Not Indigenous… Don’t Lose Your Cultural Identity Navajo Teaching

This video made free by our wonderful Warrior Producers. Learn More: https://producers.navajotraditionalte... It’s a word most don’t see as harmful but when you really think about it, it erases tribal identity. In this week’s video… Navajo Historian, Wally Brown discusses the idea of categorizing all Native People into one group. While it may be thought of as a way to unite it flirts with the danger of losing identity. An Identity that tribal ancestors from each tribe fought, worked and even died to preserve. Enjoy the video. Warrior Producers Get your exclusive video here: https://producers.navajotraditionalte... Learn About Wally’s Traditional Necklace: https://producers.navajotraditionalte... Get your free ebook “7 Days of Navajo Traditional Teachings at https://navajotraditionalteachings.co... Our Website https://navajotraditionalteachings.com/ Join Our Email list https://navajotraditionalteachings.co... Our Shop (Trading Post) https://navajotraditionalteachings.co... --- ``` Create a detailed outline of this video. Then, provide a transcript of the Navajo spoken at the beginning, and then a translation, if possible. List some vocabulary words and definitions. Then, identify and give a biography of the speaker. ``` Here’s a structured outline and the language-related pieces you asked for, using what is available in the on‑page transcript (which is almost entirely in English with Navajo terms inserted).youtube+1 ## 1. Detailed outline of the video 1. Opening thesis: “We are not indigenous, we are Diné” - States that this is important to know.youtube+1 - Connects this to understanding the Navajo language correctly and in its proper form.youtube+1 2. Diversity of Native American tribes - Explains that in the United States (and including Canada) there are around 600 different tribes. - Emphasizes that tribes are not identical: different languages, cultural and traditional ways, ceremonies, foods, and stories. - Notes that outsiders often lump everyone together as “Native American” or “American Indian.” 3. Traditional names for the Navajo (Diné) - Says “we are Diné” and that each tribe has its own identity.[[nitep.educ.ubc](https://nitep.educ.ubc.ca/february-07-2022-navajo-traditional-teachings/)] - Explains that neighboring peoples (he mentions Naasá or analogous term) gave a name based on how Navajo people instructed their children, translated as “field people.” - Spaniards heard that and formed the word “Navajo” from it. - Mentions another neighbor term “Utah/Utai”: applied to Diné, later shifted to another tribe (Ute), and then used in the name of the state Utah. 4. Critique of the word “indigenous” - Frames “indigenous” as a modern racial/political label created to divide people. - Points out that people across the continent—from Alaska, Canada, and the U.S. to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Peru, Honduras, Brazil, and the southern parts of the continent—each have distinct languages and cultures. - Argues that calling all of them “indigenous” implies they are “just one people,” which erases distinct identities. 5. Parallel to other world regions - Compares to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia: many different peoples, languages, and cultural ways, not “one people.” - Insists that Diné likewise are a distinct people with their own language and cultural ways.[[nitep.educ.ubc](https://nitep.educ.ubc.ca/february-07-2022-navajo-traditional-teachings/)] 6. Diné identity and placement on this land - States that Diné identify as a people placed here as a peaceful people. - Says they were given a special language and ways through struggles, trials, and tests. - Describes how the “old people” went before the Holy People and begged for these gifts to become Diné (“we the people”).[[nitep.educ.ubc](https://nitep.educ.ubc.ca/february-07-2022-navajo-traditional-teachings/)] 7. Formation of the Diné nation through clans - Explains that when Diné came into this part of the continent they were peaceful, and other groups wanted to join them. - Says at one time there were almost 150 different family or clan groups that came together to be Diné. - Emphasizes that these groups came from far places and united because they wanted Diné ways of living and making life. 8. Modern loss of identity and global kinship - Laments that Diné are losing awareness of this identity today. - Notes that Diné people now are probably related to people all over the world (Germany, France, England, Spain, the Far East, Middle East, etc.) because of intermarriage. - Gives example: the Navajo tribal president is Vietnamese by birth but is Navajo through his mother; if related by clan to him, one is related to all his relatives as well. 9. Personal stance on “American Indian” and patriotism - Says he prefers to call himself “American Indian.” - Affirms personal loyalty to the United States, its flag, and salutes the flag at parades, emphasizing pride and loyalty. 10. Warning about externally imposed identities - States it is important to know you are Diné; otherwise people will give you an identity.[[nitep.educ.ubc](https://nitep.educ.ubc.ca/february-07-2022-navajo-traditional-teachings/)] - Argues that calling Diné “indigenous” amounts to losing their specific identity.youtube+1 - Urges people to keep their language and to understand Diné history, rather than adopt labels invented by distant non‑Navajo people. 11. Cultural practices and lived Diné identity - Mentions culturally specific foods (e.g., eating mutton head, chewing on sheep hoof) as part of lived Diné experience. - Says you can only truly know this as Diné when you can enjoy things developed and refined by Diné. 12. Extending Diné teachings to non‑Diné - States that those who view Navajo Traditional Teachings videos and apply the teachings in their own way can also be Diné “in their own way” as peaceful people seeking joy, happiness, confidence, and peace.[[navajotraditionalteachings](https://navajotraditionalteachings.com/)] - Encourages viewers to seek and adopt what is good from the teachings, and to improve on what they take into their lives. 13. Caution about adopting harmful things - Notes that Diné also have the capacity to adopt bad things and improve them in the wrong direction, becoming worse people. - Stresses the importance of choosing what to adopt carefully. 14. Final emphasis on true identity - Reiterates that being Diné, “Diné, the Niné” (we the people), is their identity.[[nitep.educ.ubc](https://nitep.educ.ubc.ca/february-07-2022-navajo-traditional-teachings/)] - Says everyone should seek their true identity as a person who seeks good, seeks peace, and is a maker and being of peace.[[navajotraditionalteachings](https://navajotraditionalteachings.com/)] 15. Closing channel message - Standard YouTube closer: thanks viewers, reminds them to subscribe, click the notification bell, and visit the Navajo Traditional Teachings website and email list.[[nitep.educ.ubc](https://nitep.educ.ubc.ca/january-22-2024-elder-wally-brown-shares-navajo-traditional-teachings-through-digital-stories-to-preserve-dine-culture/)] ## 2. Navajo spoken at the beginning and translation The transcript provided for this video starts immediately in English: “is that we are not indigenous. We are Diné…” with no Navajo sentence fully captured before the English.youtube+1 However, he does use key Navajo words/terms in the opening portion: - Diné – used in “We are Diné.”[[nitep.educ.ubc](https://nitep.educ.ubc.ca/february-07-2022-navajo-traditional-teachings/)] - Later in the video he refers to “Diné, the Niné” and explains in other videos that Diné is a compound word often glossed popularly as “the people,” but more precisely relates to “up” and “down” (from where there was no surface to here on the earth’s surface), telling where Diné came from.[[nitep.educ.ubc](https://nitep.educ.ubc.ca/february-07-2022-navajo-traditional-teachings/)] Because the transcript text for this specific video does not show a full opening Navajo sentence (and I cannot safely reconstruct it by ear), I cannot accurately provide a line‑by‑line Navajo transcript for the very beginning beyond these isolated words, nor a precise Navajo‑to‑English translation of a full opening clause.youtube+1 A reasonable summary of what he is likely saying in Navajo at the start (based on his other “Wally explains Diné” video) is a traditional greeting and self‑introduction by clan, followed by an assertion of Diné identity rather than an outside label, but I cannot produce that Navajo text verbatim without risking inaccuracy.navajotraditionalteachings+1 ## 3. Selected vocabulary and definitions Drawing from this video and closely related Wally Brown teachings: - **Diné** - In common gloss: “the people” (Navajo self‑name).[[nitep.educ.ubc](https://nitep.educ.ubc.ca/february-07-2022-navajo-traditional-teachings/)] - In Wally Brown’s explanation: a compound of elements meaning “up” and “down,” referring to coming from a place with no surface to the surface of Mother Earth; points to the origin of humankind/five‑fingered beings, not simply “people.”[[nitep.educ.ubc](https://nitep.educ.ubc.ca/february-07-2022-navajo-traditional-teachings/)] - **Navajo** - A name derived through Spanish from what neighbors called them, basically “field people,” referring to the way they instructed or worked with their children in the fields. - Not their original self‑designation, which is Diné.[[navajotraditionalteachings](https://navajotraditionalteachings.com/)] - **Diné, the Niné (Dinéh, the Niné)** - Phrase he uses to emphasize “we the people,” indicating the collective identity of Diné after many clans and families came together.[[navajotraditionalteachings](https://navajotraditionalteachings.com/)] - **Clan system / four clans** (mentioned in related video) - In traditional self‑introduction, Diné name their four clans: mother’s clan, father’s clan, maternal grandfather’s clan, paternal grandfather’s clan.[[nitep.educ.ubc](https://nitep.educ.ubc.ca/february-07-2022-navajo-traditional-teachings/)] - This system establishes kinship and social obligations. - **“Beauty Way path” (Hózhó)** - In related Navajo Traditional Teachings work, Wally Brown explains the “beauty way path” as a path of balance and harmony, linked to the four cardinal directions and “the four corn‑pollen footsteps” (child, youth, adult, elder).navajotraditionalteachings+1 - Central value: walking in beauty—inner and outer harmony with all living things.[[navajotraditionalteachings](https://navajotraditionalteachings.com/)] - **“Indigenous” (as criticized here)** - Modern label used globally to categorize original peoples of a region.youtube+1 - Brown argues that when applied to all Native peoples on the continent, it wrongly collapses many distinct nations and cultures into “one people” and erases tribal identity.youtube+1 - **American Indian** - Term he personally prefers for himself, specifically as a Navajo who is also an American, expressing loyalty to the United States and its flag. ## 4. Identification and biography of the speaker - The speaker is Elder Wally Brown, a Navajo (Diné) historian and elder. - He is the primary teacher in the “Navajo Traditional Teachings” project, a collaborative venture with his son Shane Brown, created to share Diné culture “untouched” by anthropologists and archaeologists, grounded in Diné language and oral history.lakepowellchronicle+3 ## Biographical highlights - Birth and early life - Born in a hogan on the New Mexico side of the Arizona–New Mexico border, north of Gallup.[[reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Navajo/comments/1bz7mds/wally_brown/)] - His family history in the region extends back roughly 500 years, according to a profile in the Lake Powell Chronicle.[[reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Navajo/comments/1bz7mds/wally_brown/)] - Traditional training and role - As a young boy, he was taught and encouraged to learn traditional Diné ways of knowing and being.navajotraditionalteachings+1 - Trained by his grandfather as a medicine man, which laid the foundation for his later work as a Navajo teacher and historian.navajotraditionalteachings+1 - Education and boarding school experience - Attended a government boarding school near Phoenix, where students were pushed toward assimilation and punished for speaking Navajo, including “mouth‑washing” with green soap when they spoke their language.[[reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Navajo/comments/1bz7mds/wally_brown/)] - These experiences inform his emphasis on language, identity, and resistance to externally imposed narratives.reddit+1 - Cultural work and Navajo Traditional Teachings - Co‑founded Navajo Traditional Teachings with his son Shane; they travel across the Navajo Nation, dig through historical records, and interview elders to document traditional teachings.nitep.educ.ubc+3 - The project began publicly around the 2017 total eclipse, when Shane asked him about traditional beliefs regarding the eclipse, prompting them to record and share his teachings online.navajotraditionalteachings+1 - Teaching focus and philosophy - Seeks to transmit “pure” Diné teachings, critical of what he calls “polluted teachings” by some anthropologists who ignore oral histories, prayers, and elders.reddit+1 - Central motto: “Without Identity, There is no Power,” emphasizing that cultural identity and language are the foundation of spiritual and communal strength.navajotraditionalteachings+1 - Frequently teaches about Diné origins, the meaning of “Diné,” clan identity, walking in beauty, and living as peaceful people connected to all living things.navajotraditionalteachings+2 ---