Culture

“I kept hearing her voice tell me, ‘You know what to do,’” said Jaclyn Roessel about why she created what would become GrownUp Navajo.

On a nice sunny day, the Tséhootsooí Medical Center hosted the 2nd Annual Navajo Youth Culture Day Camp to get kids off their couches this summer.

A representative from the National Archives is expected to visit Window Rock next month and if everything goes well, the tribe should get final approval to display the last known original copy of the Treaty of 1868 in time for the 150th anniversary of its signing next year.

Children and parents got their hands sticky and covered in paint as they decorated replica Navajo shields made of cardboard during “Shielding Our Culture,” a summer youth cultural and art workshop held last Thursday at the Navajo Nation Museum.

As the shortest night of the year settles over the campground at Chaco Canyon, sound echoes off the pictograph-laden canyon walls: the ping of rocks on tent stakes, excited voices, and of course someone has brought a Native flute and another camper a drum.