50 years ago: Churches offer services in Navajo

As Christmas season hit the Navajo Reservation 50 years ago, there was a lot of talk about making religious services on the reservation more accessible to the Navajo members.

Some Catholic priests were already using the Navajo language in some or all of their services and were reporting a good response. From what was being reported during those days, it appears that whether to use Navajo in any part of the Catholic services was left up to the parish priest with some saying that some of their members would prefer the services to be continued in Latin, since it had been done since they were children.

Then came word from the San Juan Episcopal Mission that efforts were being made to develop a new liturgy using the Navajo language.

Officials of the mission said that this was something that their Navajo members had been asking about for some time and a special committee had been formed to deal with any translation problems that may arise.

Members were being told that the new liturgy should be ready for use by the end of 1967.

Keeping in the Christmas spirit, the Times was reporting that celebrations would be held the week before Christmas all over the reservation.

Thanks to a $3,000 contribution from an anonymous donor, some 2,000 Navajo children going to preschools on the reservation under the Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity would be holding “festive” celebrations that they would not have been able to hold without the donation.

Bags of fruit and colorful candies would be provided to each student as they held their annual Christmas celebrations before being let out for the holidays.

This week’s paper was filled with ads from the various advertisers wishing the Navajo people a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

What may have been a little shocking to people 50 years later were the ads from liquor dealers in the border towns wishing their customers a Merry Christmas and urging them to stock up for the holidays.

Liquor ads appeared in the paper frequently and no one thought much of it, apparently because the paper allowed the dealers to list their prices and specials. No one seemed to consider the irony in the situation since liquor was banned on the Navajo Reservation and the paper was encouraging tribal members to go to border towns, fill up their cars with liquor, and come back home to the reservation to enjoy it.

The liquor ads peaked during fair time and it wasn’t unusual for a beer company, usually Budweiser, to be one of the major sponsors of the various fair rodeos. There were also occasional ads for cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. Skoal was another big advertiser during fair times.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the paper began getting letters to the editor from people wondering about the ethics of accepting money from liquor dealers for ads while on the editorial page condemning them for the misery they caused to many Navajo families.

Sometime in the mid- to late 70s, the paper stopped taking liquor ads and part of that came from concerns raised by tribal officials who thought that the ads were encouraging people to go out and drink.

Another thing you found in the paper 50 years ago that you don’t see today are ads from reservation trading posts thanking their customers for shopping with them throughout the past year.

Many trading posts went even further and on the day before Christmas or maybe the weekend before, they would hold a Christmas celebration for all their customers, offering them turkey and other foods while Santa would show up and give out candy to the kids,

During this time, there were 50 or more trading posts located on the reservation and no one expected that 15 years later, the number would be down to a handful as the tribe and the federal government began putting restrictions on the way they operated their pawn businesses.

But elder Navajos will remember the holiday celebrations and how they brought the community together. Today, the stores just offer special Christmas discounts.

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