Life Is Truly Simple

Seasons of the Navajo showcases an interview, a year in the life of Dorothy and Chauncey Neboia, an elderly Navajo couple and their extended family who live on the vast Navajo Reservation. The Navajos see life as a communal effort, being there for one another and taking care of their common goods to the best of their abilities, while utilizing the minimal resources they have at hand.

They simply learn to work with what they have and enjoy their lives making the most of what mother earth has already given them. The interview portrays that to the Navajos, everyday life is about communal cohesion. They live for the day and make sure every single person has a part in the community, making their surroundings a better place to live for the good of all. In my interview with Mr. Chauncey and his wife Dorothy, there were several insightful aspects of their lives that were very intriguing.

The Navajos live every day with the upmost respect for Mother Nature and all the earth has to offer. Portraying how much love and respect they have for the natural environment they call home, the Navajos believe in taking care of it, thanking and praising it for all it offers them on a daily basis. Chauncey continues on to emphasize that, Earth, wind, and water have their particular offerings. One must take an offering correctly, if it is to be effective. The Navajos see their natural surrounding as a gift to their livelihood and reside in it accordingly. They also live in three different homes as they move according to the seasons. This is not out of luxury, but because of necessity to provide continuous grazing for their animals.

The Navajos do not have much, but they live gratefully by making the most out of the limited resources they have. Emphasizing the fact that they do not need much to remain satisfied and healthy, the ties to family and traditions are strong and the younger members of the community always have a role to play within the community. Sheep for instance, has been in the lives of the Navajos since the 1600s. They are a symbol of a family’s well-being. Although the sheep are owned individually, they are cared for in common. Additionally, corn is another significant part of the Navajo people. Corn symbolizes their interdependent with the earth, their mother and it can only survive with their care, while the corn in turn nourishes them. It is a very vital crop to the Navajos because they have had to depend on corn for most of their lives, for they can make several types of bread and meals out of corn.

The Navajos also believe that if one wants to be healthy and live a good life, one should get up early, greet the sun, and do everything as best as he/she possibly can. The children learn by observing and actually performing the tasks first hand. The Navajos make sure to teach their kids to carry on the same beliefs and values that the parents grew up with. The parents practice their daily routines, traditional practices and such in the presence of their kids, so that their children will also know how to properly perform every task.

Another major aspect of the Navajo cultural tradition is the celebration of puberty when their girls reach womanhood. Family and friends gather to prepare and to join in a sacred celebration that lasts four days. When a Navajo girl reaches womanhood, they hold a puberty ceremony to mark the occasion, known as Kinaalda. It is a tradition of educational experience as well as a blessing of kindness, generosity, industry and fertility so that she may walk in beauty and be blessed with healthy children. Chauncey emphasizes the vitality of hard work, communal efforts, and caring for the earth. The Navajo people live by the belief that, in taking care of the earth, everything must be respected. The plant and animal life must be valued and conserved.

All things considered, the Navajos and their perspective on life gives people outside of those norms a rich and meaningful insight on the simplicity of life. These aspects truly prove how simple life really is. It illustrates how much greed humans have to always go after the things we do not have instead of appreciating and being grateful for the life we already have. The Navajos show us how much can be accomplished when communal cohesion is put into use in order to better the lives of the community as a whole. A certain community might have various common/public resources to share amongst themselves, however simply sharing that common good for personal benefit is not what the Navajos are about. As these values and beliefs are what the Navajos learned from their forefathers, this is now who they are and how they continue to care for their people and their land.