Indian tribes relive customs during eclipse

In this Friday, Aug. 18, 2017, photo, a boy wearing a traditional headdress rides through the Crow Fair grounds in Crow Agency, Mont. For the Crow Tribe, the eclipse coincides with the Parade Dance at the annual Crow Fair, marking the tribe's new year.
In this Friday, Aug. 18, 2017, photo, a boy wearing a traditional headdress rides through the Crow Fair grounds in Crow Agency, Mont. For the Crow Tribe, the eclipse coincides with the Parade Dance at the annual Crow Fair, marking the tribe's new year.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- While much of the country finds a way to view Monday's solar eclipse, Bobbieann Baldwin will be inside with her children, shades drawn.

In Navajo culture, the passing of the moon over the sun is an intimate moment in which the sun is reborn and tribal members take time out for themselves. No talking. No eating or drinking. No lying down. No fussing.

"It's a time of renewal," said Baldwin, a Navajo woman from Fort Defiance, Ariz. "Kind of like pressing the alt-control-delete button on your computer, resetting everything."

Across the country, American Indian tribes are observing the eclipse in similar and not-so-similar ways. Some tribal members will ignore it, others might watch while praying for an anticipated renewal, and those in prime viewing spots are welcoming visitors with storytelling, food and celebration. For the Crow Tribe in Montana, the eclipse coincides with the Parade Dance at the annual Crow fair, marking the tribe's new year.

Many American Indian tribes revere the sun and moon as cultural deities, great sources of power and giver of life.

The Crow's cultural director, William Big Day, said the sun is believed to die and come back to life during an eclipse. In more nomadic days, Crows would offer each other "good wishes" for their travels, and elders would advise them to do a cleansing ceremony to start anew, he said.

Farther east near the Great Smoky Mountains, the Eastern Cherokee tribe is expecting thousands of spillover visitors from the national park.

Stickball games during a two-day event will reinforce a lesson about cheating and the appearance of the moon. Fairgrounds supervisor Frieda Huskey recalled a legend of a player on the losing team picking up the ball, which is against the rules, and throwing it against the solid sky, so its appearance is small and pale.

When the sun and the moon disappeared during eclipses in the past, it frightened indigenous people who believed they displeased the gods, said Stanford "Butch" Devinney, an Eastern Shoshone spiritual leader and teacher at Wyoming Indian Schools on the Wind River Reservation. The way he sees it now, the eclipse is an opportunity for renewal.

"Maybe our way of thinking might change, our behavior," he said. "People will have a different outlook on life. Maybe it will change for the better. Be a different person."

Baldwin will call her children into the living room Monday, share traditional Navajo stories and ask them to meditate and reflect on what they want out of school, athletics and life, she said.

A Section on 08/20/2017

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