Contemporary Native American nations like the Navajo (Dine'é) are often looked upon as models of ritual practice. In a world of rapid shifts in economic, social, and political systems, ritual practices remain one of the most stabilizing forces in contemporary Native American life. The contemporary Navajo example demonstrates how traditional philosophy and ritual can be reinterpreted to accommodate a changing world.

The Navajo Nation is one of the largest Native American nations in the United States, with an estimated population of more than 150,000. The Dinetah (Navajo homeland) lies between four sacred mountains in the Four Corners area of the Southwest, occupying an area slightly larger than West Virginia. Today, many Navajos live "off-reservation" in border towns such as Gallup or Farmington, New Mexico, or in Phoenix, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, or any other urban or rural area of the U.S. Navajo people themselves recognize many regional differences in language and culture as they move from one area of the Nation to another.

The many complex Navajo healing ceremonies or "ways" (as in the Nightway or the Enemyway) use songs, chants, sand paintings, sacred objects, and dance to recreate or enact stories and events that link ceremonial participants to their sacred origins. The ceremonies link the patient, the hataali (singer), and all the participants to the diyin Dine'é, the holy people, and to the sacred past, before man emerged on the earth. The songs and chants retell important events and stories of Navajo creation. Sacred bundles, called jish, contain objects that derive their value from their connection to that same sacred past. Sand paintings, perhaps the best known of all the ritual practices, incorporate symbols that also link the creator and the patient to specific people or objects associated with the mythological origins of the diyin Dine'é.

Navajo sand painting - The Slayer of Alien Gods

The hatáál (also called "sings") are often described as healing ceremonies that blend public and private rituals into a coherent whole. They have long been viewed as representing the intersection of religion and health or traditional medical practices. But the hatáál are not primarily a source of healing in the physical sense. The cost and time involved in carrying out a full ceremony or sing can be great and would not be warranted for the common cold. Instead, one might seek a remedy from an herbalist. If the illness were persistent or severe, one would first seek out a traditional diagnostician, such as a star gazer or a hand trembler, for a diagnosis of the cause of the illness and direction on what type of hatáál should be performed. Then a hataali known to be an expert in that ceremony would be engaged. Since the hatáál are seasonally prescribed and require a great deal of preparation, months might elapse before the ceremony could actually be performed.

Many Navajos today continue to seek healing through sings. However, it is now most common for a Navajo to pursue numerous options, sometimes simultaneously. One Navajo woman, pseudonymously named "Mrs. Brown" when studied by Vijay Singh, visited a diagnostician, traveled to an Indian Health Service clinic to see the doctor, have lab work done, and receive a prescription. She also sought out a hataali to have some chants performed, or, if possible, a full-blown multiday ceremonial. She was visited by a Roadman from the Native American Church. She also visited the Catholic Church to pray for healing and seek counsel from the priest. Today, Navajo ritual practice and ceremonialism is highly syncretic.

There have been many efforts to incorporate Navajo healing ceremonies and rituals into the practice of western medicine. In The People's Health: Anthropology and Medicine in a Navajo Community, Adair, Deuschle, and Barnett (1988) describe the Navajo-Cornell Field Health Project, a collaborative effort to create a true cross-cultural health delivery system. During the 1970s, the Navajo Health Authority (the official health department of the Navajo government) created a school for hataalii, to train them to work with Western physicians and to enable them to carry their rituals and ceremonies into the Western health setting. While the clinic established by the Navajo-Cornell Field Health Project has closed and the school for medicine men failed to achieve its goals, opportunities for the incorporation of Navajo healing ceremonies into Western medical settings do exist, although on an ad hoc basis. Today it is not unusual for a Navajo healer to perform some piece of a healing ceremony in the clinical setting, and many Navajo people are engaged as community health representatives, nurses, and interpreters, among others, in the health delivery system on the Navajo Nation. Although there are few Navajo physicians, the Indian Health Service has developed a sensitivity to Navajo ritual and healing practice.

When I arrived at the Navajo Nation (then called the Navajo Indian Reservation) in the summer of 1972, one of my first experiences was to attend a house blessing ceremony. At the time, I had only an academic knowledge of the Navajo language (that is, I couldn't understand a word of spoken Navajo), and my knowledge of the culture consisted only of what I had read in books, some of which were very old. It was kind of my hosts to invite me to the house blessing, and I went eagerly. Something of a crowd had gathered, but what I best remember is the seeming disorganization, the apparent lack of interest on the part of most of the guests, and the meal that followed (mutton stew, cooked in a brand new 20-gallon garbage can, along with Navajo fry bread). I couldn't figure out what was going on. This ritual occasion was, in many ways, typical of Navajo ceremonials and ritual practices: lots of things happening at once, a sense of timelessness in that only a few people seemed engaged in the proceedings at any one point, a lack of concern for the passing hours, and my own impression that a main objective of attending was to socialize and share a meal.

I later learned that what I had observed was the recitation of House Blessing Songs from the Blessingway ceremony. John Farella describes the Blessingway (hózhóójí) as the main "stem" from which all other ceremonies branch out. According to Gary Witherspoon, the prefix hózhó denotes the holistic aspect of the environment, the world, or the universe. He writes, "It is beauty, harmony, good, happiness, and everything that is positive." Hózhó, like the hózhóóji that enacts it, encompasses one of the most important concepts in Navajo life. Navajos employ multiple pathways to hózhó, through restoration of harmony, well-being, and thus health, both physical and mental. James McNeley believes that the purpose of ritual may be to create hózhó in the individual and in the world.

Today, traditional Navajo ceremonials and rituals occur with less frequency than in the past. The hataalii are growing old and fewer and fewer young men (or women) are disposed to engage in the many years of apprenticeship required to become a competent hataalii. The future of the hatáál is of great concern, as is the desire to preserve such sacred knowledge for the Dine'é. However, ritual remains a vibrant part of the fabric of Navajo life. As a people, the Navajo are deeply interested and committed to seeing that their unique worldview, beliefs, and practices continue to thrive and become important sources of strength for their children.