)
The poem begins with placenames (t0n7łts’7l7di and ts4k’ishal7n7) and, through ałk’idą́ą́, an echo with the opening of traditional narratives.
Here are two other examples of the use of placenames in contemporary poetry. The first is by Tina Deschenie and the second is by the late linguist and poet Alyse Neundorf. In both cases, the placenames are important places for the poets. These are places they knew well, places they had or have personal connections to.
it’s when I see Tse’ Hii Ts’oozi Yazhi, “Little White Cone.”
Among these landmarks,
my roots nestle deep in the dark reaches
and a smile always curves my lips.
(Deschenie 2021: 85)
Aoo’ łahgo ánáhoo’nííł nidi ádahoolyéíi,
ádahoot’ééi éí t’áá łáhígi át’é,
Yes, the changes are here, but the land is the same,
place names are the same,
Tsézhįįhdįįts’in, Tsézhinbii’ Tóhí, Didzé Hólóní,
Bįįh Bidee’ Dah Si’ání,
Black Rock, Black Rock Springs, Blackberry Springs, Deer Horn Point,
(Neundorf 1999: 69)
IV.
In 2005, Laura Tohe (2005) published a book of poems and essays titled Tséyi’: Deep in the Rock. The second half of the title a translation of the Diné word. Tséyi’ is most often known in English as Canyon de Chelly (which is a Spanish attempt at the Navajo word). Canyon de Chelly is now a National Monument (established in 1931). In October of 2006, Tohe came to Southern Illinois University where I was teaching, to do a reading. Here is how she discussed the titling of the book and a bit of controversy with the press about that title. Lines are organized based on pauses to give a feel for the rhythm of her talk.
Tséyi’
is our name for this place that Navajo Canyon de Chelly
printed on the map
“Canyon de Chelly”
that word
was all
we’ll
always use our own
na:mes
for the places on our homeland
so when I was
gonna publish this book I was asked
what I want to
title this book
and so I said
like
“Tséyi’ deep in the rock”
but the press
came back
and said “we prefer
deep in the rock
Tséyi’
for marketing purposes
people will be able to understa:nd that
better”
and
I was
very insistent
that
we have
Tséyi’ first because
Navajo language was here
before
co:ntact
and
so
they pu
they
they were convinced by that
so that’s why it is called
“Tséyi’ deep in the rock”
Besides being a tourist destination on the Southwest circuit, Canyon de Chelly is also often referred to by non-Navajos as the place where Kit Carson “rounded up” the Navajos—an accessible history like an accessible title. Invisibility and inaudibility are often a kind of practiced inattention, a refusal to see or to hear. What some Navajo poets through their poetry of place remind us, is that what is needed instead is careful and humane attention. Tohe reminds us of this in the beginning of her prose poem titled ‘Deep in the Rock,’ which seems, as well, a fitting way to end:
Deep in the rock, the tamarisk and monkey-egg trees have dug in to prevent erosion. Like the Diné, they refuse to leave.
(Tohe 2021: 131)
References
Basso, Keith. 1996. Wisdom Sits in Places. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Belin, Esther; Jeff Berglund, Connie Jacobs, and Anthony K. Webster. (eds.) 2021. The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Breuninger, Evelyn; Elbys Hugar, Ellen Ann Lathan, and Scott Rushforth. 1982. Mescalero Apache Dictionary. Mescalero, NM: Mescalero Apache Tribe.
Collins, James. 1998. Understanding Tolowa Histories. New York: Routledge.
Deloria, Philip. 2004. Indians in Unexpected Places. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.
Hoijer, Harry. 1953. “The Relation of Language to Culture.” In Anthropology Today. (ed. Alfred Kroeber). Chicago: Chicago University Press. 554-573.
Jim, Rex Lee. 2023. “The Footprints We Leave: Claiming Stewardship over Diné Bikéyah.” In Nihikéyah: Navajo Homeland. (ed. Lloyd Lee). Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 139-161.
Kari, James. 1989. “Some principles of Alaskan Athabaskan toponymic knowledge.” In General and Amerindian Ethnolinguistics. (eds. Mary Ritchie Key and Henry Hoenigswald). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 129-149.
Kari, James. 2010. The concept of geolinguistic conservatism in Na-Dene prehistory. In The Dene-Yeniseian Connection. (eds. James Kari and Ben A. Potter). Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska New Series, Vol. 5:1-2. Fairbanks: University of Alaska. 194-222.
Neundorf, Alyse. 1999. “Dííj Nánísdzá, I come home today.” Red Mesa Review. 6: 69.
O’Brien, Jean. 2010. Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians out of Existence in New England. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Tapahonso, Luci. 2008. A radiant curve. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Tohe, Laura.2005. Tséyi’: Deep in the Rock. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Webster, Anthony K. 2009. Explorations in Navajo Poetry and Poetics. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
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Anthony K. Webster is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.
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