The song “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” should not exist. In spite of the fact that music plays a central role in the worship and manifestation of spiritual gifts among the Diné Oodlání (Navajo Believers), “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” stands alone as the only widely known and actively performed nonderivative Navajo-language Christian song. However, the uniqueness of “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” stands in direct contrast to a linguistic situation among Navajo neo-Pentecostals that largely favors Navajo-language expressive culture: prayers, sermons, and testimonies are all commonly delivered in Navajo. The fact that Oodlání music is nearly always composed and performed in English suggests that tangible barriers exist to musical composition in the Navajo language.
In what follows, I explore the ways in which neo-Pentecostal theology and Navajo language ideology combine to create barriers to new composition of Christian music in the Navajo language. Then, through close examination of an ethnographically grounded example of music with original Navajo text, “Háálá Ayóo Diyin,” I argue that the key to the success of this song is its ability to capitalize on what I call resonance. This theoretical concept, rooted in the physics of acoustical resonance, recognizes that two concepts may be amplified by their connections, without standing in for each other. In the case of Oodlání music composition, resonance is a sufficiently flexible concept to explain how a balance can be struck between continuity and discontinuity in a context that self-consciously eschews “traditional” religion. As demonstrated by “Háálá Ayóo Diyin,” the theory of resonance recognizes the emotional force of continuity in expressive forms while still taking seriously the projects of “rupture” (Robbins 2003) in which Oodlání understand themselves to be engaged.
The exclusive practice of neo-Pentecostal Christianity is on the rise among Navajos living on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico.1 This rise reflects emerging trends throughout Native North America (Dombrowski 2001; Laugrand and Oosten 2010; Tarango 2011; Westman 2010) and globally (Jenkins 2002; Anderson 2004). Despite what Maureen Schwarz has called “a cultural heritage [that] preconditioned the Navajo to practice medical and religious pluralism” (2008, 27),2 the exclusive practice of Christianity is now claimed by about 30 percent of Navajos, with Pentecostalism the most practiced form of exclusive Christianity (Milne 2011, 527).3 At current population estimates (Donovan 2011), this percentage represents upward of twenty-seven thousand Navajos affiliated with the neo-Pentecostal (Oodlání)4 movement.
The rapid growth of this movement can easily be connected to its unregulated structure and large-scale Navajo enfranchisement: Oodlání churches are led by Navajo pastors, called and authenticated by the Holy Spirit alone, who found independent, Navajo-run churches in which preaching and worshipping are predominantly in Navajo. It is also related to increasingly frequent cultural traumas after 1950 (Aberle 1982, 224) and a change in missionary approach to favor charismatic tent evangelists (Dolaghan and Scates 1978; Marshall 2011). Theologically, Oodlání follow the lead of these tent evangelists, viewing the Bible as the literal Word of God and acceptance of Jesus as personal savior as the only way to avoid eternal damnation in hell. They preach abstinence from “worldly” things such as alcohol, drugs, adultery, and even country-western dancing. They are also charismatic in that they believe in “gifts of the Spirit,” including infilling by the Holy Spirit, Spirit-filled singing and dancing, speaking in tongues, and faith healing.
In spite of the fact that Oodlání are led by Navajo pastors and evangelists, a hallmark of this movement is its opposition to the traditional Navajo ceremonial system, Diné binahaghá—literally “moving about ceremonially” but typically glossed as “traditional religion” (Frisbie 1987, xxiii).5 This opposition is not framed as the dismissal of traditional religion as “superstitious nonsense” but instead as a reinterpretation of the very efficacy of that system. This is an example of what José Casanova has called “uprooted local culture engaged in spiritual warfare with its own roots” (2001, 437). Navajo traditional religion includes both the negative presence of witchcraft (Kluckhohn 1967) and the positive presence of ceremonials aimed at the restoration of balance and beauty (hózhó˛ ) in individual bodies and the world at large (Reichard 1944; Witherspoon 1977; Frisbie 1992). All of these practices are linked together by Oodlání as “traditional religion” and reinterpreted within the Pentecostal framework of divine warfare between Jesus and the devil (and his host of demons), which is manifest in the trials of the everyday lives of believers.6 Thus, as in other areas of global Pentecostalism, Oodlání accept local ontologies (spirits, witchcraft, and so forth) but do not seek to “forge any continuity with them” (Robbins 2003, 223). While Oodlání value their Navajo identity, they strongly preach keeping the realms of traditional religion and Christianity carefully separated.
Musical practice among Oodlání reflects this theology of exclusivity, utilizing musical modes that do not evoke the music of traditionalism. Hymns from western European sources are translated into Navajo and widely available through the Navajo-language hymnbook, first published in 1979. While the western European four-part harmonies of the hymns certainly don’t evoke connections with Navajo traditional religion, they are also not terribly popular in the contemporary Oodlání movement, as they primarily carry historical connotations of a denominational past. Instead, Oodlání use praise music—music that encourages maximum participation through simple lyrics, easy-to-follow melodies, and extensive use of repetition. Because praise music is a genre derived from Anglo-American and African American sources, the language of praise music is typically English. A good handful of praise songs have been translated into the Navajo language, and it is not uncommon to hear bilingual switching between verses of commonly performed praise songs. The Navajo texts of these songs are always derivative and secondary, however, and as praise songs increase in tempo and tighten in repetition in order to manifest the central rite of spiritual gifts in this community, the Navajo lyrics are dropped.
The lack of Navajo musical innovation and ownership is in direct contrast to the broader Navajo Pentecostal expressive context, which is characterized by Navajo language use: sermons, prayers, and testimonies are all frequently given in the Navajo language. The near absence of any new Navajo-language musical composition in Oodlání worship contexts, then, suggests that tangible barriers to Navajo-language musical composition exist. These barriers are intimately connected to the role of song in Navajo traditional religion, the practice of which Oodlání assiduously avoid.
One of the primary barriers to new song composition in the Navajo language for Oodlání is the close connections between the realms of songs, words (especially Navajo words), and prayer within the traditional ceremonial contexts. In short, Navajos have traditionally held ceremonies (also called chants, ways, or sings, depending on the translation of the Navajo enclitic “-jí”)7 whenever there is a need felt for one, most commonly by an individual and often in response to a concern about health. Once the proper ceremony has been determined, a hataałii, or singer (also called a “medicine man”), is hired to perform the ceremony, or sing. Sings last between one and nine nights and are communal gatherings that take place in a ceremonial hogan, a traditional Navajo dwelling (Gill 1981, 58–59). The singer and the patient, more accurately named “the one sung over,” are the focus of this sing, but everyone who attends the ceremony benefits from what is done there (Reichard 1950, xxxvii).
Within these contexts, songs constitute a major part of the ritual activities that aim to restore harmony and balance (hózhó˛ ) (Witherspoon 1977, 155), restating and reemphasizing things already stated in prayer. In part, songs have the power to restore hózhó˛ during ceremonies because speech and song (or chant) are seen as closely related within the traditional Navajo worldview, and both can be used in intensified form as prayer. In fact, the noun for “song” in the Navajo language has what Gladys Reichard called “a complicated series of corresponding verb-stems, referring, however, not to singing or song but to holiness, reverence, prayer, and, in the passive voice, to sorcery” (1950, 297–98). For Navajo Pentecostals, who equate traditional religion with the devil, this association between sung Navajo words and traditional forms of prayer is problematic.
As an example of the charged nature of the associations between Navajo language, song, and traditional Navajo religion, take the musical compositions of Ben Stoner. Stoner has been a missionary at the Brethren of Christ mission in Bloomfield, New Mexico, for over forty-five years and is widely recognized as one of the handful of Anglos not raised among Navajos who has ever gained fluency in the Navajo language. Disturbed by the lack of “Navajo hymnody,” Stoner has for years been working on a project that would “set Scripture to music” by cuing off of the melodic aspects of the Navajo language (in this case Navajo-language biblical passages). When read aloud, Navajo vowels can be short or long, high tone or low tone, and rising or falling. Stoner’s project is to “musicalize” these aspects, using a quarter note for a long vowel and an eighth note for a short vowel, raising or lowering the pitch of the chant for the high- or low-tone vowels, and slurring the pitch up or down for rising or falling vowel tones. By Stoner’s own admission, the result sounds “much like a traditional chant” (Baldridge 2000, 68).
Despite efforts by Stoner and some Navajo gospel musicians (such as Daniel Smiley, Andrew Begay, and Julie Redhouse) to popularize this type of music, which they claim will help build a “true Navajo church” (Baldridge 2000, 94), the emotional associations of traditional Navajo chant and the theological associations of traditional religion as still containing the efficacious power of demons are too strong for the majority of Oodlání. From radio hosts to pastors to lay participants, there seems to be a near-universal Oodlání condemnation of this type of musical blending (Baldridge 2000; Marshall 2011).8
Thus, one of the barriers to new composition in the Navajo language for Oodlání is the difficulty of setting the Navajo language to music in a way that doesn’t sound like “medicine man chant.” However, the problematic associations for Oodlání go even further. It is not simply a matter, for them, of staying away from what they left behind. It is also that the Navajo language continues, for many Oodlání, to have performative force, particularly when set to song.
The major barrier to new Navajo-language composition for Oodlání, I argue, is the performative force traditionally ascribed to that language. Using J. L. Austin’s classic framework, certain phrases in English have performative force: saying “I name this ship” in the context of a christening ceremony is the actual act of naming, not a reference to that naming (Austin 1970, 235). In the Navajo ceremonial context, the performative force of language is the central mechanism by which the rituals are understood to have efficacy. But this very performative force inherent in the language creates problems when it is imported into new contexts, such as Navajo Pentecostalism.
The use of performative language as a central part of traditional Navajo rituals reflects a distinctive Navajo language ideology. Language ideology is the collection of feelings and beliefs about language related to rationalizations about “perceived language structure and use” (Silverstein 1979, 193). Navajo language ideology is distinctive from Euro-American language ideology (but similar to other Native American language ideologies) in that it privileges the performative nature of language. Euro-American language ideology regards language as primarily “reflectionist”—that is, the primary function of language is in providing names for things. Many Native Americans, on the other hand, possess language ideologies that “view language and speech more ‘performatively’—as a more powerful and creative force that ‘makes’ the natural and social worlds they inhabit” (Field and Kroskrity 2009, 10).
Navajo language, and particularly Navajo language within ritual contexts, has been widely documented to emphasize its performative function (Reichard 1944; Witherspoon 1977; Gill 1987; Field and Blackhorse 2002). The performative nature of Navajo ritual language is linked to Navajo mythology, philosophy, and cosmology. According to the creation myths, the world was created out of the thoughts of the Holy People but did not come into being until these thoughts were spoken and sung (Witherspoon 1977, 47). In this view of creation, transformative acts proceed from knowledge, “organized in thought, patterned in language, and realized in speech.” And from this perspective, Witherspoon makes the claim that for Navajos “language is not a mirror of reality; reality is a mirror of language” (34). A theology that places the burden for creation on the directed and enacted thought of the Holy People does not just apply to events in the Navajo past, however. Navajo ceremonies (sings) consistently revisit this act of creation through the reenactment of the mythology as a fundamental part of the curing ceremony. The words are spoken again, restoring the world to the state of balance and harmony with which it first came into being (25). The ceremonial prayers also actively transform the world by addressing the deities with kin terms and declaring the binding relationship of reciprocity and mutual help that these kinships oblige (Gill 1987, 122). In all of these ways, Navajo ceremonial language relies on the performative power of the Navajo language.
The performative potential of the Navajo language is the key to understanding why it is so difficult to use Navajo in newly composed Oodlání song. Linguist David Samuels has noted a similar situation in the closely related Apache context. According to Samuels, Apache schoolchildren are taught Apache translations of European songs, such as “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” rather than traditional Apache children’s songs, because sung Apache often “run[s] the risk of being coded as medicine man talk” (2006, 551). In Samuels’s example, translation rendered the Apache version of “Old MacDonald” almost nonsensical but was preferred to a newly composed Apache children’s song, because the latter “included the text ha’í’aayú la’ gozhóó[,] ‘where the sun rises is beautiful,’ and some parents said that it sounded like a prayer to the sun” (536). A parallel situation exists in Navajo schools, where Deborah House has found that Navajo Christians are supportive of Navajo-language education, but only if “the instruction program has no religious or sacred content” (2002, 74).9 These examples show that in Southern Athabaskan contexts, songs can carry connotations of “medicine man chant,” and these connotations are incredibly problematic for Navajo Pentecostals, who self-consciously eschew traditionalism.
The referential (naming) and performative (acting) aspects of language thus come into contention in this context. While Stoner and Baldridge argue that Navajo words become meaningless when set to a Western tonal harmony that does not preserve linguistically necessary high and low tones (Baldridge 2000, 67),10 Oodlání themselves are much more concerned with the traditional connotations of the newly composed Christian “chant.” Given a language ideology that hears performative power in traditional chants, paired with a theology that equates that power with the forces of evil, bringing anything that sounds like “medicine man chant” into the church isn’t just irrelevant; it is potentially very dangerous.
The unique success of “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” as the only widely accepted Oodlání song with original Navajo lyrics suggests ways in which Navajo language can be set to song without evoking “medicine man chant.” Its popularity lies in its ability to capitalize on what I call resonance.
“Háálá Ayóo Diyin” was composed by a family group called the Kinlichini Singers. This traveling group was formed in the 1980s and sponsored by the Southern Baptist denominational mission. It comprised the children of two sisters, cousins who would be classed, in Navajo kinship reckoning, as brothers and sisters. Ranging in age from teenagers to young adults at the time, the Kinlichini Singers traveled around the Navajo nation in a large bus (provided by the Baptist denomination) covered in psychedelic paintings and the words “American Indian Gospel Movement.” They journeyed to remote areas and conducted revivals, setting up a generator and getting out their guitars.
“Háálá Ayóo Diyin” arose out of the creative energy of this group as its members traveled, rehearsed, and played together. Although there is some contention about who composed which parts of the song, it would not exist at all without the combined energies of Raymond Begay (now an elected representative to the state legislature), his brother Russel Begay, his sister Alice Norton, and his “cousin-sister” Julia Redhouse.
Structurally, “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” includes extensive use of repetition and what Raymond Begay describes as “short phrase beats” (1-2, 1-2) characteristic of Navajo “social song and dance” (2008). Although it is composed linearly, its highly repetitive structure allows for a certain degree of flexibility in performance. During my research, I heard this song performed a number of ways, from a simple chorus-bridge-chorus form to a more complex mix of chorus, bridge, and nonlinear verse choices. This type of free, nonlinear repetition allows “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” to be performed as a praise song, with an emergent form based on the interaction between the resources of the performer and the interest of the audience (Bauman 1975).
The song is lyrically noncomplex, emphasizing a few main ideas. Although Navajo lyrics and English translation are provided below, this is not a bilingual song. This is a song composed and exclusively performed in Navajo. The English translation is given here for English readers, but it is an artificial creation, not an ethnographic reality.
Chorus |
|
Háálá Ayóo Diyin |
Oh how holy |
Doo lá dó’ nizhóní da |
And amazingly beautiful |
Háálá... Háálá Ayóo Diyin |
How very, very holy |
Jesus Ayóo Diyin |
Jesus, very holy |
doo lá dó’ nizhóní da |
And amazingly beautiful |
Háálá... Háálá Ayóo Diyin |
How very, very holy |
Verse 1 |
|
Jesus yisdá shííłtxí˛ |
Jesus saved me |
doo lá dó’ nizhóní da |
How very beautiful |
Háálá... háálá Ayóo Diyin |
How very, very holy |
Jesus healed me |
|
doo lá dó’ nizhóní da |
How very beautiful |
Háálá... háálá Ayóo Diyin |
How very, very holy |
Chorus |
|
Verse 2 |
|
Jesus ayóo shik’is |
Jesus is my best friend |
t’áá íyisí shik’is |
Without a doubt, my friend |
Háálá... háálá Ayóo Diyin |
How very, very holy |
Jesus baa hashniih |
Jesus I praise |
t’áábí baa hashniih |
He, himself, I praise |
Háálá... háálá Ayóo Diyin |
How very, very holy |
Chorus |
|
Bridge |
|
hiiná, hiiná dooleeł |
He is alive, he is alive |
hiiná, hiiná dooleeł |
He is alive, he is alive |
.... Lá |
.... because of it |
Verse 3 |
|
Jesus Nánádááh |
Jesus will return |
doo lá dó’ nizhóní da |
How very beautiful |
Háálá... háálá Ayóo Diyin |
How very, very holy |
[Repeat] |
|
Chorus |
|
Verse 4 |
|
Jesus ayóo’ó shó’ní |
Jesus loves me so much |
doo lá dó’ nizhóní da |
How very beautiful |
Háálá... háálá Ayóo Diyin |
How very, very holy |
[Repeat] |
|
Chorus |
The key to understanding the success of “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” lies in our ability to see how it resonates. The concept of resonance I am using is a musical one, an acoustical principle that explains how certain vibrations amplify other vibrations, but without assuming identical frequencies. Resonating chambers (such as the hollow body of a guitar or violin) amplify the sound of a plucked or bowed string. The resonant frequencies of a wine glass and the voice of an opera singer are the physical properties that explain her ability to shatter the object. And brass instruments produce sound based on the alignment between the harmonic overtone series (a mathematical arrangement of related sound waves) and the vibrations of the column of air inside the horn. When these “resonant peaks” are achieved, the instrument produces a clear, well-focused, rich, and amplified sound (Myers 1997, 21). The sense of something new amplifying something else is key to both the formal and informal concept of resonance.
Taking music as a metaphor for culture and imagining that all expressive practices hum with meaning, I argue that sometimes new practices are adopted because they resonate with existing practices, without necessarily taking on the meaning of those existing practices. A similar concept is David Smilde’s “imaginative rationality,” which explains culture change by arguing that we interpret meaning of new domains through reference to “a relatively better known domain” (2007, 215). The similarity between the two domains is important, but it should not be mistaken for “replacement.”
Resonance helps explain the meaning shifts that are happening specifically within expressive culture (music, oratory, ritual, and so forth) in situations of culture change. The aesthetic practices of expressive culture are a realm in which the sense of something being “similar but different” gains a powerful expression. In situations of culture change as dramatic as Pentecostal conversion, the “feeling for form” that Michael Owen Jones (1987) identifies as one of the hallmarks of aesthetics can remain the same while the meanings can change very greatly.
“Háálá Ayóo Diyin” resonates with traditional Navajo expressive culture in two important ways. First is its use of incremental repetition. A well-known hallmark of complex oral literature such as traditional Navajo ceremonials, incremental repetition aids with the memorization of long texts by altering the verses only slightly at each iteration. Raymond Begay (2008) calls this a “soaking quality,” like the gentle soaking rain Navajos call “female rain.” The “soaking quality” of incremental repetition can be seen in a well-known Navajo daily prayer:
With beauty before me, I walk.
With beauty behind me, I walk.
With beauty above me, I walk.
With beauty below me, I walk.
From the East beauty has been restored.
From the South beauty has been restored.
From the West beauty has been restored.
From the North beauty has been restored.
From the zenith of the sky beauty has been restored.
From the nadir of the earth beauty has been restored.
All around me beauty has been restored.
(Witherspoon 1977, 153–54)
In this text, the repetation of the formula “With beauty , I walk” is incrementally altered with the four modifying phrases: “before me,” “behind me,” “above me,” “below me.” This pattern of incremental repetition is used extensively in the text of Navajo ceremonials, as has been documented by Wyman (1975), Haile (1938), and Matthews (1995). In “Háálá Ayóo Diyin,” incremental repetition appears in the slight alteration of the first line of each verse, with the second and third lines remaining nearly identical. The slight alteration of the first line is a repetition of the many things that Jesus “does” for the faithful. Therefore “Jesus ” is altered at each repetition with the modifying phrases ayóo diyin (is so holy), yisdá shííłtxí˛ (saved me), ná shííłdzíí’ (healed me), ayóo shik’is (is my best friend), Nánádááh (will return), and ayóo shó’ni (loves me).
Like a traditional prayer, “Háálá Ayóo Diyin,” with its incremental repetition, has a soaking quality, a connection that Begay (2008) has explicitly pointed out. The parallel structure of “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” and traditional Navajo prayer does not represent simple cultural continuity, however, because the meanings expressed by the two songs are very different. Incremental repetition is used in “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” to express the very Christian ideas of salvation, healing, and blessings through Christ, as well as the Rapture, rather than beauty and harmony. This song emphasizes concepts at the very core of Navajo Pentecostal Christianity. The key idea behind resonance is that although the aesthetics of the form remain the same, the meanings have changed and, in the case of Pentecostal Christianity, changed dramatically.
The other major way in which “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” represents a point of resonance is through its “Native feel.” Begay (2008) claims that the “melody” for this song was taken from a Cree chant by Jimmy Anderson that he heard while at college in California. Furthermore, the melody for the bridge (hiiná) was taken from a song by Red Bone, a Native American popular music group from the 1970s. These musical influences give “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” a non-Western feeling that resonates with Navajo converts; it feels somewhat more familiar than the songs derived from Western vertical harmony. The appeal of the “Native feel” in “Háálá Ayóo Diyin,” however, is that it is generically “Native,” not specifically Navajo. Thus, the danger of new composition in Navajo (that is, sounding like “medicine man chant”) is mitigated by using the musical traditions of other tribes and Native pop culture. In incorporating pan-Indian musical influences, “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” succeeds where other new composition in Oodlání contexts fails. The Native influences are similar enough to resonate but different enough to allow for the attachment of new meanings. These two points of resonance provide the familiarity that “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” needed to become popular, while maintaining a safe distance from Navajo traditional religion—the ingredients necessary for the success of this Navajo Christian musical composition.
The success of “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” is unique because this song alone has been able to capitalize on the productivity of resonance. The Navajo language is a common medium of creative expression among Diné Oodlání. However, creative use of this language has largely not translated to musical composition, primarily due to important theological barriers constructed by Oodlání between Christianity and traditional religion.
“Háálá Ayóo Diyin” has been successful because its emotional force has been amplified by related Navajo musical practices. In this sense, resonance is a way of understanding the aspects of continuity that are nearly always a facet of culture change. Resonance, however, speaks to change as much as continuity. Regardless of how strong the bridge formed by expressive culture is, the destination is a different realm. The paradoxical nature of “Háálá Ayóo Diyin” lies in the fact that far from attempting to forge cultural continuity through the expressive use of the Navajo language, this song emphasizes dramatic cultural change.
For their helpful comments on this essay, I thank the WRKD faculty writing group at the University of Oklahoma. Thanks also to Charlotte Frisbie, Ruth Stone, Anya Royce, Richard Bauman, and Jason Jackson for comments on an earlier version of the essay. Mistakes are still mine. Ronald Maldonado of the Navajo Nation Office of Historic Preservation has been consistently helpful in guiding me through the acquisition of proper permissions and reporting. I am grateful for the financial support of the Liebmann Fellowship Foundation, the Skomp Fund of the Indiana University Department of Anthropology, and the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences. As always, I am especially indebted to the members and leadership of Pastor Wallace’s church. Ahéhee’.
1. Research for this chapter was conducted under Navajo Nation ethnographic research permit #C0614-E, and prepublication approval was obtained from the Navajo Nation Office of Historic Preservation. This chapter draws on fieldwork I have conducted with a Navajo-led neo-Pentecostal church in northwestern New Mexico since 2006. Given Christianity’s contentious and colonial history within Native American communities, I will clarify that I am not a missionary but an ethnographer, and I describe a movement that is led not by Anglos or outsiders but by a small but vocal minority of Navajos. My research is descriptive, not prescriptive, and I am exploring the musical contestation that exists, not recommending musical best practices for the service of Christian mission.
2. Arguments for the inherently pluralistic nature of Navajo religion have also been made by Aberle and Stewart (1957), Blanchard (1977), and Frisbie (1987, 1992).
3. Milne’s demographic data was gathered during a random-sample and Navajo Nation–wide survey about Navajo attitudes toward renewed uranium mining in 2000. Milne reports that of the 30 percent of respondents reporting exclusive practice of Christianity, Pentecostalism was the most popular form, followed by Mormonism and Catholicism, and that these three accounted for almost 90 percent of the Christian total (2011, 527).
4. Neo-Pentecostalism is a global religious movement that practices charismatic manifestations of faith (for example, speaking in tongues) but that, unlike historical Pentecostalism, operates without central organization or denominational affiliation. It has been the driving theology behind the spreading Oodlání movement, in which believers align themselves with independent Navajo pastors, not denominations.
5. The opposition by Oodlání pastors to Navajo traditional religion is well documented in my own work (Marshall 2011) and the work of others (Frisbie 1987, 206; Lewton and Bydone 2000, 488; Schwarz 2008, 262), in direct contrast to the claims of Pavlik that, with Navajo pastors, “the usually antitraditionalism message of the Fundamentalist movement is often toned down or eliminated” (1997, 50).
6. Milne (2011) has pointed out the artificiality of this Navajo Pentecostal construction of “tradition.”
7. The enclitic “-jí” is typically attached to the Navajo word for the ceremony’s purpose (Frisbie 1992, 461).
8. In fact, Baldridge’s main goal seems to be providing biblical justification to counter these Navajo objections to Stoner’s project.
9. Samuels is quite concerned that eliminating the performative aspects of the Apache language in order to please Christian parents reduces the Apache language to a referential system of words “to identify objects.” This robs the language of its power and, he argues, will have disastrous consequences for language revitalization efforts (2006, 551).
10. Interestingly, many of my informants have directly contradicted the claims of Baldridge and Stoner, claiming that they can understand the Navajo words in hymns even without the high and low tones.
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