What's in a name? Reclaiming Diné terms
By Noel Lyn Smith
Navajo Times
WINDOW ROCK, May 5, 2011
These are among the most recent examples of a growing trend toward replacing English names of Navajo communities with traditional Navajo terms.
Sometimes, as in the case of Tsídii To'ii, it's a literal translation. Other times, the English name had nothing to do with the way Navajos identified the place they lived.
Last month Fort Defiance Indian Hospital joined the movement by changing its name to Tséhootsooí Medical Center. Tséhootsooí means "meadow between the rocks." That's how it looked to Navajo eyes before the U.S. Army came.
To the directors of the hospital and its board, it's about independence, part of the plan to separate the hospital from its past association with the Indian Health Service, said hospital Chief Executive Officer Leland Leonard.
Last March the hospital became a private nonprofit corporation under Public Law 93-638, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.
"'638 is about independence. It's about autonomy," Leonard said. "It's about Navajo community members running the hospital as opposed to the United States government."
The 10-member governing board voted unanimously April 15 to change the hospital's name. The 16 chapters in the hospital's service area and the employees also supported the switch.
"I think coming back to the Tséhootsooí name is very proper and appropriate and respectful to our elders," Leonard said.
Tséhootsooí is the place Navajos saw when they stood on the rim of Blue Canyon and looked at the area where the hospital is now located, Leonard explained.
In addition to telling patients and visitors about the new name when they stop by the facility, Tséhootsooí Medical Center will spend close to $50,000 on re-branding, including a new logo, Web site and associated marketing activities.
"I know people say that cost is always a factor but there's many things that you can gain from the expenditure in changing a name," Leonard said. "This is the way we were, this is what we were called and we're going back to it."
Although Tséhootsooí Medical Center is the new name, on legal documents the facility will continue to appear as Fort Defiance Indian Hospital Inc. because the name change happened after the establishment of the '638 corporation.
The name change does not affect the Nahata Dziil Health Center in Sanders, Ariz., he said.
"It goes along with what you hear about in Council sessions, that a certain chapter is going to revert back to its original name which is awesome," Leonard said.
Over a dozen chapters have returned to traditional names in recent years, while some never gave them up.
The Times contacted the Division of Community Development for a list of chapters that have undergone name changes but none was available.
The push to have Cañoncito Chapter renamed Tóhajiilee Chapter was started in the late 1990s by local students who were studying the community's history, said Nora Morris, community services coordinator for the chapter.
Morris said the students learned that the federal government named the area, located west of Albuquerque, after the Cañoncito Band of Navajos but in Navajo it was called Tóhajiilee because people drew water from a natural well in the area.
"It was unique how our kids did their own research and came about changing the name," she said.
After the Council approved the name change in 1999, the chapter obtained official recognition for it from the state of New Mexico.
During the 1999 regular session of the state Legislature, Reps. James Roger Magdalena, Ray Begaye and Leo C. Watchman sponsored the resolution to change the chapter's name and its designation along Interstate 40.
"To me, it's beautiful," Morris said of Tóhajiilee's name posted on Exit 131 along the interstate.
In April 2007, the Council approved Breadsprings Chapter's proposal to change its name to Bééhéélí Chapter.
The change was requested because there was confusion between Breadsprings and Birdspring, said Gloria Skeet de Cruz, chapter manager for Bééhéélí.
Before the name change, Skeet de Cruz remembers traveling to Window Rock to pick up documents for the chapter only to notice on her way back to Bééhéélí that she was given reports for Birdsprings Chapter.
The confusion did not stop at the tribal level.
There were times when the Internal Revenue Service mailed information intended for Birdsprings to Breadsprings.
"It was an inconvenience," she said.
Skeet de Cruz is also happy to see the surrounding chapters make the return to Navajo names, most recently Red Rock Chapter, which changed to Tsé Lichíí Chapter with the Council's approval last year.
During the spring session last month both Birdspring and Lupton chapters' name changes were approved.
Kin Dah Lichíí' (Kinlichee) and Tsé 'íí'éhí (Standing Rock) were changed in 2010.
Tsé Alnaozt'i'í (Sanostee) switched in 2009.
K'ai'bii'tó (Kaibeto), Tólikan (Sweetwater) and Tsé Ch'ízhí (Rough Rock) changed in 2008.
Bahastl'ah (Twin Lakes), Gadii'ahi-Tokoi (Gadii'ahi), T'iistoh Sikaad (Burnham) and Ts'ah bii Kin (Inscription House) switched in 2007.
Tsé Daa K'aan (Hogback) changed in 2006.
Information about the name change for Kíts'íílí (Black Mesa) and Tó Nanees Dizí (Tuba City) was not available.