Well, first of all, one thing I love about Navajo culture is that it is a matriarchal society.
So to me, I think it gives—women in general—we have a lot of faith, right? Like we run on faith. And so it gives the okay for us to do that. Whereas usually in other households, the man dominates. But in this household—obviously, when I grew up, my mom respected my dad’s priesthood. But I don’t ever remember my dad being like, “I have the priesthood,” you, know, whatever. My mom, in her own silent way, would humble my dad many times. And she would tell him. And my dad learned to respect her because he recognized that her spirituality—she’s a spiritual giant. Yeah. So he learned to recognize that and so I think he quickly was able to get in line, although he did hold the priesthood and he did do all these things. And it was fun. For me, it was great to watch him use the priesthood, because my mom would make him do it. She’d be like, “It’s that time of the year—time for you to sit down and give your kids a blessing.” Or, you know, “Your kid is sick. Time for you to use your priesthood.” Little things like that. She would always say [when] we moved into a new house, “It’s time to bless the house.” She’s like, “You need to use your priesthood. I don’t have it. You need to use the priesthood.” She’d always tell him, “You need to use your priesthood.” And she’s a very gentle, kind woman, so she was never like demanding about it, but it was just a very gentle reminder—”Look, you have the priesthood. You need to use it. . .We need it as a family.”
My father was very good about listening to her when she prompted him and all of those things. And I’ve never gotten to see the dynamic between my grandparents because I was too young when my grandfather passed away. But I see a lot of my mom—who she is—like, I see a lot of similarities between her and my grandma. They’re very gentle, kind, sweet souls. And so I could kind of see the dynamic. And I have heard stories of my grandma getting sassy with my grandpa before—I know, she did get sassy. Way before the Church—way before they had joined the Church—I guess my grandfather had even fooled around with another woman. And in Navajo culture, the woman has the power to kind of divorce the man.
And the way they do it is they would take the saddle and throw it out the door. Oh, pretty much like, “We’re done with you. Get on your horse and get out.” [laughs] And apparently, she did that when she had heard about his crazy endeavors—this is a long, long, long time ago. And, you know, I don’t know how they got back together or how that all happened. But I do know that they did end up together. So I’m grateful for that.
If anything, I think it was good because it humbled my grandfather. I mean, being a man of position—considering he was a medicine man—I feel like that’s part of what he needed was to recognize, “Oh, look, even though I have the position, I still have to respect my wife.” And she showed him! She’s like, “I will do what I have to,” even though she’s the kindest, sweetest lady. I can’t see her doing it, but apparently, she did. So I was like, “Yay, Grandma!” [laughs]