Posted by Shonto Begay on Sep 27, 2012

As another season of harvest and preparation for colder weather begins, my mind cannot help but wander back to the days of innocence lost, courtesy of my Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school experience. School resumed for another year and with it came the pained expectation of family separations and abuses at the hands of the B.I.A. officials and my...

Posted by Shonto Begay on Aug 23, 2012

A colorfully dressed young cowboy with a slight limp shuffled past me. I stood with one hand on the railings of the rodeo corral. I had come to see a friend I haven’t seen since my boarding school days. Seven years? The drone of the announcer’s amplified voice wore on: “Now out of chute four, we have a cowboy from Red Lake, Arizona, ‘Ba ahii da’ had’. Clap...

Posted by Shonto Begay on Jun 21, 2012

Sunday past was Father’s Day, a day set aside to honor the adult man in our lives—the constant source of strength and wrath. Our fathers. Growing up on the Dineh’ land of the 1960s, I do not recall any celebration for these ties. Summer set in and the dry and dusty days multiplied as my father’s voice echoed throughout the sheep camp. He sang loudly as he...

Posted by Shonto Begay on May 10, 2012

Gazing across the vast and dusty Klethla Valley, my young eyes saw the boundaries of my world where the looming Black Mesa meets the sky, blue and eternal. The last stubborn remnant of snow patches hid away beneath the thick junipers. The sun traveled ever so slightly back towards the north; warming days reminded us that planting time was upon us soon. I...

Posted by Shonto Begay on Mar 15, 2012

I have a view from here, “y’aa.” What a view. My three sisters, they shine in the distance. “Sis na Jinni’” (Mt. Blanco to the east), “So Dzil’ (Mt. Taylor to the south), “Di be’ N’tsaa” (Hesperus peak to the north). My view has clouds today, like cataracts outside of my eyes. Like clouds bearing no rain. It is hard to hold onto ice, onto “Ke’sh je’”...