Some History | Miss Navajo Nation

It's Navajo Nation Fair time! And the folks over at Indian Country Today posted a cool article on the annual event.

The Navajo Nation Fair draws about 15,000 visitors a day to Window Rock, Arizona, the Capitol of the Navajo Nation. The week-long fair kicks off on the Monday after Labor day, September 5. It is the largest American Indian Fair and Rodeo in the Southwestern United States, and consists of over two dozen events that extend over the seven day period.

With a rodeo, arts market, Miss Navajo competition, powwow, parade, and a fashion show, I'm sad that I'm going to be missing the Fair again this year.

I decided to do a post on the Miss Navajo Nation competition because, in addition to demonstrating their skills as supremo Navajo chicks, these young ladies get to rock some awesome tradish fashion. To learn more about the Miss Navajo competition, I highly recommend that you check out the documentary film, Miss Navajo (see the trailer below). It offers an insider's glimpse into this important event, which consists of criteria that you don't get to see in your typical beauty competition, and the contestants are judged on their cultural knowledge and Navajo language skills.

For more than 50 years, the Miss Navajo Nation beauty pageant has given its contestants opportunities to showcase not only their beauty but also their skills in dance, music and sheep slaughtering. Following contestants in their quest for the crown, and featuring personal stories of recent winners, Miss Navajo is a celebration of womanhood.

The first ever Miss Navajo was Dr. Beulah Melvin Allen, who was 23 when she was crowned. She went on to become a doctor. Very badass, Dr. Allen!

The second Miss Navajo was Ida Gail Organick, who reigned from 1953 to 1954. Lookin good among those canyons Miss Ida Gail!

Miss Navajo, 1963-64, Anna Mae Begay Fowler was the first to rock the Miss Navajo crown. When Fowler competed, there were two categories - modern and traditional - and Fowler competed in both. In the traditional category, she had to demonstrate her skills in weaving and singing. For the modern competition, her skills included typing, sewing and public speaking.

This jazzy lady is Rose Ann Bekis Kenneth, who reigned as Miss Navajo from 1969 to 1970.

About her time as Miss Navajo 1979-80, Freda Nells said, "I have benefited enormously from the reigning as the ambassador of one of the largest Native American Indian people. The experience has showed me confidence, independence, ambition, respect, and set a goal for my future. With that in mind I continued my education."

Sunny Dooley, Miss Navajo 1982-83, is a storyteller, poet, playwright, workshop facilitator, lecturer and Navajo folksinger. Multi-talented!

About the importance of basketry, Karen Leuppe, Miss Navajo Nation 1994-95 (aka Miss Awesome Hair), said, “The center of the basket represents the existence of a child and the spiral extending outward from the center represents the learning environment provided at home and in the community. The coils and stitches binding them together remind us that everything in the environment is connected and ensures the child is living in harmony and peace with family and nature.”

The 46th Miss Navajo was Radmilla Cody. She says, "My grandmother raised me herding sheep, weaving rugs, and speaking the Navajo language being that was our source of communication. I dealt with a lot growing up half black and half Navajo."

Her goals during her reign included working closely with youth, parents and elders. "The youth because they are the perserverance of who we are as Dine' people. The parents because they are the role models and communicators within the home. The elders because they are valuable resources and the roots of our people." She also advocated for community programs that dealt with issues such as Child Abuse/Neglect, Elderly Abuse/Neglect, Domestic Violence, Gang Activity, Natural Resources and Alcoholism/Substance Abuse.

Another doctor, Karletta 'Daane' Chief was Miss Navajo 2000-2001. Chief said, "As my grandmother and my family have encouraged me and have been my role models, I hope that I can give back to my people in the same way, to be a role model to young Navajo children, and to preserve our language, our culture, and our land."

Last year's winner was Winifred Bessie Jumbo from Two Grey Hills, NM. Jumbo will pass on the crown this week to a new Miss Navajo Nation, and continue the legacy of encouraging and celebrating the strength and importance of women as cultural bearers and cultural bridges.

Click here to read more about the Miss Navajo competition and history.

A 'Look' at Indians and Mirrors

A while back, Lara Evans from travelpeapod left an enlightening comment on one of my posts about ‘prehistoric fashion.’ She said:

Great post! One interesting thing to consider... No mirrors. That means you must rely on the opinion of the people you live with in order to know if you look good or not. What if what was happening was that people dressed and decorated each other? Clothing, beads, etc. would then symbolize relationships between individuals, not individuality. I think good mirrors change everything.

It’s one of those things that you probably never thought of, but as soon as it was brought up, it opens a whole new world of questions.

So I became curious about the history of mirrors, and here’s what I could gather:

The first mirrors used by people were most likely pools of still water, or water collected in a vessel of some sort. The earliest manufactured mirrors were pieces of polished stone such as obsidian. Examples of obsidian mirrors have been dated back to 6000 BC, and polished stone mirrors from Central and South America date from 2000 BC. Mirrors made of metal, such as polished copper or bronze mirrors, were crafted in Mesopotamia from 4000 BC, in ancient Egypt from 3000 BC, and in China from 2000 BC. Metal-coated glass mirrors are said to have been invented in Lebanon in the first century AD. In the 16th century, Venice, a city famed for its glass-making expertise, became a center of mirror production using this new technique. The invention of the silvered-glass mirror is credited to German chemist Justus von Liebig in 1835. This silvering process was adapted for mass manufacturing and led to the greater availability of affordable mirrors. Which brings us to today.

So, basically, reflective devices did exist in the past – for Native North American people, it was probably water found at the edge of lakes, or rain water caught by shallow pools in flat rock formations, or water collected in bowls or pots.

When mirrors were introduced to tribes (which I assumed was in the 1800s since mass production would have made them available trade goods - however a list to Spain in 1600 requested "200 ordinary mirrors" to be traded with the caciques and Indians), many Native nations incorporated them into tribal aesthetic and cultural contexts. Edwin L. Wade explained, “Mirrors served an entirely different purpose among Native Americans than they did among Europeans. For Native Americans, mirrors were symbols of wealth and prestige. They were commonly mounted in dance batons or other objects of ceremonial regalia, since it was their light-reflective property, not their ability to reflect images, that was considered important.”


(Above: Lake Superior Chippewa woman's cape/overblouse, 1920-1940. Velveteen, wool cloth, glass bead/beads, metal cones, wool twill tape, silk ribbon, metal button/buttons, mirror, thread, clothing snaps. Collection of NMAI)

Native people incorporated mirrors into their regalia and ceremonial objects, along with sparkling beads and metal tinklers, perhaps to reference the luminous surfaces of great lakes. Among the Chippewa, women fastened circular mirrors onto their overblouses or onto men’s vests, and in Oklahoma, the Caddo decorated their dance bustles with mirrors. Interestingly, the base of the Anishinaabe word for mirror is waabi, which translates as vision, sight, or see. In Alberta, a popular lake is named Wabamun (a Cree word meaning mirror). So the connections between mirrors, lakes, and ideas about visions are, well, clear.

Historian Bruce White has noted the importance of mirrors as trade goods in an article on Ojibwa and Dakota theories about French merchandise: "Native people appreciated European goods such as beads, mirrors, bells, and caps 'for their aesthetic, magical, or purely decorative and fascinating worth, not their economic value.'" (and this has led scholars to note that these actions were 'a trade in metaphors').


(Above: Caddo dance bustle, Oklahoma, 1890-1909. Feather/feathers, commercially tanned leather, hide, wool cloth, velvet, cotton cloth, brass bell/bells, metal bell/bells, mirror, glass bead/beads, deer hair, rawhide, metal tacks/bosses, dye/dyes, paint. Collection of NMAI)

Some suggest that mirrors were used by Native men to send signals by reflecting sunlight – either to communicate vital messages to distant outposts via horseback, or during a dance to send a flirtatious signal to a potential girlfriend.

In the Song for the Horse Nation exhibit, NMAI curators explained, “Europeans frequently traded small glass mirrors to Native peoples. Plains Indian men wore them on their fur chest decorations or inserted them into carved wooden frames. Often, they ornamented the frames with brass tacks (another popular trade item), metal inlay, or paint. Men carried mirrors such as this in dances.”


(Above: Iowa mirror, ca. 1880. Wood, brass tacks/bosses, lead, mirror, iron nails, brass nails. Collection of NMAI)

So, a rich history with mirrors does exist in Indian Country, but this trade item was recontextualized into an Indigenous framework. Interestingly, Evans posits that the current prevalence and types of mirrors used today may have changed tribal processes of ‘beautifying’ – from a communal activity to an individual undertaking. In the past, we depended upon family members to dress and decorate us, not the mirror.

If this is true, then the objects used for beautification (i.e. beads) take on additional meanings, and they could "symbolize relationships between individuals, not individuality." For example, a beaded shirt could symbolize a relationship between a mother and her son, rather than just a man's identity as, say, a warrior.

Though times have changed, I think, there are ‘places’ where the communal still reigns. For example, at powwows, you’ll see girls fixing each other’s hair and makeup, and for Pueblo ceremonies the women still get dressed communally. Last summer, my cousin Kristy asked me to be her ‘personal attendant’ for her wedding. She said, “I trust that you and Brandy (our other cousin) will make sure I look beautiful for this important day.” I see this occasion (along with other weddings that take place here) as a form of reasserting the communal – of reinforcing familial ties and the roles and responsibilities that go with it.

The idea of mirrors – or more accurately, the concept of beautifying as a communal versus individual process – is an interesting one, and I’m curious if anyone out there has any thoughts to add...?