We wish to acknowledge the help and cooperation of Sacred Hoop - First appeared in SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE, Issue 13 Summer 1996

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The following interview is with Elsie Wilson, and her daughter Gloria Clitzo. Elsie is a Din? (Navajo) Elder, and daughter of the late Tom Wilson, a Holy Man of the Navajo Nation, who was also known as Mr Largewhiskers, or, reverently, as Grandfather.

In the eleven years that I have had the honour of knowing Grandmother Elsie, I have been taught by the way she has raised her children, kept her home as a sacred sanctuary, and through her dancing and weavings, and the blessings I have seen her do.

She was one of the major inspirations for me to become a Dreamer, so I could hear her wisdom. So in a time of confusion, chaos, world destruction and predatory universes, I asked Grand-mother Elsie to share her wisdom as the Dance of a different way, the Beauty way.

Grandmother Elsie Wilson's daughter, Gloria Clitzo, is translating for us for us and also speaking her own words of wisdom. The answers have been translated directly from the Navajo and have not been edited to produce perfect English in order to keep the warmth and beauty of the thoughts intact.

Arwyn: How would describe your mother in the terms of your people?

Gloria: She is an elderly person with knowledge that was passed down by her parents of being in a Beauty Way and representing herself in that respect.

Her teaching, which involves her weaving, and that just describes what life is all about - as a young one is born up till the time they grow into old age. She is a very kind lady. She has respect for all the human beings.

Could you say something about what life is like for you as you live and walk and work on Grandmother Earth on the Diné Reservation?

With my mother, she believes the tradition, the Navajo way of traditional life that was created way back and that was taught to her by her parents, my grandparents, my Grandfather and my Grandmother.

They believed that Walking in a Beauty Way was the most important, by believing that you are there for a purpose, you are born for a purpose. You're a female, you're a male.

If you are female you've got responsibilities in terms of being a female. She as a female, had to learn to take care of herself in a female way, and then also taking the responsibility of having a family. Then onto a Grandmother, the teaching to the grandchild. She believes that as a woman, walking on Mother Earth, that there is a purpose to have feet, to have a body, to have a hand and to have a head. With your feet is carries you in a Beauty way.

What is Beauty? Beauty is to know who you are, to know yourself as a female or a male. That's how you represent yourself. It's like you don't get yourself involved into other things which was never meant for you. You have to stay in the line where you know that it's right for you, it's right for your people, it's right for your family. When you once have gained the knowledge then that's where you give out your teaching, your wisdom.

And as a body, she as a female, there's a purpose there. She created, where she had kids. Females they have kids and males they don't, so she born, they born child and through that there's a care.

By hands, having hands and arms, it's like you help yourself, you help yourself in a lot of ways as far as cooking, making things, and for my mother she does a lot of weaving .

Weaving involves gathering, shearing wool, gathering herbs to dye the wool, spinning the wool into strands and then her hands are able. They have given her the strength to tighten up the looms, and then by thought she strands all the looms and so coming down to weaving. When she starts, she already knows what kinds of designs she will make so her hands are the ones that are helping her, putting up all those looms and the rugs.

And as far as the head side, the purpose for having a head - you see, you smell, you express, you hear - for teaching, to gain where you are lacking, and you think about it within the brain wise. That's how her teaching has gone, by thinking, by doing her weaving, that's more like a teaching.

So the weavings that you do are stories, that have been passed down.

Yes. She has several designs that she goes with it. There are so many that she makes and there are stories to it but within that story you always have to have a pathway. The pathway within the rugs, it's so that your design, the stories within that rug,there's an opening for it. It's just like a hogan, or a house - you go in and what do you see in your house? What do you do in this house? How do you know where to go? How do you know what to do?

When you come into a house, you have a chair to sit on, you have a place to relax, you have a place for cooking. The weaving is the same thing - you go in and you explore a lot inside, in that weaving, and then once you've finished all that, your whole design, it's like you're going back out.

You have to go back out of that path. If there's no pathway, it's like you're leaving behind, or you're blocking the whole ideas within one design. So there's always a pathway for that.

The weavings that Grandmother Elsie has done, that I've had the honour of experiencing, when I hold them, I feel like they also have much wisdom of the Beauty Way, and what she carries of her lineage.

It's because it was made with a lot of respect, a lot of knowledge. There's a lot of thoughts put into that one design, it's built with that design. Therefore it's anybody's as to receive a rug from my mother, due to the tremendous amount of work and the design. How it's going to be put in, how it should start, what colours should blend in; all those things are all thought about and then up to the end, for that reason.

It's not something like "Oh, I'll just glue this together and then toss it out." It's not like that. There's a meaning to it and she respects that. Her learning in weaving, she respects that. Therefore that's how one particular rug is made.

So in the Western world, we would go write a book. In your world the weaving itself is a sacred book of knowledge, of sacredness and beauty.

Yes, within weaving, to start a weaving in our culture, in our traditional way, there's stories to it. Maybe it's your very first design, the first one of your first weaving. When you're going to do your weaving, it's just going to be all plain. You're still a beginner, but as you make one, you're going to come into a lot of learning to it, it's going to come to you, all the techniques will be coming to you. That's how you're learning about weaving. It's like building up, just like going to school and you learn about all these things and so many years later you earn your certificate. Within weaving it's the same thing, you have to know what designs go together and then how well your next design looked like and then it just accumulates as your mind grows with it.

Within the modern way I see a lot of equipment where they are just churned out on what they call looms but a part of it is just a machine and it would be exchanging all these looms for them. All they have to do is run a thread to it or a yarn, but to me that has no meaning, no feeling. It wasn't really thought out about it. But within our culture, that's different because the materials that we use purely come from a livestock which are alive. They're being grazed up to a certain time, like in the springtime their wool is taken off because the owners of their livestock, they care about their livestock.

So it's done in a sacred way, it's done with prayer, it's done with heart?e care, how you care about it, how you believe in it, how you respect that. They play a tremendous amount of role in it, so that's how the weaving goes in my Mum's way.

So it's done in a sacred way, it's done with prayer, it's done with heart?

Yes. As far as prayer you would say that, because you would always want the best for what you are doing. My mother always believed that her weaving should start early in the morning so at times she gets up at 5o' clock in the morning, because that's when the early morning Holy People, that's their waking time. And so she asks their blessing and to help her, to give her strength in terms of the mind, and health-wise, to finish this weaving.

Her goal is to have it complete within a short time that it's expected, then she has to keep going, instead of, if there should be any conflict, a conflict where getting sick which brings down your time of weaving. So she would ask the Holy People to give her the strength and then she thinks by heart this weaving will look nice, and it's just like she cares, she cares about her artwork.

Who are the Holy People for you?

The Holy People are around us every day, every hour, every minute. Our Holy People for during the day time, is the Sun, and Mother Earth, the Moon, and the Dark, and the Sun Set, where the sun goes down and you can see the orange light after the sun goes down.

Before the sun comes up, like around 5 o' clock in the morning, you can see the bright light on the east side. When that light shows you can see this one big star that comes out, that's one of the Holy People. They are all within their area of east, west, north and south, and they're all around.

And you have ceremonies within your tradition, throughout the year, that help you stay in balance with the Holy people, with Grandmother Earth?

Yes, we do, they call it in Beauty Way, and a Beauty Way ceremony. We use it during the springtime, during the summer, during the fall, and during the winter, we just ask for the good blessing throughout the year, or during the summer you ask for more rain.

And then during the fall time you thank for the harvest, and then during the wintertime, you just thank for the good blessing that you asked in the springtime.

What would you say that the Beauty Way is for you?

The Beauty Way I would interpret as being in a line where you believe who you are as a Navajo. You know your Clan. Clan is one of the most important things within our tribe, or within our culture I would say. And you practise your own Navajo language, you speak your Navajo language and you just practise, you respect your Navajo culture tradition. And represent yourself that you're a Navajo. You just don't participate in hatreds. You welcome just about any people that are there to help you, you thank them for that.

Would the Beauty Way be what we call a path of heart, of following your heart among your people, among your family?

Yes, that's it. Within my grandfather, he believed that to have his whole family, his kids, in one area. So that's where we live, we live in one section, that we know that everybody is O.K., that he sort of overseed us, within a plot.

We don't go off the Reservation, we just stay within the area where we live, on my Grandmother and Grandfather's land.

Part of that is within the four Sacred Mountains of the Navajo?

Yes, we have a Sacred Mountain which was told, the Sacred Mountains are in the areas of all four directions - east, west, south and north. They say there are five Sacred Mountains. One of them on the east side near Albuquerque, and another one on the westside, the San Francisco Peaks. And another one which is located in Utah, and another in Colorado, and in New Mexico.

So this is the sacred land of which you have been born into, in which you live, carry your wisdom, do your teachings, do your weavings?

Yes, they are. I guess the story is told as far back as the Long Walk, where our ancestors have suffered, and they were taken off their land.

They suffered for so many years, they wanted to go back to their land, and within the gathering, meetings with the Anglos, they were able to compromise that they had a land which is given to them, due to the four Sacred Mountains that's there.

There were so many ceremonies conducted, that's how they won the land back and went back over there. So through all that suffering back then, I would say that within myself, this land is very sacred for the Navajos. If we didn't get our land back, I don't know where we would have been as of today, because now even, there's just so many things that are going off hands.

There's just too many religions, as church-wise, are creating. Too many Navajos are leaving their culture, they do not believe what was left for them. To me, this Beauty Way and all sorts of teachings that was left for our culture, was for us not just to leave it behind. Even now, we're leaving our language. A lot of our young kids, they think it's funny talking in Navajo.

Sometimes I see a young generation laughing at their grandparents. That really hurts because my Grandparents were never treated that way when they were alive.

When you leave this land to come to Britain, will you have to do any ceremonies within the Sacred Mountains, for them to release you or to allow you to come?

Yes, we're going to have to have a ceremony done to ask our Sacred Mountains to tell them that we're going to be not here within the area of these mountains, that they will not hear our footsteps, they will not hear our voice. But it's only for a short time, temporary. Also the ceremony will include going over sea, we're going to be crossing over an ocean. You ask for a blessing, and that's what we're going to be doing before we leave.

When you come to Britain, will you do your own personal ceremony?

Yes, when we come onto the land in Britain, we will ask the ground over there to welcome us and protect us and to ask the Gods to bless us through our journey. And before we leave, we going to ask the same thing, that within the short time we will not be on earth, we will be up in the atmosphere, so we ask the Gods to be with us. And when we come back to the land, back to the United States, then we'll probably have to do that when we come back into the four Sacred Mountains area.

Many people in Britain have a great interest in the wisdom that your Grandfather and Grandmother Elsie's father left. Is there anything you can tell us about him? use for such blessings in these Beauty Way ceremonies.

My Grandfather was a kind man. He's always said to always been in a faithful way. For example you cannot withdraw other nationalities from their greetings to you, you always have to greet them and welcome them and if they want to learn something about you, you share because you have to let them know who you are. So that's the type of a person he was. I guess that's one of the things we have been continuing in this generation, from his generation. We have been carrying on that because we like to keep what be believed and he was a Medicine Man. He had a Beauty Way ceremony and then also what they call a Native American Peyote church. It's what he had, he had hearts and loved it. Human beings that loved him, that cared for him, that respected him.

I've heard it said many times on the Navajo reservation, that he was called a Holy man.

Yes, because he was a Medicine Man, in terms of conducting Beauty Way ceremony, and Native American Church meeting, and within that part he was a Medicine Man.

He helped so many sick people, so many sick people with problems, as far as mental illness, health and marriage problems, just about anything. He helped a lot of people. Also, if anybody had problems with the law, he would ask the Gods to forgive the person for what was conducted and that the individual be treated fairly.

So in many ways he was used and also, if anybody wanted the best for their side as far as an event, or such activities like rodeo or any sports, my Grandfather would conduct a Beauty Way ceremony to ask the Gods that this person receive what he wishes for.

And his wife, your Grandmother, Grandmother Elsie's mother was also a Medicine Woman, a Holy Woman?

Yes, she was. My Grandmother, Zonnie, was a Medicine Woman, Lady, in terms of doing what they call hand trembling. I really don't know how that works. I was very young when my Grandmother conducted a lot of the hand trembling. It's for those that can be questioned about what is bothering individuals.

They would come to my Grandmother for help - what is bothering me? what is wrong with me? And my Grandmother would, through the hand trembling, find what is wrong with the individuals and through that hand trembling she used to advise them, her patients, what is wrong, what is needed, what kind of blessing needs to be done. That's how she was a Medicine Lady.

And what of the tradition does Granmother Elsie carry?

Not within my mother, no, she does not. To be a hand trembler, you have to be the chosen one. How you become a chosen person I have no idea. I would say it comes through the Great Creation because those Creations are the ones that create all these names names, the ceremonies, just so many things. They all work within section of four ways, you have to know all the Navajo ceremonies, healing ceremonies that they use within the season.

You have to know that. I guess the Great Creation knows that you know those things, I guess that's how you're chosen. There is only two within my Grandfather and my Grandmother's children, only two of them that received the hand trembling.

What my Grandfather had as far as the Beauty Way ceremony, my mother has it. It's been forward to her, she takes care of them, and by Spring she has Beauty Way ceremony. It's to ask that they stay with the family, for protection and for any healings tha that need to be done. So it's in the hands of my mother for the whole children of my Grandparents.

You are coming to Britain, bringing wisdom, healing and prayers, to another land, what are you hoping for?

To give out a message - what is Beauty way. Who respects that, who is willing to learn that, who is willing to carry that on? I guess through the questions and all the discussions, that will be determined and those that are willing to go forth with it,then it will be in the discussion. Who wants to know what a Beauty Way is, why is it necessary to be in a Beauty Way. I guess all that will be shared in Britain.

When we get there, we can share a lot. It really depends on what they want to know, what part they want to hear, then we can share it. See my Grandfather was never like "I can't share this with you, it's mine." He was never like that. He believed that whoever wants to open their heart to what he believes then that person has to go one on one with him, and based on what their questions are, what they want to know, then he will give it out.

He may tell you one time, and then the second time he hears you, he will question what you questions him then. Sometimes, if how he hears it back is not what he expected from you, he'll just laugh, and walk with smile. And then if you give him what he told you, then he will just nod his head. I guess that's just a way of saying that, "Well, what you ask for is what you got." You got it, so stick with it, carry on and learn. That's how he was.

So it will be important that as people come, to speak with your Mother, that they come with the right questions and an open heart to hear?

Yes. Even as a group we can take turns with things like that. As a whole group, maybe this one person over here questions one thing, then everybody thinks about it and then another person asks questions. That's how your learning starts rolling, and tha that's how it starts building up. If it goes one on one sometimes, they miss out the questions that they wanted to ask. So it all depends on what kind of question is asked. It's like a ball game, they're shooting into a basket, and whether they make the basket, I give the answers back to them.

For full details of the visit of Grandmother Elsie Wilson and Gloria Clitzo or Arwyn Dreamwalker's workshops in the U.K. Contact: Jan Adamson or Sacred Trust