Marc Simmons: Navajo Nation remains a subject of much study

At present, the Navajo Nation sprawls across portions of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah; the reservation is almost as large as the state of West Virginia. Within that vast domain, Navajos preserve many of their traditional ways.

As a teenager in 1954, I got a summer job as a chore boy at a Navajo mission near Fort Defiance, Ariz., just across the New Mexico border. At that date, the interior of the reservation was undeveloped.

Most Navajos then were farmers or herders who lived in hogans. They traveled in covered wagons over unpaved roads to isolated trading posts. And they spoke little or no English.

For a kid “interested in Indians,” my three months at Fort Defiance seemed like a gift from heaven. I stayed in a dormitory with boarding Navajo boys my age, and with them I made my first halting attempts to learn the Native language.

All agree that mastering the Navajo tongue presents great challenges to outsiders because it contains plenty of unfamiliar structures and difficult sounds. The mission kept a paid interpreter on its staff who routinely translated the religious services for the congregation.