Holidays on the reservation

When winter break comes in the middle of the acdemic year for all students from elementary to college, all students must head home.

Most have a great time bonding and joining together with family for the holidays.

This is similar for indigienous families as well. In the winter season, they tell stories, play winter games and plan ceremonial rituals for greeting the cold season

The reservations are many miles away for college students, so going home is a great time to enjoy hot Navajo Tea and traditional Blue Corn Mush by the fire and the telling of Coyote Stories of morals and lessons. 

It is an amazing time; it makes a depth of soul connection to the traditions and culture of oneself for the holidays.

Weeks are filled with radio streaming and broadcasting traditional winter songs for everyone to enjoy and dance to. Causes of the universe are also explained during the winter and reasons by cultural developments have taken place to honor the winter season as a Holy Being for several months.

The use of honoring is culturally sacred and experienced in the winter months. We travel to Yeii Bii Cheii ceremonies to honor the winds and cold. While some nights, all night, we play Navajo Shoe Games created by the Day and Night animals of Navajo Lore. 

It is said that when we experience the winter season, it is a time of old age like the four cycles of life: youth, adolescence, adult and elderly, which is sacred and treated solely. 

While the reservations may be different during the winter break for college students with different ethnic backgrounds, it is an amazing cultural exchange to experience and we are now entering a new cycle in the spring of 2021 of youth and growth for many things of life.