NCJ Number
210057
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 20 Issue: 2 Dated: April 2005 Pages: 83-89
Date Published
April 2005
Length
7 pages
Annotation
Through discussions with Navajo women, this article examines the Navajo woman’s perspective on domestic violence.
Abstract
The Navajo culture is vastly different from the Euro-descended culture of the mainstream United States. In addition, within Native American families, there is an alarming increase in the amount of violence against women and children. Overall, the increase in domestic violence on the Navajo reservation is at least partly the result of some of the 20th century’s ills: unemployment, alcoholism, and a shift to an unequal balance of power between the sexes, as well as the breakdown in cultural knowledge. It is necessary to understand these experiences in the Navajo context. This paper attempts to understand the Navajo woman’s sense making in the face of abuse. The author interviewed seven Navajo women about their lives on the reservation and their understanding of what it meant to be a Navajo woman, as well as their perspective on domestic violence. The women interviewed ranged from 20 to 60 years of age. Hozho, which refers to balance of seeming opposites, is interpreted by the Navajo as a belief that every man has a bit of female in him and every female has a bit of male in her. Hozho helps in understanding the Navajo woman’s response to abuse in two ways: her reluctance to leave her partner and a plausible explanation for her partner’s aberrant behavior. The female puberty ceremony called kinaalda is another cultural element that accounts for the Navajo woman’s understanding of her situation in life. These interviews show that for some women, it is possible to straddle two worlds, embrace one’s cultural roots, live with the detritus of the Anglo culture, and transform the experience into a triumph of will. Appendix and references