Waterbird's Nest: Brown Receives Scholarship for Navajo Language Study

Dale Auger

Dale Auger: On Art, Blood and Kindred Spirits
by Terri Mason

Defining Dale Auger in one sentence is akin to releasing the colours of a diamond in one cut. It can’t be done. It’s the many facets that release a diamond’s true brilliance, as it is the many facets of Auger’s life, education, ancestry, experiences and beliefs that have shaped and polished his work into the internationally acclaimed and collected artist that he is today.

Born a Sakaw Cree from the Bigstone Cree Nation in northern Alberta, Auger’s education began as a young boy when his mother would take him to be with the elders. “I used to say to myself, ‘Why is she leaving me with these old people?’ – but today I see the reason; I was being taught in the old way.”

Auger’s respect for traditional teachings led him on a journey to study art, opening the door to a doctorate in education. He is a talented playwright, speaker and visual artist whose vividly coloured acrylics have captured the attention of collectors that reads like an international ‘Who’s Who’ spanning English to Hollywood royalty. The essence of his work is communication, and now Dr. Auger has come full circle, interpreting the life of his culture – from the everyday to the sacred - through the cross-cultural medium of art.

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http://www.daleauger.com/printversionbio.cfm

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Brown Receives Scholarship for Navajo Language Study

By: Carolyn Gonzales

Tavish Brown grew up in Naschitti, N.M., located between Gallup and Shiprock on the Navajo reservation. While still a student at Newcomb High School, where he graduated in 2005, Brown knew what he wanted to do: study the Navajo language. Brown is the UNM undergraduate recipient of the 2007 Robert W. Young Scholarship, which supports students studying Native American linguistics.

“Barbara Howard was my high school Navajo teacher. She told me that she was getting old and that I should learn Navajo and come back and take her spot,” Brown recalled. Howard also encouraged Brown to form a Navajo dance group at the school, which he did. Called T’iis Nideesghizh Bitsoόké, or “Grandchildren of Newcomb,” the group was influenced by the Dinétah Navajo Dancers; Brown is now one of their performers.

Brown speaks highly of the Navajo language program at UNM. “Ms. [Roseann] Willink helps us with difficult words, tongue twister words. She breaks them down, explains their history. She also explains the difference between some Navajo words used in New Mexico and those used by Navajos in Arizona,” he said.

Willink also helps her students to learn and understand old Navajo words that are not in use today, Brown said. He noted that the Navajo equivalent of the phrase, “let’s go,” has evolved from “tsotti’” to “tį́.”

“People who are fluent notice that others speak in a chopped up or abbreviated form. Only medicine men still speak the language in its full form,” Brown said.

Brown said that his parents speak Navajo, as does his older sister Tamara, a student at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His younger sister, Kendra, at Newcomb, doesn’t have the language fluency either. Brown said that mispronouncing words in Navajo can be embarrassing because they can be “bad words.”

The beauty of learning Navajo at UNM, he said, is that he is learning it while also learning more about culture and tradition. “Words are tied into ceremony. You can’t understand the words without their cultural context,” he said.

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