John R. Farella
Author of The Main Stalk: A Synthesis of Navajo Philosophy
Works by John R. Farella
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The Main Stalk serves as seminal text in my effort at a holistic conception of the Navajo Way. As non-Diné and not a Navajo speaker, any insight into Navajo metaphysics was always going to be wholly reliant on secondary sources. Compelling as many accounts proved, they never led to more than a ragged inventory of proper names, seemingly random terminology, and a confused acquaintance with stories. Farella, by contrast, provides a metaphysical primer, similar to what I look for when show more grounding myself in Continental or Post-Modern philosophies.
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Farella observes: for the Diné, the sacred is an attribute both acquired and in principle available to everyone; and, is fundamentally creative in nature.
Farella follows his initial observation to posit Sana Nagai Bike Hozoni as the central concept or symbol of the Navajo Way, "a vital requisite for understanding the whole." [153] He is not alone in this claim, the trick isn’t identifying this from among all the distinctive ideas held by the Diné. The trick seems to be one of translation as much as understanding, with the phrase or term encompassing almost everything spoken about in Navajo philosophy. At a general level, "everything in the universe" is about Sana Nagai Bike Hozoni. [157] Yet acknowledging its broad relevance doesn't require emptying the term of specific meaning, nor render every conceivable use equally correct.
• Notably, the phrase is transliterated many ways: with diacriticals, without them, with various spelling transmutations, and related to but distinct from the concept hózhó.
• "Traditionally translated as 'Long life and happiness'." (flyleaf to Farella book)
• Also glossed "long life, in accordance with happiness and harmony".
• A broader take (not quoted by Farella though consistent with his discussion): “The goal of Navajo life in this world is to live to maturity in the condition described as hozho, and to die of old age, the end result of which incorporates one into the universal beauty, harmony, and happiness."
• I kept returning to an old story of a difference between cats and dogs: when we point at something, a dog looks where we point, but a cat looks instead at our finger. There seems to be an element of this with anthropologists and Sana Nagai Bike Hozoni. They insist upon examining the finger, and in doing so miss that at which the Diné are pointing. (An ironic parable, as evidently the Diné consider it rude to point with their fingers.)
Most of Farella's discussion introduces various prerequisites to his interpretation, and examining aspects of their place in Navajo culture. The synthetic outline of Sana Nagai Bike Hozoni closes the book, and to my mind amounts to recapitulation of the pieces more than a presentation of new ideas. In fact, a review of the competing approaches to understanding the term as argued by various anthropologists takes many more column inches than Farella's own material. Farella's contribution is not a novel idea or set of translations; it is the emphasis and de-emphasis provided to existing accounts. (Appreciation of earlier accounts is deepened more than new ideas added to them.)
//
The chantway is the Diné singer’s means for ritual exercise of the singer’s knowledge. Corresponding to hózhó is the rite of Blessingway, a typical gloss for Hózhǫ́ǫ́jí or Hózhójí.
Like any culture or philosophical system, the Navajo Way relies upon a sophisticated understanding of concepts and behaviours. A problem faced by Diné today is that few of them understand the Navajo Way to any comprehensive depth (reading "few" as relative to that time predating Federal reservations).
When culture is 'lost', as the anthropologists like to put it, or when it erodes, it is the synthetic knowledge or the meaning that goes first. Without this knowledge, nothing else in the culture, especially the ritual, can make any sense. [...] Access to cultural synthesis is through a people's key or central symbols, the concepts that unify. [14]
• Synthetic understanding provides expanded choice to Diné attempting to find ritual solutions to problems; singers have a better grasp of which chantways might apply to atypical or ambivalent situations.
• Crucially, such understanding also is the means for selecting between choices.
• Absent this synthetic view, ritual gets caught up in technique or appeals to authority when making choices or facing disagreements.
• Similarly, absent such an understanding, anthropologists appear to have been reduced to disagreement and appeal to authority in their efforts at understanding the Navajo Way, generally, and specifically understanding the touchstone Sana Nagai Bike Hozoni.
//
An abiding concern of the stories relayed by the Diné is that of creation. Not merely the creation of the Diné, but of the world they live in (it is the same world we live in), and the appropriate way to carry oneself in light of the way that world works. In contrast to other religion’s origin stories, it is central to how the Diné live their daily lives, and how ritual knowledge is exercised.
The overriding theme … of all the stories is the creation of a way of life that will last. But, paradoxically, continuation can be assured only if change is built into the system. [102]
• While Diné will use chantways and sings as means for altering circumstances so as to be more favourable (applying technology to the situation), Farella argues a more fundamental approach is to use ritual to change the person to align with the world (applying epistemology to the person).
• Navajo stories provide the audience with lessons on how to bring about a way of life that is sustainable and self-generating; they also depict the Holy People as themselves learning those lessons (metalogue). Initially First Man and First Woman learn how to do this; then they pass on this knowledge and ritual practice to Changing Woman, who embodies cyclical change (aligned with seasons, other phenomena). Diné today appeal to Changing Woman when enacting the rituals themselves, not to First Man or First Woman.
• A basic tenet of the Navajo Way is that selfish behaviour also should be social; that is, individuals acting for their personal benefit should operate within a context in which such behaviour benefits the community. This is the way of life that the Navajo Way seeks to enact, the circumstances which are needed for life to be lived well. Such a system requires non-zero sum context, sufficient space and resources for individual actions to be non-competitive. (The contemporary context of Federal reservations is, unsurprisingly, not ideal for the Navajo Way.)
//
An aside: Reflecting on Farella's argument and other sources on the Navajo Way, I am struck by an affinity between the Diné insistence on individuated ("selfish") expression within a strong kinship system (It is up to him), and Thelema's emphasis upon personal authority within an initiatory framework (Do What Thou Wilt). Similarly, there are ready parallels between Magickal efforts to realise individual Will, and Diné ritual efforts to exercise knowledge (chantways). Intriguing, then, to consider "Love is the Law, Love under Will" as one interpretation of an outlook separately expressed in the Navajo Way. show less
//
Farella observes: for the Diné, the sacred is an attribute both acquired and in principle available to everyone; and, is fundamentally creative in nature.
It is the possession of knowledge that makes one "divine." Rather than "divineness" existing as an inseparable attribute of a being, it is acquired, and it is a quality or ability that one may choose to use or not to use. [26]
First and foremost of these "supernatural" features is the creative ability .... Further, everything that exists has, for the Navajo, been created. This includes emotions, animate beings, natural phenomena, knowledge, language, places, states (like birth and death), everything. But, acts of creation do not just happen; they are achieved ritually, and the successful creative ritual performance depends on acquiring a large body of rather precise knowledge. [26-27]
This creative process is, in fact, continually replicated today -- not just by the gods but more commonly by men. It consists simply of the acquisition and the ritual exercise of knowledge. [27]
Farella follows his initial observation to posit Sana Nagai Bike Hozoni as the central concept or symbol of the Navajo Way, "a vital requisite for understanding the whole." [153] He is not alone in this claim, the trick isn’t identifying this from among all the distinctive ideas held by the Diné. The trick seems to be one of translation as much as understanding, with the phrase or term encompassing almost everything spoken about in Navajo philosophy. At a general level, "everything in the universe" is about Sana Nagai Bike Hozoni. [157] Yet acknowledging its broad relevance doesn't require emptying the term of specific meaning, nor render every conceivable use equally correct.
• Notably, the phrase is transliterated many ways: with diacriticals, without them, with various spelling transmutations, and related to but distinct from the concept hózhó.
• "Traditionally translated as 'Long life and happiness'." (flyleaf to Farella book)
• Also glossed "long life, in accordance with happiness and harmony".
• A broader take (not quoted by Farella though consistent with his discussion): “The goal of Navajo life in this world is to live to maturity in the condition described as hozho, and to die of old age, the end result of which incorporates one into the universal beauty, harmony, and happiness."
• I kept returning to an old story of a difference between cats and dogs: when we point at something, a dog looks where we point, but a cat looks instead at our finger. There seems to be an element of this with anthropologists and Sana Nagai Bike Hozoni. They insist upon examining the finger, and in doing so miss that at which the Diné are pointing. (An ironic parable, as evidently the Diné consider it rude to point with their fingers.)
Most of Farella's discussion introduces various prerequisites to his interpretation, and examining aspects of their place in Navajo culture. The synthetic outline of Sana Nagai Bike Hozoni closes the book, and to my mind amounts to recapitulation of the pieces more than a presentation of new ideas. In fact, a review of the competing approaches to understanding the term as argued by various anthropologists takes many more column inches than Farella's own material. Farella's contribution is not a novel idea or set of translations; it is the emphasis and de-emphasis provided to existing accounts. (Appreciation of earlier accounts is deepened more than new ideas added to them.)
//
The chantway is the Diné singer’s means for ritual exercise of the singer’s knowledge. Corresponding to hózhó is the rite of Blessingway, a typical gloss for Hózhǫ́ǫ́jí or Hózhójí.
Like any culture or philosophical system, the Navajo Way relies upon a sophisticated understanding of concepts and behaviours. A problem faced by Diné today is that few of them understand the Navajo Way to any comprehensive depth (reading "few" as relative to that time predating Federal reservations).
When culture is 'lost', as the anthropologists like to put it, or when it erodes, it is the synthetic knowledge or the meaning that goes first. Without this knowledge, nothing else in the culture, especially the ritual, can make any sense. [...] Access to cultural synthesis is through a people's key or central symbols, the concepts that unify. [14]
• Synthetic understanding provides expanded choice to Diné attempting to find ritual solutions to problems; singers have a better grasp of which chantways might apply to atypical or ambivalent situations.
• Crucially, such understanding also is the means for selecting between choices.
• Absent this synthetic view, ritual gets caught up in technique or appeals to authority when making choices or facing disagreements.
• Similarly, absent such an understanding, anthropologists appear to have been reduced to disagreement and appeal to authority in their efforts at understanding the Navajo Way, generally, and specifically understanding the touchstone Sana Nagai Bike Hozoni.
//
An abiding concern of the stories relayed by the Diné is that of creation. Not merely the creation of the Diné, but of the world they live in (it is the same world we live in), and the appropriate way to carry oneself in light of the way that world works. In contrast to other religion’s origin stories, it is central to how the Diné live their daily lives, and how ritual knowledge is exercised.
The overriding theme … of all the stories is the creation of a way of life that will last. But, paradoxically, continuation can be assured only if change is built into the system. [102]
• While Diné will use chantways and sings as means for altering circumstances so as to be more favourable (applying technology to the situation), Farella argues a more fundamental approach is to use ritual to change the person to align with the world (applying epistemology to the person).
• Navajo stories provide the audience with lessons on how to bring about a way of life that is sustainable and self-generating; they also depict the Holy People as themselves learning those lessons (metalogue). Initially First Man and First Woman learn how to do this; then they pass on this knowledge and ritual practice to Changing Woman, who embodies cyclical change (aligned with seasons, other phenomena). Diné today appeal to Changing Woman when enacting the rituals themselves, not to First Man or First Woman.
• A basic tenet of the Navajo Way is that selfish behaviour also should be social; that is, individuals acting for their personal benefit should operate within a context in which such behaviour benefits the community. This is the way of life that the Navajo Way seeks to enact, the circumstances which are needed for life to be lived well. Such a system requires non-zero sum context, sufficient space and resources for individual actions to be non-competitive. (The contemporary context of Federal reservations is, unsurprisingly, not ideal for the Navajo Way.)
The Navajos are not especially good at material culture, nor are they in the linguistic habit of describing their world concretely. Archaeologists and linguists who have studied them will tell you that. They are good at ideas, however. A primary theme in their stories is the acquisition and loss of knowledge, the point being that all things that come into existence last for only so long and then cease to exist. The acquiring of wisdom as one ages has to do with the acceptance of this process. Thus, our attempts at preservation deny the basis of the world view that we are supposedly preserving. [19]
//
An aside: Reflecting on Farella's argument and other sources on the Navajo Way, I am struck by an affinity between the Diné insistence on individuated ("selfish") expression within a strong kinship system (It is up to him), and Thelema's emphasis upon personal authority within an initiatory framework (Do What Thou Wilt). Similarly, there are ready parallels between Magickal efforts to realise individual Will, and Diné ritual efforts to exercise knowledge (chantways). Intriguing, then, to consider "Love is the Law, Love under Will" as one interpretation of an outlook separately expressed in the Navajo Way. show less
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