Showing posts with label Navajo spirit guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Navajo spirit guide. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Indian Clan Names - Indian Summer Vacation Video Series

This is just a short post of my last Monument Valley video. Next up is our camping and Arches National Park videos and blog posts, plus a recipe for a Frybread Taco. I'm over half way through with this Indian Summer Vacation Series.

 My latest video again features Don Mose, our Spirit Guide. It's only a minute and a half, but still enlightening. As you can tell from previous blog posts, I shot a lot of Don footage, and this is the last video he's featured in.


In this video he speaks of the complexity of Navajo language. I also show a list of Clan names, or what Indian Tribes call themselves. When I put the video together, I wanted to subtitle the Clan names. But it seemed impossible to write or spell them...until I Googled one of the English translated names (Tangle People) and up popped this great website. Click here to see it, but basically the Clan names are spelled out phonetically, so I could now cut-and-paste to subtitle this video.


Don mentions that the Navajo language is now on Rosetta Stone - a language learning software program. You can read about the program here. They also have a free Navajo language lesson to sample by clicking here - you do have to check a box and agree to Rosetta Stone's terms, then step though a short setup. It's all pretty intuitive, though.


Well thanks for hanging with me thus far, there's still a few more videos to go. And while they may not be recipe videos, they do have food themes and humor sprinkled throughout. I try to stay in the recipe and restaurant review mold, but you know by now that I like to digress from time to time.

Be sure to check back for some incredible photos and footage of Arches National Park and more wacky hijinks from The Cheap$kate Trekker.

Indian Clan Names - Video #6

Play it here, video runs 1 minutes, 32 seconds.

My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.

99 thanks to Don Mose for a memorable tour. To read about getting Don Mose as a Spirit Guide in Monument Valley, click here

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Spirit Guide & Medicine Man, Don Mose - Indian Summer Video Series

You can refer to me as the Naive Chef for this video blog post. What I know about Navajo culture you could fit on the sharpened edge of a tomahawk. Any info I heard has been secondhand through popular media (movies) or the occasional radio interview. To learn directly from Don Mose, our Monument Valley Navajo Spirit Guide, was a special treat. And I got it on video for you to view at the end of this post.

If you were here a couple of weeks ago then you've seen him in wise man mode. My Vision Quest Video with Don featured him pointing out amazing landscapes, deciphering petroglyphs, plus a Navajo sweat lodge ceremony lesson. Just scroll down a couple of blog posts to view, if you missed it.


This time Don gets into how the Navajo language is being preserved. He also describes the differences of  Male and Female Hogans. These living quarters and ceremonial structures are made of cedar wood and covered in dirt for insulation. There is a hole in the roof for smoke to escape during the cooking of meals. And the doorway, or opening, always faces East to catch Father Sky's sunrise (and to tell time of day.)

Inside a hogan

Male and Female Hogans serve different purposes, but I'll let Don describe that to you in the video below.

Male Hogan

While at one of the many scenic stops of our tour, I mentioned to Don that I write and make videos about food. He lit up and excitedly walked us into the scrubs on the side of the dirt road.  He broke off a handful of scraggly stems and explained that you steep these in hot water for a tea to soothe a stomach ache. He looked around and immediately picked another herb from Mother Nature and explained it's pharmaceutical use, as well. (Whew, I managed to work in a food/herb theme into this blog post after all.)


Not only was Don our Spirit Guide, he's also a Medicine Man!


Allow me to be blunt, this blog post is a sure-fire hit! So check out my latest Indian Summer Vacation Video to learn a little more Navajo culture, plus I make a humorous appearance at the end of this video.

Spirit Guide & Medicine Man, Don Mose - Video #5

Play it here, video runs 3 minutes, 42 seconds.

My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.

99 thanks to Don Mose for a memorable tour. To read about getting Don Mose as a Spirit Guide in Monument Valley, click here.

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