50 Years Ago: Traders treat customers with Thanksgiving dinner

GALLUP

It’s Thanksgiving season and, as in years past, Indian traders on the reservation are celebrating by having a special dinner for their customers, usually on the weekend before Thanksgiving.

A few years before 1967, the Los Angeles Times did a major story on how Navajos celebrated Thanksgiving – which tribal officials said was a little condescending – by conjuring up Thanksgiving meals like the Puritans had with their Indian neighbors. But the Navajo Times was reporting that few traders were doing this and those that did usually limited it to their regular customers rather than invite everyone in the community.

That distinct relationship between the Navajo and the traders was eroding as many were closing their doors as the tribal government made it harder and harder for them to extend their leases and more and more Navajo families were traveling to border communities because of improvements to the roads. In a previous story, the Times reported that very few traders gave the younger generation of Navajos the same kind of credit they gave to their fathers and grandfathers because younger Navajos weren’t as prone to shop only at the trading post and were not considered to be as trustworthy as their elders in paying their bills.

In other news, work on the Navajo Tribe’s plan to celebrate the centennial next year of the signing of the Treaty of 1868 is continuing. Martin Link, director of the Navajo Tribal Museum who has been involved in the planning, said the tribe is developing traveling exhibits featuring various phases of Navajo life. The plans are to offer these exhibits to museums and others who want to help the Navajo Tribe celebrate the centennial. Many museums have already contacted the tribe, he said, asking to be considered for the exhibits. He also said that there have also been discussions of sending one of these exhibits to Mexico City, which is planning to host the Olympic Games in the summer of 1968. (By the way, after Link stepped down as director of the museum, he spent many years teaching Navajo history at various colleges in this area. And one of the questions he would put on the final test was “What year was the Treaty of 1868 signed?” It was remarkable, he said, how many people would give the wrong answer.)

In another story on the front page, the Times reported that Rough Rock Demonstration School, thanks to federal grants, was planning to publish a series of books for young Navajo students. Up to then, said Andrew Pete, head of the school’s curriculum center, Navajo students, like the rest of the elementary students in America, learned to read from the “Dick and Jane” books. “There’s been a definite lack of school materials on Navajos but we hope to fill some of that need,” he said.

The Tribal Council’s Education Committee is overseeing the books. Ten schools on the reservation have been chosen to receive the books and use them in their classroom. After a year, the teachers will evaluate how useful the books were in helping Navajo students to learn to read and report their findings to the committee.

During the process of writing the books, the school used noted historians, such as Robert Young and J. Lee Correll, to check their facts to make sure they were historically accurate. Two of the books that being published are “Black Mountain Boy” and “Denetsosie,” both readers, as well as an illustrated children’s book on legends called the Coyote series. Another book of Navajo legends, called “Grandfather Stories,” is in the planning stages.

Of course, since then, hundreds of books have been printed for use by Navajo students, many through federal grants. But the output has slowed down in the last decade as grants have become harder to acquire.

Here is some news about people and places as reported by the Times during Thanksgiving of 1967:

• Zelma King, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis King of Shiprock, has been named homecoming queen for Phoenix High School.
• Leroy Falling of Ganado bagged a big buck on the northeast slope of Escosea Mountain near Alpine on a recent hunt.
• Tony Begay, a food service worker at Chinle Boarding School, likes to spend his days off encouraging boarding school students in their artwork.
• Larry Arnold, son of Mr. and Mrs. Leo Arnold Sr. of Fort Defiance has received a scholarship to play for the Western Matadors. He is a Window Rock High School graduate.

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