'A sense of pride'
(Special to the Times - Stacy Thacker)
Jaime Yazzie, a summer intern, helps set up the Chief Manuelito exhibit Monday at the Navajo Nation Museum.
Chief Manuelito exhibit opens at Navajo Nation Museum
By Cindy Yurth
Tséyi' Bureau
CHINLE, Aug. 27, 2010
(Special to the Times - Stacy Thacker
An oil painting of Chief Manuelito, created by Stephen Jackson, is part of an exhibit at the Navajo Nation Museum. It opens Friday.
Until now.
Friday, Aug. 27, the Navajo Nation Museum opened "The Chief Manuelito Exhibit," a look at Manuelito and other early leaders of the Diné.
Guest-curating the exhibit is Manuelito's great-great-great-grandaughter and biographer, Jennifer Nez Denetdale.
According to Museum Director Manuelito Wheeler, who was named after the great chief and may be a distant relative, an exhibit on Manuelito is long overdue.
"We've already gotten a lot of feedback on this exhibit and I think it may turn out to be the best-attended ever," he said Tuesday as his employees were busy putting up the displays.
"We'll take an in-depth look at the events of his life and the decisions he made that still affect us today," Wheeler said.
For instance, he said, the Navajos were among the first tribes in the Western U.S. to embrace education, largely thanks to Manuelito's example of sending his children to boarding school.
"He saw that white people have the things that we need, and knew we could only get them through education," Wheeler said.
In a sense, every Navajo Ph.D, doctor and lawyer is a legacy of Manuelito.
While there were other strong Navajo leaders before and after Manuelito, he may be the most remembered because he was in power during a pivotal time of conflict with the U.S. government.
"He resisted (the government) for so long in spite of the adversities he was up against," Wheeler said. "Navajo people admire that about him."
While artifacts of the great chief are rare, there is an abundance of oral history concerning him, including accounts from his children. Military correspondence referring to him gives an insight into his relationship with the U.S. government.
"How important he was to the Navajo people is evidenced by the fact that the military was under specific orders to capture him," Wheeler explained. "They thought if they could capture Manuelito, the Navajo people would be defeated."
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