Page 217 - 第三屆原住民族傳統習慣規範與國家法制研討會論文集

第三屆原住民族傳統習慣規範與國家法制研討會
【專題演講】

NAVAJO TRADITIONAL CONCEPTS & METHODS OF JUSTICE

The Hon. Robert Yazzie

Chief Justice of the Navajo Nation (Ret.)

I thank Awi Mona for the invitation to talk with you today. I am particularly thankful
because any opportunity I can get to talk about traditional justice with indigenous peoples and
indigenous studies groups forwards my own understanding. I come before you from the
standpoint of having been privileged to direct judicial policies on traditional Navajo justice
for many years. I am honored that leading academics in the United States have
acknowledged my court as a leader in promoting traditional justice and showing how
customary law can be used as a living body of law. I will discuss some of the leading
traditional concepts of justice among Navajos and describe methods of justice that implement
them.
Starting with the notion of “traditional justice,” just what does “traditional” mean? It
seems to speak to something passed down to us and learned, and something that is part of the
wisdom of my particular group. How might that “something”—that particular kind of
knowledge I might call “traditional”— be passed to me? All societies have their
“stories”—their legends. Navajo society has what we know as Hajine Bahane, which are
stories or accounts of how the “Five Fingered” people (humans) and more particularly, how
the Dine` (Navajos) came to be. Our creation accounts, as it is with many, are narratives of
and about ancient beings, places and events. The important thing about stories is that they tell
us how we know things: There are stories about specific people or beings, or perhaps mythical
figures such as animals, that tell of the attributes the person or being has and the challenges or
struggles that person or being faced. They relate experiences that are a form of empirical
knowledge.
For example, Navajos have narratives about two beings, Monster Slayer and
Born-for-Water, who were born of our Earth Mother, as young men they searched to find
their father to get weapons from him to use on monsters who were attacking and killing The
People. Their stories go into much detail about the way the two confronted certain
monsters and killed or weakened them. There are also narratives that tell about how the
situation of the Hero Twins came to be by way of the evolution of the Navajo People and how
the monsters came to be. The narratives tell of the experiences of the Hero Twins and how
they acquired knowledge from their struggles. One of the ways we learn things is
empirically, by experiencing or doing, and the stories are also a form of empirical knowledge
as we learn the accounts of what the Twins learned through what they experienced. That is
one way we can know tradition.
That knowledge are taught ceremonially in the form of chants and songs that walk the
patient through the saga of the Twins so that person can both see and experience what the
Twins did to transmit knowledge. A practitioner who experienced it can explain the
meaning of the narrative. That is, one can explain the hero twins as forces of powerful
masculinity, as with the strength of Monster Slayer and his ability to kill or weaken a given