Re: Navajo code-talkers

[Asgaard <asgaard@sos.sll.se>]

> English words).  Furthermore the language is several centuries older
> than Homer, so you have to deal with assorted archaisms.  Then again,
> if you know even a little of ancient greek linguistics, it gets easier.

There has been this talk of the Navajos for a couple of weeks.
I know they are an interesting people (oh, how beautiful was Ninibah
Miriam Crawford, the beautiful representative of the Navajo Nation
at the UN Environmental Conference in Stockholm 1972), but what about
the Hopis? At the same conference I met David Monangaye, then the
spiritual leader of the Hopi Nation (now dead), and Thomas Banyacya,
now their spokesperson (and Thomas' daughter Loreena, oh, a true
keeper of the earth).

The Hopi word for Navajo is TASAVUH; literally "He who pounds his
enemy's head with a rock", and for the communal and peace-loving
Hopis the Navajos are an aggressive and ornery people who have
been a headache ever since they invaded Black Mesa, shortly after
the palefaces first appeared on the Hopis' sacred land.

How funny that these head-pounders found a niche in the Pantheon
of American Heroes. But no wonder they are the only Native American
Nation to have more territory now than 100 years ago.

Asgaard