Tribes embrace native names to preserve culture (fwd link)

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Tribes embrace native names to preserve culture

Return to original place names preserves cultures, fixes wrongs

Dennis Wagner - Apr. 8, 2012 11:14 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
USA

If you drive deep into the Navajo Reservation and follow U.S. 160 a few
miles past the fossilized dinosaur tracks, you enter an area that you might
think is the home of the tribe's Tuba City Chapter.

That is how it's identified on maps.

But, to the tribal government, this place is known as To' Nanees' Dizi', or
"Tangled Waters." It's a name used by ancients in their native language,
known as Diné.

And, thanks to a vote some years ago by the Tribal Council, it's also the
official modern name, although the nearby town remains Tuba City.

("Tuba" has nothing to do with a musical instrument. Rather, it was
bestowed on the place by Mormon settlers in the 1870s after they befriended
a local Hopi leader known as "Tuuvi.")

The truth is, few people use the native name. Some Navajos don't speak the
Diné language. Even in official tribal publications, the words "Tuba City"
always appear parenthetically next to To' Nanees' Dizi'.

Read more:
http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news/articles/2012/03/27/20120327tribes-native-names.html#ixzz1rZlhYhsJ
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