Language and Art in the Navajo Universe [Paperback]

Gary Witherspoon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 1977 | ISBN-10: 0472089668 | ISBN-13: 978-0472089666

Studies Navajo culture as reflected in its art and use of language

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press (November 15, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0472089668
• ISBN-13: 978-0472089666
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a phenomenal book, August 14, 2009

By 

kaioatey (Awatovi, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Language and Art in the Navajo Universe (Paperback)

Witherspoon, a professor at the Univ. of Michigan, uses language as an entry way into a world-view and a way of Being that is totally alien to many if not most, Anglos. The Navajo universe was created and organized through language as the thought, conceived by Holy Beings, was projected onto the primordial unordered substance through the compulsive power of speech and song. Language then, is an energetic medium that affects the very entrails of reality. Thought then, for a Navajo, is a creative tool for ordering reality. That's why the ability to speak eloquently, and think beautiful & creative thoughts, is highly praised. A child acquires human status only after it has started to speak.

In this book i've found excellent descriptions of the Blessingway ceremony and various other curing rites (designed to recreate the world through myth, song, prayer and language). This includes the best (by far) explanation of the famous Navajo phrase "sa'ah naaghaii bik'eh hozho" that Navajos use to refer to a "beautiful, pleasant and healthy environment". The phrase which represent a maelstrom of meanings is firmly rooted into Navajo mythology and thus often considered untranslatable. Moreover, Clyde Kluckhohn (the 'grandfather of Navajo anthropology) often says that English lacks terms that have simultaneously moral and aesthetic meanings and hence cannot be used to comprehend Navajos.

Witherspoon tells us that the principal verb in the Navajo language is not "to be" like in many other languages (including ours); "to be" is of minor importance in Navajo. Instead, the Navajo language contains some 356,200 distinct conjugations of the verb "to go", reflecting emphasis on movement and change. Movement, song, speech and life are, for a Navajo, inseparably linked. What does such ordering of the world - in terms of change and movement, instead of the emphasis on the "self" - mean for the Navajo sense of being in the world? W. explains it all in this fascinating, hard-to-put-down book.

The book includes much analysis of genealogical terms and their relationships based on sex, generation, relative age and relative distance. Being born into a clan fixes the social context of the person clearly, precisely and unalterably while the language terms used to negotiate the social and spiritual interactions change depending on the context (the brilliant discussion of k'e terms in Chapter 3). In other words, the Navajo language is analyzed and investigated by W. as an organic aspect of a culture, its evolution and its mythos. This is cultural anthropology & linguistics at its best. A few quotes to get the sense of the book (P.151):

"For the Navajo, beauty is not so much in the eye of the beholder as it is in the mind of its creator and in creator's relationship to the created. The Navajo does not look for beauty; he generates it within himself and projects it onto the universe. Beauty is a creation of thought....[...]..the Navajo experience beauty primarily through expression and creation, not through perception and preservation. In the Western world beauty as a quality of things to be perceived is, in essence, static; to the Navajo, however, beauty is an essential condition of man's life and is dynamic. It is not in things so much as it is in the dynamic relationships among things and between man and things. Man experiences beauty by creating it.

With regard to the two different views of art it is not surprising that Navajo society is one of artists (art creators) while Anglo society consists primarily of nonartists who view art (art consumers). The Navajo find it incomprehensible that we have more art critics than we have artists, and more art collectors than we have art creators (sic!). Nearly all Navajo's are artists and spend a large part of their time in artistic creation. All Navajos are singers and most Navajos have composed many songs."

A healthy resepct for language, its relationship to thought and natural environment also allows for intimacy between man and Earth. Witherspoon writes: "Four times I observed the rain ceremony performed on days with clear skies, and each time it rained within 12 hours of the conclusion of the rite, which lasted only a few hours. Only once, however, was the rain significant enough to be of some help"

and so on. very cool. very informative. The book is prefaced by no other than Clifford Geertz! One conclusion reached by GW is that Navajo art and thought have much to offer contemporary philosophy, art and spirituality and to our understanding of connections between mental and physical phenomena. by looking into the symbolic dimensions of language we dive directly into the primordial origin of thought and its relationship to reality, to what is real. Witherspoon knows this & presents it beautifully. highly recommended.

9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An analysis of symbols in Navajo cultural constructs., December 17, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Language and Art in the Navajo Universe (Paperback)

Witherspoon approaches his study of Navajo culture with the assumption that there exists some basic tenet of the Navajo cultural system that is all-enduring, but that it is the surface dynamism of this culture that characterizes the adaptability of the Navajo people. Witherspoon spent fifteen years living with the Navajo, and his experience in their language comes more from his work as a teacher and in other personal roles than from anthropological research. He sustains that there is a cultural chasm that separates Navajo culture and Western culture. Different languages contribute to this chasm, as does ritual, a large part of the behavior that non-Navajos do not seem to understand. The question of why rituals are carried out in the way that they are garners typical responses of non-Navajos. Most often, non-Navajos claim that ritual continues because of religious prescription. The curing of ailments by ritual is dismissed as coincidence and psychosomatic effect. Witherspoon argues that these conclusions are not valid because they are made in the viewer's frame of analysis rather than that of the Navajo. "Navajo acts arise out of their world and make sense within it" (15). Language and Art in the Navajo Universe aims to bridge the gap between Western and Navajo cultures.