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Letters from 11 to 17 February 2008

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Navajo misperceptions

I was most dismayed to read a letter to the editor asserting that the 'Navajo people still practice infant exposure for their unwanted daughters ... or sons.' My husband, an Episcopal priest, and I lived in the Diocese of Navajoland for four years in the 1990's. During that time I worked as a Pediatric Nurse for the Indian Health Service. We knew the Navajo people not just as parishoners, not just a patients, but as friends and neighbors. Not once did we ever hear of or experience any incidents of infant exposure. The culture is matriarchal, and women hold a great deal of power, so much so that while a puberty rite for young women is a community high point there is no corresponding rite for young men.

The Navajo Nation is one that is economically depressed, and along with that go all the concurrent effects of poverty, but lack of concern and regard for family is most certainly not endemic. In fact the opposite is true — the Navajos hold 'family' values highly and if they sometimes fail to live up to them, well, then, so do we all. I am saddened to read such an allegation on Anglicans Online.

Paula Sutcliffe
St Luke's Church, Catskill, New York
Albany, New York, USA
paula@stlukessaranaclake.org
12 February 2008

Earlier letters

We launched our 'Letters to AO' section on 11 May 2003. All published letters are in our archives.