Navajo Native American Tribe Essay

Compare, Contrast, and Appreciate The Navajo Native American tribe, have three different ceremonies dedicated to healing the body, mind, and soul titled: The Night way ceremony, The Enemy way ceremony, and the Shooting way ceremony. Each are performed for different reasons. The Night Way ceremony, is performed for the healing of one’s body, it consists of nine nights of all night rituals. Including dancers wearing masks and costumes pretending to be ancestral spirits, participants singing the “language” of the sprits, teams competing for prizes, purification through sweat lodges, as well as dehydration to induce fever and ultimately cause hallucinations. The music performed in this ceremony includes using shakers/maracas to keep a steady

The (w)holistic ceremonies of the Navajo differ from each other as they’re meant to treat different parts of the person so it’s only natural that they’re very different. For example, each ceremony requires a different setting and different type of vocals. In Night Way, you have men using falsetto, where during Shooting Way, the men only use a medium vocal range. However, they’re all similar, during each ceremony only men are singing and each ceremony is dedicated to healing a specific part of a person to heal said person or people as a whole. Although, I can appreciate and relate to several different aspects and parts of the Navajo ceremonies. For example, in the Night Way ceremony they used a sweat lodge to help heal the body. Sweating helps release toxins out of the body, though people don’t typically use sweat lodges to help them now; one may bundle up in covers to help “break” their fever. Enemy Way is basically a ceremony to help those suffering from PTSD, we also have group meetings to help those suffering from PTSD as well. We also have yoga to help people feel closer and in balance with nature similar to the Shooting Way