Sheepskins for Navajos

The ritual chants and dances performed weekly by the Navajo men and women are centuries old, but the octagonal sanctuary where the tribal ceremonies take place is spanking new. With its earth floor and eternal flame at the base of a six-story building, the sanctuary is the center of a $15 million campus designed by Indian medicine men and paid for largely by federal funds. Navajo Community College, which moved to its new 1,200-acre campus at Tsaile in northeastern Arizona three years ago, is the first entirely Indian-operated and -controlled institution for higher learning on a reservation in the U.S. Eighty-five percent of its 1,365 students (ages 16 to 65) are Navajo; the remainder represent 20 other tribes.

Last Americans. The college began in a reservation high school in 1969, the year that Edward Kennedy, in a report by the Senate special subcommittee on Indian education, declared that the "first American" had become the "last American" in terms of employment and education. One-third of all adult Navajos neither wrote nor spoke English. Dropout rates were twice the national average, and because of the systematic denigration of their culture, Indian children, more than any other minority group, believed themselves to be below average in intelligence. Explains N.C.C. President Thomas Atcitty: "For too long we were told our culture was inferior and should be forgotten."

To change all that, N.C.C. offers 23 courses in the Navajo language, history and culture. Students learn from Indian teachers how to shape clay without a wheel, sew moccasins with sheep sinews or shape baskets with sumac fibers. Andrew Natonabah is one of four medicine men who teach Navajo psychology, medicine, dances and tribal lore, and who often cure mentally disturbed students "by dancing them free of evil spirits." Says he: "When they leave here, our students understand more about their culture and are better prepared to meet the white man's world."

Besides Indian-related courses, 214 other subjects are offered, some of which lead to Associate of Arts or Applied Science degrees. Twenty-two students from last year's graduating class have gone on from the two-year Navajo school to four-year colleges or universities. Edison Hatathli, 18, president of the student body, was a high school dropout. "When I came here, I was lost," he says. "Now I want to study art at Berkeley and then return to serve my people." Other students can get certificates in vocational studies that include auto mechanics, nursing and drafting.

Says Atcitty: "We want to offer the means for every Navajo to have a better life--on the reservation or off--but we want to build on the strong foundation of our own culture. That works best."

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