Envisioning

Live, Work, Govern Using Diné Fundamental Law

Monday, Aug 5, 2024, Twin Arrows

Flyer/Schedule

Reading Material: 15-page excerpt from ABA article

Recordings fromAug 5 and 6

MORNING SESSION

to be uploaded

AFTERNOON SESSION

to be uploaded

The below video was made from a live panel presentation on Tuesday, August 6, 2024 at The Navajo Nation Plant & Animal Summit organized by the Navajo Nation Dept. of Fish and Wildlife at Twin Arrows Navajo Resort.

Envisioning Legal Frameworks

Every Diné knows that the Diné Fundamental Law has long been under great stresses. The immutable law remains unknown to lawyers. Younger generations struggle to find support for knowing their own language, in which our immutable laws are conveyed. Nonprofits of various kinds present Diné wellness models as if they are entirely separate from principles of governing. Or, nonprofits address single topics of urgent importance to our people, such as food sovereignty or water conservation, without joining together to repair our whole way of life. All generations want historical teamwork to be restored, which is what k’é and hózhǫ really means. Yet none of it is understood fully by the lawyers, non-profits, youngsters, and even those many elders among us who were subjected to having wisdom and knowledge wiped out in boarding schools.

Shortly, on August 5 at Twin Arrows, we will be coming together in a forum to tell each other our legal and principled frameworks so that, at the very least, the foundations of Diné Fundamental Law will be in the minds of both lawyers and the people. This is in order that both may get to work to relieve the stresses that have long been on Diné cultural practices. These stresses include generational efforts by the federal government to wipe out knowledge among the Diné people. The forum, entitled “Live, Work, Govern using Diné Fundamental Law,” will kick off a partnership between the Diné people and lawyers who acknowledge the western system’s flaws, and who believe the Diné people have more than sufficient cause to be suspicious of such lawyers. However, suspicions must be set aside. We are at a critical time not only for permanent loss of Diné cultural being–the loss of LIVING Diné ways–but also at a time of great danger for Mother Earth and her beloved creatures.

The lawyers and planners who will be present at Twin Arrows are from Pace University Law School’s Land Use Law Center, from a premier cooperative law firm which helped draft legislation for cooperative law in California, and from the USDA–Strengthening Co-op Capacity for Historically Underserved Farmers program. What they will all be saying is, “We’re in.” We are in with getting behind tribal envisioning expressed by the Diné people themselves, to set aside legal frameworks that oppress that vision, and come up with new frameworks that need such an envisioning in order to come into being.

— Retired Chief Justice Herb Yazzie, Navajo Times, July 25, 2024

Envisioning Community Livestock & Governance

Very recently in December 2023, UNESCO recognized the communal seasonal movement of livestock (termed “transhumance”) as an intangible world heritage in need of protection. Such communal livestock movement in Diné communities has been long constrained. The world only now recognizes that such movement needs to be protected.

Movement means growth, agility, and interconnectedness of all living beings. Such movement cannot be added to a structured system that is built to resist movement. Structure should be added as a framework after patterns and practices are understood. Click here for reading materials.

There are ways to use words to bewilder people, which lawyers often do. There are also ways to use words to restore balance. Barriers to acting may be legal, emotional, and historical. We are trying to find pathways to do the acts we need to do to restore balance. This includes restoring animals to the land and disentangling the legal barriers. Energy may also be put in communal stewardship through highly localized management of food waste and manure of animals that help Mother Earth and support circular energy production. Localizing animals and energy also means local governance. It can be done.

Discussion Leaders

Discussions will be led by retired Navajo Nation judges and land managers who have worked for the Diné people for generations as well as lawyers and planners who are willing to learn, and who have dedicated their life to the well-being of communal spirit and Mother Earth. This forum will begin conversations that we hope will long continue.

Forum sponsors:

Indian Country Grassroots Support
Diné College Land Grant Office
Pace University Elizabeth Haub School of Law, Land Use Law Center
USDA — Strengthening Co-op Capacity for Historically Underserved Farmers

Envisioning 102 Years from Now

At last year’s Envisioning Diné Bikeyah For Our Families 102 Years From Now conference in Window Rock, families voiced hope for the continuance of language, communal livestock teamwork, and communication between generations. Visions of kids included this painting by Kyleigh Garter from Naschitti–the left side is how it is now, blank. The right side is her dream of what Diné Bikeyah will be and also what it was in the beginnning.

The Window Rock forum last year “felt like a family gathering, like real good ceremony.” (Bahe Katenay, Big Mountain).