Ah, called out! Confession: I actually don’t think it really is a true matriarchy, or ever has been. In reality, it is matrilineal, Matrilocal, and matrifocal but not actually matriarchal. The clan chiefs have always been men, though the clan system itself and inheritance is all matrilineal, which made it the social system somewhat balanced. But when Europeans came, they were subject to their own biases about gender roles, and therefore dealt solely with the chiefs, reinforcing their leadership. In my opinion, it stuck even as other traditions faded.

Also, the council in anything approaching this form has only existed for 100 years. Women first stated joining it, though not as speaker, within the first 20 years of its inception. The tribal presidency has only existed since the 1980s, and the current Vice President is a woman. I think that between those things, it really makes sense that these are new things.

If you asked my grandmother though, she would laugh at you and ask why women would need to have roles like that when they are so busy running everything anyway?

u/_Gandalf_the_Ghey_ I can totally understand why that people might think that it was retconned and not traditional, but in this specific case it doesn't happen to be that way. I would honestly say that it is more like people are now re-embracing the mythology after a multi-decade period of rejection of it because of assimilation into mainstream American culture. You will definitely see some elders shunning people who identify as something other than "man" or "woman", especially if they are not fulfilling very traditional gender roles otherwise.

The genders like this have been recorded by non-native authors as early as the 1800s and is a part of the Diné creation myth that has been told for thousands of years! Plus, it isn't really a precise fit for modern western conceptions of gender - or especially of sexuality. For example, in traditional Navajo society (at least as I was taught, again), it is not acceptable to be a masculine gay man. If you are a person who forms romantic/sexual relationships with men, it is only okay if you are otherwise fulfilling a strict feminine role in Navajo society, and that is definitely out of step with modern American sensibilities of sexuality.

Plus Navajo hair is pretty difficult to dye blue in my experience. =P

I am not an elder or anything, but from what I was taught, it isn’t incorrect, but also it is sort of a shorthand, you know? Putting it that way is just a really good way of simplifying it at all without having to go into the whole structure of traditional society and myth, the different gender roles and the somewhat thorny issue of sexuality, how it all interacts with colonization/history, etc.

Good question! It is really long, like explaining the Old Testament or something like that. But First Woman is basically the mother goddess-equivalent mixed with an Eve-equivalent. She and First Man came to be in the First World as spiritual beings, gained consciousness, and brought the People to this world (the fourth or fifth world, where we are now). After lots of other stuff that happened, they formed the sun and moon and land and stars, and formed themselves bodies to inhabit and became humans.

The creation myth is called the Diné Bahane, if you want to look it up! Also, Wally Brown, a Navajo historian, has some slightly long winded but highly informative videos about it on YT. My favorite source about Navajo culture in general (though not necessarily about mythology) on YT though is Navajo Grandma. She talks a little bit about the origins of the people here, mostly starting with Changing Woman.

In Navajo culture as I was taught to understand it by my family, we are all spiritual people housed in physical forms. Our spirit and our relationships are who we “are.” It is part of why a Diné will introduce themselves with the names of the clans of their parents/grandparents when first meeting someone: it establishes their relationships and where they sit in the world.

When we introduce ourselves like this, we lead with our mother’s clans, as the Diné are matrilineal. That’s why woman is the primary gender. Traditional Navajo society is also matriarchal and matrilocal. That is, men leave their mothers’ home and relocate to their wife’s home when they marry, and children “belong” to their mother’s family. So, if you are Navajo, your cousins on your mother’s side are closer to you than your cousins on your father’s side, something a little closer to siblings. Property is also inherited through the mother’s line.

The genders are:

1. Asdzáán - Woman - as above. To put it in modern terms, a straight cis-gender woman.
2. Hastiin - Man - male-bodied, masculine-spirited person that fulfills the masculine gender role in Navajo society and in his relationships with others. Straight cis-gender man.
3. Dilbaa - Female-bodied person with a masculine spirit who fulfills the masculine role in society and in relationships with others. The closest but-not-quite-right analogues in modern society would be a butch lesbian or a FTM transgender person who is attracted to women.
4. Náhleeh - Male-bodied person with a feminine spirit who assumes the feminine role in society and in relationships. Closest analogues: effeminate gay man or MTF transgender person attracted to men.
5. Nádleehi - Person of indeterminate physical gender, or of either physical gender, who can switch back and forth between being fully masculine and fully feminine and can fulfill either role in society. We don’t really have a good modern analogue for this - closest would be an intersex person. They are perceived as literally embodying two spirits: a masculine one, and a feminine one, which is what enables them to switch.

Sometimes this last one is broken down even further into relevant subtypes: a person with a male body who changes, a person with a female body who changes, and an androgynous person who switches/changes. That’s why sometimes people say that Navajo culture has “at least five” genders.

As a side note, that could also be a reason why the author didn’t put something like “Navajo council speaker to be woman for first time”, as some people have suggested. It wouldn’t be wholly out of the ordinary for a person in this last category who had been acting according to their masculine spirit until now to “be a woman for the first time” if it were the first time they were fully embodying their feminine spirit. I mean, it would still be a weird headline, and not exactly newsworthy, and it is really, REALLY much more likely that it is just poorly written, but it is just this side of possible that it was a deliberate choice (probably not!)

Yep - I don’t know why they didn’t just do that!

Interesting that you should “ask.” First Woman, though not this specific first woman, was at first solely a spiritual being. She and First Man sort of made themselves bodies and then made themselves human.

The VP is a woman too!

She is an auntie!

(Then again, EVERYBODY is an auntie!)

I explained this in another comment, but because of the Navajo conception of gender, saying it like that wouldn’t actually be whole or complete! To a Diné reader, it might even be LESS clear.

You can, for example, be female but not a woman. (You can be a masculine-spirited person with a female body, or a person with a female body whose spirit switches between masculine and feminine. Neither are termed “women”, and have their own gender names).

Traditionally, women do not become clan chiefs, though they participate in tribal leadership in other ways. So a role like this is significant for a person who plays a traditional feminine role among the people.

In other families/clans it might be different, but given the Navajo conception of gender as I was taught it, it would be somewhat unusual to refer to solely a woman’s physical body in that way.

It isn’t that it is private per se, or inconsequential, it just doesn’t give the full picture or convey what is significant about this story. The new speaker is not “just” female. She is specifically a woman (asdzáán). That is, she is a female-bodied person with a feminine spirit who assumes the feminine gender role in society and in her relationships with others.

(Navajo society traditionally has about five genders, of which Woman is the primary.)

Does that make any sense?

They likely avoided saying “First Woman” as First Woman is a very important figure in our (Navajo/Diné) creation mythology.