Dances with Bears (Navajo Part 2)

The next day during my lunch break, I walked through the Adopt a Native Elder Rugshow that was in the same building I worked in. I ran into the woman I had “twerked” with in skis. Turns out she was a rug maker. After showing me her collection of simple runners and elaborate wall pieces, she demonstrated how she made her own yarn.

While she was showing me the plants from the reservation she had used for creating her dyes (onion skins, juniper, tree bark, sweet clover, and walnut shells), I realized what she had told me two subjects too late. “Wait, you cut your own sheep?!”

She laughs sweetly,  “They are not sheep, they’re Churro Ewes.”

“Eh? Like the cinnamony thingy?”

“Yes, just not as sweet smelling.” She winks at me and continues along.

She went behind her display table and pulled out a beautiful woven piece covered with bears. There was a bear in every color and a white one in the center with cave-art-like bear claw markings all over it. She explained to me that the bear claw was a symbol of strength and protection and that this rug was a ceremonial rug that goes on the back of a horse that a medicine man rides on. It is used for special ceremonies related to the Navajo history of Star Mountain.

She told me the story:

Many generations ago, after the Navajo were formed from combining smaller tribes in the 1500’s, a traveling group were camping on top of a mountain in what is now Colorado. They had been collecting natural crystals that had been laying around in abundance there. Medicine men collected these crystal for their healing energy practices. While they were up there, a large comet flew into the night sky above them. It frightened them because they felt it was a terrible omen.

Unexpectedly, different types of bears started coming out of the woods into the open to look at the strange source of light. The medicine man knew that bears were good luck and a great sign of protection so he suggested that the people should settle there. The round spot on top of the mountain with the bears and crystals were declared holy ground.

Every year on the same night, the medicine man would stick the largest, most pure crystal he could find into the ground. And every time it didn’t appear, he laid another crystal next to the first one. After many years of doing this, the medicine man died and a younger one took over his duties. By this time, the crystals had formed a circle around the holy ground on top of the mountain.

One night, the young medicine man was laying out the traditional crystal for the annual ceremony when the comet reappeared. Everyone was dancing and singing and the bears came out again and watched them unafraid. After the star continued on its way, the young medicine man counted the circle of crystals. There were 76 of them. Seventy-six years had passed since it was first seen.

Many generations, a few hundred years, and a European colonization later, the crystal laying tradition continued. By the time the comet had returned in 1835, word had reached them that a European man named Edmond Halley had identified it as a reoccurring comet and named it “Halley’s Comet” a hundred or so years prior.

The tradition has stopped since science has taken over but the mountain is still very sacred to them. However, occasionally a rare lone medicine woman is said to be found roaming the summit on horseback among the bears searching for crystals to heal her people.

I was so enthralled by her story, that I realized I had taken too long of a lunch break. I told her that I regrettably needed to get back to work and that I feel I could sit and talk to her forever.

“Please,” she said, handing me the rug, “it is for strength and protection.”

“What do you mean? You’re not possibly giving this to me, are you?”

“Yes, it is a blessing. Something about it makes me think of you, I can’t explain it. You must take it. It will protect you. I made this after I saw the comet at Star Mountain in Colorado in 1986. The original Navajo there were there around 1531. It will not return again until 2061. I want you to be healthy and well enough to be blessed by it a second time in your life. I will not be here, but this will be with you. Just do not frame it like these other people. It will block the positive energy of the earth that I have put into it.”

I was floored.

“Thank you so much!” My pale administratively soft hands glowed next to her wrinkled, calloused fingers which I’m sure told just as interesting a story of struggle and spirit as her ceremonial rug. “I’m not sure I will be in Colorado, or alive, when I am 83 but I will definitely take very good care of it.”

She nodded a ‘yes.’ “Now you must go back to work. Take care Bryan Bear Claw.” (I like this name way more than ‘Twerks with Skis.’)

After I took the rug home and stared at it for a few hours, it dawned on me that she must be the medicine woman who collects the crystals. I also noticed that there are 75 bear claws surrounding the white bear in the middle. The 76th, Halley’s Comet, forms the bear’s tail. The bears surrounding the other ends of it are all different colors. I could see so much of myself in this rug: traveling, waiting, healing, protection, strength, diversity, and of course… bears.

[Stay tuned for the 3rd part of this story as I journey to the Navajo Nation later that year…]