PETERSON ZAH INTERVIEW

   




   [BEGIN SIDE 1]

   

   This is Brad Cole with Northern Arizona University.

We're visiting today with Mr. Peterson Zah at Arizona

State University in Tempe, Arizona.  It's March 16,

1999.  Also present in the room are Willow Powers from

Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Lew Steiger running the sound

and camera equipment.

   

   Cole:  I'd like to start out, Mr. Zah, if you could

maybe tell us about your clan.

   

   Zah:  Yeah.  I'm a member of the Kinyaa'áanii  Clan,

born for the Tá chii'nii.  And then my grandpas are

the Tódích'íi'nii.  And then my nalis are Tó'áhaní.



   

   Cole:  Where and when were you born?

   

   Zah:  I was born in Keams Canyon area, on December

2, 1937.

   

   Cole:  What do you remember from growing up in Keams

Canyon?  What are your favorite memories?

   

   Zah:  I guess one has to be where Keams Canyon was a

place where you had Hopi Agency Hospital there, BIA

facilities were there, administrative authorities were

all vested in the agency there.  Navajo were kind of

like a minority in the area, and we were always forced

to have to deal with the Hopi Agency being around Keams

Canyon, because it was one of those areas where the

Navajos lived not around Keams Canyon, but they were

kind of out in Chinle and Ganado.  Those were heavily

populated Navajo areas, and so we had to deal with the

Hopi Agency all the time.  So that comes to mind,

because my mother and my father always had to deal with

them.  And so that was one.

   And the other one was I remember having to follow

them to Keams Canyon, either to see our relatives in

school--my father had some nieces and some nephews that

were going to school there--so was my mother.  So we

kind of took some responsibility over them, so I

remember going over to the school and having to visit

them as a young boy.  I was not at the school age at

that time.  And then from there we would go over and

visit the trading post to buy food, et cetera, from

there, and then taking it home.  We were always on

either horseback or on a wagon.

   

   Powers:  Was that the Keams Canyon Trading Post?

   

   Zah:  Keams Canyon Trading Post, yes.

   

   Powers:  What was it like in those days?

   

   Zah:  Well, there were really two trading posts.

One of them was run by Cliff McGee and his family.

That's located over on the west side of the canyon

there.  And I think to this day he still has his

trading post there.  And then another trading post was

run by the Lee family, which is a little over to the

east and the south side of the canyon.  They were two

competing trading posts.  They were different in the

sense that with Cliff McGee, he knew the people very,

very well, it seems like--the people who went into the

store, that did business with him, the Navajo ladies

that took Navajo rugs to him.  Some took sheep skins,

goat skins.  Some sold their wool there.  And so there

was more trading activities that was going on at the

McGee Trading Post.  And it seems like all of the other

people who were working at the trading post were the

offspring of Cliff McGee.

   But with the Lee Trading Post, a mile up the road,

was run by somebody else.  But people knew that it was

run by the Lee family.  But he always had different

people there working, depending on maybe what time of

the year it was.  And so it seems like the people

really didn't know the new people that were commanding

the trading post there.

   

   Powers:  They weren't there all _________.

   

   Zah:  They weren't there all year round, and some of

them were probably in transit, maybe from job to job.

That's at least what I remember.

   

   Powers:  Right.

   

   Cole:  How long would it take you to get to the

trading post from your home?

   

   Zah:  From our home we were....  Well, we had to

move several times.  It's one of those things when

you're growing up and it seems like so far away, but as

I go back nowadays, I would say we were about maybe

eight miles from the trading post.  It was in a

northeasterly direction, about eight miles.  So if we

had to walk, maybe it took us a little less than an

hour to get there, on horseback maybe thirty minutes.

And in a wagon, maybe about an hour.  But the roads

were bad, and so it was one of those things where we

kind of made it the event of the day to go to the

trading post.

   

   Cole:  What was that like when you were a kid, going

to the trading post?  Do you remember anything

specifically enjoyable about it, or not?

   

   Zah:  Well, it was one of those things where you

have your mother, you have your dad, and then you have

your grandpa and your grandma.  It was nice living with

them.  I'm the first one in the family of eight, and

perhaps I was one of the first grandchildren that

stayed around with my grandma and my grandpa.  All of

the rest of them who were a little older than me had

all, by that time, left the camp, and they were out in

Winslow, Flagstaff, away from the reservation, because

their mother and their father had to work.  But we

kinda stayed behind, and so as a grandchild I just kind

of was one of those kids who stayed around, that grew

up to know the grandparents well enough.  So when we

went to the trading post, I was always put at the end

of the wagon, way at the back.  As we were driving to

the trading post and coming back from the trading post,

you just had to listen to conversations that go on.

And those were interesting times to learn a lot about

the culture, a lot about the family.  And that's when I

started beginning to hear some about the Navajo-Hopi

land dispute, because the way your parents were talking

about it, and the way your grandmother and grandfather

carried on about the land dispute.  So it was beginning

to be kind of like a daily conversation about what new

was happening in the community, and then over at the

Keams Canyon BIA Agency.  So it was one experience that

to this day I would really cherish, was to be really

closely connected to the traditional Navajo family.

And when you're a little kid, you were to be seen and

not heard.  And so they always put me in the back of

the wagon.  It was a lot of fun.  It brings back a lot

of good memories.

   

   Powers:  You covered a lot of distance between then

and now.  You've seen a lot of changes between that

time and now.

   

   Zah:  Yeah.  Well, like anything else, the change

happened so quickly, sometimes you don't really

recognize it's the same place.  You have a good all-

weather road that goes into Keams Canyon, you have a

new hospital there, you have a new powerplant there,

and I think they even have a community college

administered out of Holbrook that's a satellite

community college out there--Northland Pioneer College.

   

   Powers:  Oh, yes.

   

   Zah:  And then I think the McGee Trading Post is a

lot bigger, and then Lee Trading Post is no longer

there.  All that new road that goes into the canyon.

You know, sometimes you drive through there, and the

place doesn't look the same anymore.  It's like

anything, everywhere--even around here on the ASU

campus.  I went to school here, and you can't recognize

the place from thirty years ago.

   

   Cole:  What were your responsibilities, or what did

you do as a young boy around your camp?

   

   Zah:  Well, my responsibility as a young boy was one

of always helping out the family.  My grandparents and

my own parents would assign a task to me, and my duty

was to make sure that those were carried out from day

to day.  For example, my parents were responsible for

letting the sheep out in the morning.  And then while

that sheep corral was being opened, I was always having

my breakfast.  Once they got two, three miles up the

canyon, then it was my job to follow the sheep.  No

questions asked, no argument--that was your duty.  And

the other thing was, that when you came home, there was

always wood to be chopped, wood to be gathered.  And

that was also a duty I had to perform, because by that

time my grandparents were getting up there in age, and

my mother always indicated that I needed to take on a

little more responsibility, because I had, at the time

that we were living there, maybe two other sisters--two

or three other brothers and sisters--and I had to also

be responsible for them.  So as a young child, because

there was only a few of you in the family, they gave

you a lot of responsibilities.  They didn't do it by

being mean to you, in a sense; but it was one of those

where you took it as a challenge, you took it as a task

that just had to be carried out by a member of the

family.  You don't go to bed without any wood inside

the hogan, for example.  You always had to have that,

because it gets cold--particularly in the wintertime.

The animals had to go out and graze, and they had to be

tended to from day to day.  So that was a duty that was

an ongoing duty all the time.  It was one of those

things where you just had to learn how to be

responsible by doing, and very little talking about

things.  But you just worked hard during the day, even

as a young kid.

   

   Cole:  Besides sheep, did you have other animals?

   

   Zah:  We had some horses, and I think my grandmother

also had some cattle.  And when you have sheep, horses,

and cattle, that's a full-time job for anyone.  So we

all had to pitch in to take care of that.  My

grandmother got rid of her cattle early on--something

that I could remember--because it was just too much

work.  She sold them all.  And I think the Hopi Agency

from Keams Canyon was also pushing onto the family the

idea of limiting your animals, your livestock.  And so

you had a choice between limiting the number of sheep

and goats you had, or getting rid of your cattle.  I

think she made that choice and decided that cattle

maybe required a little more work than others, and she

decided that perhaps what she ought to do, in the best

interests of the family, was to get rid of them.  And

so I remember that happening.  And that kind of

eliminated one work, but the sheep remained with the

family.

   

   Powers:  That sounds like part of the stock

reduction.  But that was pretty early on.  But the

stock reduction program went on for quite a little

while, I think.

   

   Zah:  Probably.  All I could remember as a little

boy--of course, you don't remember everything

historically.  But I remember my grandma having to sell

her cattle.  It was not a good sight to see, and it was

also not a good thing to hear.  But it happened, and

she just made her decision and had to deal with it.

Maybe she was being forced to reduce her livestock.

   

   Cole:  What about things like water and winter feed?

   

   Zah:  Well, there were two things:  The water for

the animals we either relied on the rain--there were a

couple of dams, one maybe three or four miles up the

road in one direction, and maybe one further out, two

or three miles going the other direction.  And so we

always took the sheep there for water.  If for some

reason we were unable to do that, or if there was not

enough water there for the animals, then down the

canyon maybe four or five miles away, there was a

windmill.  I remember the water that came from there

was not muddy, as opposed to the dam water.  So the

windmill water was a lot cleaner, but it required

taking the sheep down the canyon, then bringing them

back up.  And if it's five miles away, that's ten

miles.  So on occasion, we took our sheep down there.

Of course we always had the option of going on

horseback to do that.  And I think on many occasions we

used the horses to herd the sheep to the water.

Drinking water, we had a spring at the first camp

there.  We had a spring where that spring was good to

the family.  It was always producing good drinking

water.  We kind of fenced it up so that the sheep and

animals wouldn't go there.  And it was preserved for

family use.  That well [i.e., spring] was something

that we utilized for many, many years.  And I remember

we used to have to take a bucket, a gallon- or two-

gallon bucket, and going over there daily to get the

water, both to my grandparents and to our camp.  And

that was a task that my father mainly did, because I

guess he wanted to make sure that the water wasn't

contaminated or anything like that.  Sometimes on

occasion I would take a gallon jug, and I would just

follow him, and he would fill the gallon jug, and my

job was to put it on my back and take it home.  And my

father always had two buckets with him.  That was how

we got our drinking water.

   

   Cole:  When you say "camp," what do you mean by

that?  Did you just have the one hogan?  Or did your

grandparents also have one?

   

   Zah:  Well, my grandfather was a very interesting

man.  His name was Guy Malteen [phonetic spelling].  He

was a carpenter, I guess, by trade.  He went to school

and learned how to do carpentry work.  He was also a

coal miner in Keams Canyon.  Into the canyon and by the

mountain they have coal that comes right out of the

rocks there.  And the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the

Keams Canyon Agency decided that they should employ

some people--maybe three or four people--and they put a

great big hole into the mountain.  And then they had a

railroad that they placed in there.  And then they had

a mule, I remember.  And my grandfather always used to

drive the mule into the mine.  And then sometimes I

would sit there and just watch the men going into the

coal mine.  Maybe I would go from our sheep camp with

one or two other boys who were a little older than I,

and we would just sit there against the mountain, and

we would see the men going into the mine.  And then

maybe a couple hours later, the mule would come back

with the wagon just full of coal.  Then they would load

it onto the truck.  Then the truck would take it up to

the school, the local school, and probably to the local

BIA headquarters there, and at the powerhouse they

burned it all day.  And that's what was keeping those

houses and offices warm.  So my grandfather, because he

had that job, meant that he had to ride his horse

between Keams Canyon over to our camp, eight miles down

the road.  Sometimes he would ride that distance every

day, but on occasion he would ride his horse in, but

stayed at Keams Canyon in a little hut, a little stone

and brick building.  He would stay there, and then come

back the following evening.  So he may leave, let's

say, Monday morning really, really early, like four

a.m. in the morning, five a.m. in the morning, and then

he would come back Tuesday night, instead of Monday.

That way, he only rode in maybe three days out of a

week.  And so he had his camp there.  He may have one

or two other grandchildren during the summer months

when school was out, older boys, with him.  But mainly,

I was the main one that was always around there with

him.  So my grandmother and my grandfather had a house--

not a hogan, a house--because my grandfather was a

carpenter, and he managed to build his own house.  And

so I sensed right at an early age that he was living a

little different than most Navajo families in that

area.  In other words, inside he had a table and he had

some chairs.  But everything that was in that house was

handmade, he built it himself.  And so my grandfather

was very handy with his hands.  And he was considered a

good individual to have him build your house.

   My mother and father, we had a hogan.  We had a

hogan maybe about fifty to seventy-five yards away from

each other.  In between was the corral.  And that was a

camp to me, because we had two families.  And then on

occasion, my grandfather's kids, one or two of them,

may come back, and so they built a hogan.  During the

summer months they would come back to Keams Canyon, Low

Mountain area, and they would stay there.  But during

the winters, when the kids were in school, let's say,

in Winslow or Payson, I remember the oldest individual

in his family worked in Payson, and the kids went to

school there.  The husband was a construction worker

for highway construction.  And so that's what I call "a

camp," when I make reference to camp.

   

   Steiger:  Not to interrupt, I have [a question].  So

if your granddad was working at the mine, when you went

to the trading post, would they go with money in hand?

Or were you actually trading goods to get groceries and

stuff like that?

   

   Zah:  Well, my father later on also started working

at the mine.  And my father was one of these

individuals where he, and maybe one or two other people

in the community, were the only ones that had the

ability to speak English.  And so the Navajo people

gave my father a name.  His Navajo name was

Ólta'í yázhí, "the short person with education," or "the

schooled short person."  And the reason why they gave

him that name was he had the ability to write, and had

the ability to speak the English language.  My

grandfather was also a good English speaker--perfect

English speaker--because during his young days he used

to work in White Mountain Apache.  He worked with the

San Carlos Apaches, and he was down here in Phoenix.

He was all over the place, and spoke very eloquently in

English.  His brother was Scott Preston, who was the

vice-chairman of the tribe at the time.  And I remember

Scott Preston used to come over and visit his brother,

and they used to build sweat baths, start a sweat bath

going, and I used to go over and participate with them.

And all day they would just talk politics.  As a little

boy, I was there to listen.  Of course my interest

always was politics, and so I used to love to listen to

Scott Preston, what was going on in Window Rock with

tribal politics and all of that.  It was interesting

times.

   My grandpa probably got paid maybe every two weeks,

and so when my father started working there, they would

both get a check.  They would cash it at the trading

post, so the way they were dealing with the trader was

that they would have the cash.  The only time they

really traded anything that is of interest, was when

they took in the wool.  They would shear the sheep and

pack the wool into one big huge bag.  I remember how

big those bags were.  When you filled them up, that's

one wagonful.  So we would have to take that one bag

over to Keams Canyon.  But back home at the camp, we

would have maybe five of those.  So that meant five

trips down to Keams Canyon.  And they got some cash for

the wool.  And then on occasion, the trader would just

make a note.  They would say, "Well, we weighed the

wool, and it weighed this much, and they are so much

per pound.  We will just make you a little note" that

says, for example, twenty-five dollars, let's say.  And

then they would get groceries, [staples]--and those

were usually flour, potatoes, coffee, tea, some canned

goods.  And they would buy the groceries up to the

level of the note that they got from the trader.  And

that's how they dealt with the traders, but it didn't

happen all the time.  Sometimes my father and my

grandfather would demand cash for their wool.  And then

another time that they would do that is when they would

get the sheep skins and the goat skins.  We took that

in, and I remember they cost something like fifty cents

or a quarter.  So you took four sheep skins in to get a

dollar.  So when we butchered a sheep or a goat, we'd

save all the hide and the wool.  You build it up during

the year, in the springtime you took it all in.  And

that was traded with the traders at the trading posts.

But for my grandfather and my father, when they were

working at the coal mine, for their check they always

got cash.  And so they were always using cash economy

for their things.

   

   Steiger:  I just asked that because earlier in this

project we spoke with a young guy who said his family--

they were just in the livestock business--and he said

they didn't have money, never dealt with that.  They'd

just take their hides or their cattle in and trade with

the trader, and hardly any coins or bills exchanged

hands.

   

   Zah:  I think with most--I would say with most

people in the community, Navajos that went to Keams

Canyon probably dealt that way.  The trader had to deal

with my father and my grandfather a little differently,

because they had the ability to speak English, and

others didn't.

   Early on, my father went into the service, maybe

around 1937, 1938, 1939.  He was training and preparing

to become one of the Navajo Nation code talkers when

the war was over.  When he came back, he came back to

the family as an alcoholic.  He liked his booze, and we

could never get him away from that.  But he didn't

drink all the time.  He was one of these, I guess,

individuals that drank very heavily for a short period

of time, and then left it alone for the next couple of

months or so.

   He had a great sense of responsibility towards his

people.  For example, he would go to the trading posts

and he would get mail, an envelope like this, because

he knew all of these people whose name was on there.

Mary Yazzi.  He would look at it and say, "Mary Yazzi

is our neighbor, seven miles up the road."  So he would

get all of that, and then he would ride his horse to

Mary Yazzi's house, and then he would deliver the mail

to Mary Yazzi.  Well, Mary Yazzi can't read or write,

so then he would give it to Mary, and then Mary Yazzi

would open [it].  He always had them open the letter,

and then they gave him the letter and he would read it

to them in Navajo.  And he would interpret from English

right into Navajo words.  And nine times out of ten,

those Navajo ladies would say, "We want you to write

back to this person for us."  And so my dad would sit

there and the ladies would tell him what to say.  And

so he would write back to the people.  Most of these

letters that I remember as a young boy were letters

that came from young men that were in the service

during the war.  And I remember him reading to his own

brothers and sisters what kind of war was going on,

what happened at night, and the Japanese, what they

looked like, and how they were so lucky, and all of

that.  And the letters would say something like, "I

don't know if I'll return home, but I'm just telling

you the way life is here when you're in the service."

They would describe the food that they would eat, and

the long walks that they had to take, and how they got

thirsty, let's say, on one trip, and one of their

buddies would get killed.  That kind of some horrible

war stories that they would write about.  And I

remember some elderly Navajo women would cry as my

father would read the letters to them.  And then my dad

would say, "Let's go to another camp to deliver another

letter."  So I would sit on the back of the horse.  We

had one horse, so I would just sit in back of him, and

then he would deliver the mail to the next person.  The

same thing would happen.  And I remember a lot of times

when the people who are in the war, they will not put

their address down, and the ladies want to write back,

but there's nobody to write back, so they know that the

letter came from their son.  So my dad would just say,

"We'll wait for the next letter.  Maybe they'll have a

return address.  That way I can write back to them for

you."  Now, my dad didn't get a cent for that.  And I

don't think he even wished to be paid for that.  That

was his sense of service, his sense of duty.  And he

used to say that "I have the ability to read, and I

have the ability to talk English.  That's why I went to

school.  And these other people didn't go to school and

they can't read or write English.  So I have a duty to

them."  And he used to tell me, "When you go to school,

you also have a duty to those people."  And I guess

that's where I got my sense of dedication, the urgency

to serve, because of what he was doing.  And the

amazing thing was, we would be hungry, but he never got

paid for all of that.  And I think that's why they gave

him that name, __________, is that he was a schooled

person that can be their ears and eyes and their mouth.

   

   Powers:  That must have encouraged you to go to

school, too.

   

   Zah:  Oh, yeah.

   

   Powers:  Is that how you became interested in law?

   

   Zah:  Well, at that time I didn't have the foggiest

idea what law (laughs) was, or any of that kind of

thing.  That came on a little later.

   

   Powers:  How did that come about?

   

   Zah:  Well, that came about....  I guess for all of

you, I'm not a lawyer.  I never went to law school.

   

   Powers:  Yes, but you were involved as a lay person,

so to speak.

   

   Zah:  I was involved only as a helper to the lawyer.

I got involved in DNA People's Legal Services, mostly

from the cultural education perspective, where we had a

lot of young, aggressive, non-Indian white lawyers that

came to Navajo, but they didn't have all that many

Navajo people that can be the ears and eyes of the

Navajo people in the community to those white lawyers.

And I guess that was one reason why I was hired--and in

the same sense as what my dad was doing, and I looked

at it the same way.  And here you have a situation

where the lawyers were coming onto the Navajo

[Reservation], and they needed guidance; they needed

somebody that can guide them and somebody that can work

with them to make sure that Navajo culture and Navajo

taboos--if there is such a thing as taboos--are not

violated.  And so my job was to help the lawyers that

way.  And so it was more from educational experience

than just becoming a lawyer that's working in an

adversarial system for the Navajo people.  I just got

kind of involved into that kind of a situation with

DNA.

   

   Powers:  You were with it from the very beginning,

were you not?

   

   Zah:  I was the third person hired at DNA.

   

   Powers:  [Wow!]

   

   Zah:  A very interesting thing happened.  I think

one of your questions was how DNA got started.

(Powers:  Yeah.)  I graduated from ASU in the early

sixties, and I went back to the Navajo [Reservation] as

a teacher, and I taught at Window Rock High School.

And at Window Rock High, I was also a basketball coach.

The high school was just getting off the ground.  They

were just building their facility, and they were hiring

teachers and I think at that early, early stage of high

school development in Window Rock, there were only, I

would say, four or five of us that were Navajo

teachers.  The rest of them were all non-Indians.  And

one of them was Senator Jack Jackson.  He was one of

the other five Navajo teachers amongst all of the non-

Indian teachers.  And so I went back and that's what I

was doing.

   And then from there I became what they called a

construction estimator for the Navajo Nation.  My job

was to estimate construction costs from the blueprint.

And so I had to figure out how much lumber it takes to

build this building; how much work will go into

building that building; ordered all of the plumbing

fixtures that's needed; lighting, electrical fixtures

that's needed.  That was my job for the tribal

construction department.  That's when they built all

those chapter houses.  So I had a role in building a

lot of the chapter houses on the Navajo [Reservation].

   And then from there I came back to ASU, and I was

with a program called VISTA Training Program.  And the

VISTA Training Program was analogous to the Peace Corps

program.  It was like a domestic version of the Peace

Corps program, where individuals went out into other

countries.  Students, mainly, joined the Peace Corps,

and they were assigned to those other countries--mainly

underdeveloped countries.  And that was John Kennedy's

idea of service and making yourself available to those

other countries.  VISTA volunteer program was a

domestic version of that where people stayed in the

United States, mainly to Indian reservations.  My job

was to train those VISTA volunteers.  So I came back to

this university here at ASU, and stayed here for two

years.

   Then one day I was here, and a lawyer gave me a

call.  He was just a young lawyer that came out of

Harvard Law School, and his name was Theodore Mitchell.

   

   Powers:  The famous.

   

   Zah:  And he says he just got hired by Peter

MacDonald [phonetic spelling], and Peter MacDonald was

the director of the Office of Navajo Economic

Opportunity.  And the Office of Navajo Economic

Opportunity had a community development program, they

had a child development program which turned into

preschool, Head Start.  It had a construction program

to build modern homes.  It had all of these components,

and one of them was legal services.  And so Ted

Mitchell was the person that got hired under what they

called ONEO.  And Ted Mitchell then went and hired a

guy named Leo Haven.  And Leo Haven used to be the head

of community development.  He just switched over to

help out Ted Mitchell, because he knew all the people

around the reservation.  And so Ted Mitchell and Leo

Haven came down to Phoenix, and they wanted to talk to

me.  So I came to work one morning, and they were

sitting in my office here.  They said, "We are going to

start a legal aid program, and we would like to talk to

you about coming back to the Navajo [Reservation].

What in the world are you doing 300 miles away from the

Navajo [Nation]?!  You should be back with your own

people."  And so they really laid the line on me--

especially Leo.  He was describing how he used to be in

Riverside, California.  He said, "I was in Riverside,

California.  I had a nice house, I had a family, and I

decided What in the world am I doing in Riverside,

California, so many miles away from the Navajo

[Nation]?!  So I returned.  Now I'm feeling very good

about myself and about the people, and all of that.

I'm really enjoying my life.  I know you'll be the

same," [and so on and so forth].  And so I told him I

would sleep on it, I would decide later.  So my wife

and I talked about it, and we decided to go back.  We

decided to go back, and so we went back.  So I was the

third one that got hired by the program.  The way Ted

Mitchell put it, he said, "I want Leo to be involved in

the community, working with the chapter people, agency

people, and the tribal council.  With you, I want you

to hire tribal court advocates.  In our budget there

are positions for thirty-four tribal court advocates,

so I will need to hire thirty-four people that can

practice law in tribal courts.  We also need to train

them.  Maybe we need to work with the law school here

at ASU and have them train our tribal court advocates.

We'll also need to go to every school on the

reservation, and see if we can recruit some young

Navajos from those schools.  And then I want you to

work with the tribal judges and maybe we could do a

better job of representing the Navajo people who appear

in court, many of them without counsel.  And the tribal

judges are wearing three hats:  one of them is the

prosecutor, [one of them is counseling (Tr.)] the

defendants, and then they're judging at the same time.

We need to talk to the tribal judges, they shouldn't be

doing that.  We'll be a defense program.  We'll have

Navajo defendants come to DNA.  The tribal government

can take on the prosecution, and that will leave the

judges to judge those cases.  So that would be your

work."  That's what Ted said.

   Then he said, "On occasion, you also need to come

with me and we'll recruit some lawyers.  We'll go to

Boston and we'll go to Harvard, we'll go to Yale, we'll

go to NYU, we'll go to Cornell, we'll go to John

Marshall University in Chicago, American University in

Washington, SCU, USC, UCLA.  We'll go to Boathall

[phonetic spelling] in California, University of

California.  I see where you interviewed Bob Hilgendorf

[phonetic spelling]."  That's how we got Bob Hilgendorf

out of Harvard.  And the other one was Paul Biederman

[phonetic spelling].  I think he went to NYU, if I

remember.  I remember all those guys.

   Anyway, that was my job, was to recruit.  So I used

to comb the whole country.  I used to go to all these

law schools, and I kept a portfolio of all of the

students who were interested in coming to DNA.  So on

any given day, I could pick up, and I had a tab that

said, "Harvard."  In Harvard there was Bruce Babbitt

and his wife that were interested in working for the

Navajo Nation, or for the legal services program.  And

then I would say, "They're in the second year now," so

it meant we had to go back and interview them, see if

they want to come next year.  So I had a tab on every

one of these people.  During the summer, we had in our

budget forty law clerks that we can hire.  We had about

thirty positions for lawyers.  We tried hiring the

experienced lawyers--it didn't go very well, because

the experienced lawyers were already into their work,

and they had families.  It was pretty hard to move

somebody that has a house in Phoenix, for example, to

move up to Window Rock.  We didn't have houses to begin

with anyway.  So we decided to go after the young ones

at law school.  And we got some pretty darned good

lawyers out of those law schools.  But the key was

interviewing them while they're in the second year and

third year, and you choose them.  Out of the forty or

fifty lawyers that I kept a portfolio on, we would

invite, let's say, twenty of them to come to the Navajo

for further extensive interview by the staff.

And we would drive them around the reservation.  If I

really wanted a lawyer to come to DNA, I would take

them to Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Monument

Valley.  Nine times out of ten they would say, "Yes!

I'm coming."  So I used it.  (laughs)  I used those

areas to entice them to come, because we weren't paying

that much.  My pitch to them was that, "If you're

interested in money, don't think about money now.  Do

something worthwhile in your life.  We've got cultural

things that are so rich we could offer you.  On the

weekends you can go drive out to Grand Canyon.  These

are beautiful places, these are beautiful people, and

we really want you to come and make a commitment to DNA

for two years.  Then after two years, you can go back

to Illinois or New York, Wall Street, you can start

making money.  But you'll always remember DNA, and

you'll always remember what you did immediately after

law school."

   

   Powers:  They do.  You know, every lawyer that I've

interviewed said to me, "DNA was the most exciting work

I ever did."  They're long into their careers by now,

as you know.

   

   Zah:  Yes.  Well, my job was to set all of that up,

and be able to maintain all of that.  At some point,

Ted Mitchell just turned to me and said, "Mr. Zah, you

handle the young lawyers.  You interview them every

spring.  You take one month to go comb this whole

country.  You need to keep on top of all of that."  And

so that's what I did.  And talking to all those young

lawyers, that was my pitch to them.  My pitch to them

was that, "You're never ever going to experience any

other things as exciting as DNA.  Yes, we don't have

any money, we can't pay you much.  But we have a Tribal

Court system here that we're trying to develop.  There

is a Navajo sense of justice.  We do have our own views

about what we mean by due process of law, which may be

different than the Anglos' concept of due process of

law.  And your job is to weigh those when you're

handling these cases."  But, as we talked more and more

about cases, I was telling the young lawyers coming out

of law school that, "Yes, the scenery is out there.

The landscape is beautiful.  The people, the culture

that's different, that's also beautiful.  But the cases

are also the most interesting, interesting ones.  And

what we're trying to do nationwide for American Indians

is that we're trying to enhance tribal sovereignty.

The general public out there doesn't understand tribal

sovereignty.  We need to take some good cases to the

Supreme Court where we can prove our points about

tribal sovereignty and how those are really, really

important to the Indian people."  And so DNA during

that period handled some of the most interesting cases

coming out of Indian country.  And it was those cases

that developed American Indian law for everybody across

the nation.  McClanahan [phonetic spelling] versus

Arizona Tax Commission is only one of them.  Rosalind

McClanahan came to me, personally, and complained about

what the State Tax Commission was doing to her, levying

her income on the Navajo.  So we took that case and we

developed it, and ran all the way with it, through the

United States Supreme Court.  And that became a

predominant American Indian law case.  So those kinds

of cases became very, very famous.

   

   [END SIDE 1, BEGIN SIDE 2]

   

   (Cole gives tape ID)

   

   Powers:  Mr. Zah, if I could just ask you how the

traders came to play into the DNA's goals to work on

these legal matters for the tribe, how they became

important.

   

   Zah:  Well, from my description of the program, it

was the most exciting time.  When you have, for

example, on any one given summer, where you had thirty

lawyers, and you have forty law clerks, for a total of

seventy law clerks and lawyers on the reservation--and

then on top of that, another thirty-five tribal court

advocates, so we're talking a little over 100 people

that you're working with that are trained to be

lawyers.  I guess that's how I got my white hair so

quickly, was to work with those lawyers and tribal

advocates during my days at DNA.  But I wouldn't trade

that for anything.  It was the most interesting time of

my life.  It was the most exciting thing to do, I

guess, in working with those people.

   All along, as I was doing all of this, I kept on

thinking.  I had a role in developing this.  We have a

big monster here.  So at one point, we were handling

all of these famous cases that went to the Supreme

Court.  But all of that dealt with the federal

government, state agencies, county governments.  But we

didn't have cases against [our] own tribal government.

So then we would have meetings, and we would have

strategic sessions.  One day a complaint came in to me,

and there was a group of Navajos that raised the

question of reapportionment.  And that was that the

tribal council was improperly apportioned.  We have a

situation where one community, a council delegate, was

representing 200 people.  And then another community

that had one council delegate was representing 8,000

people.  But when they vote on issues in the tribal

council, their vote equals one.  And what a disparity!

So the Navajo people wanted that corrected.  So they

gave me the case to handle it, and I knew that it had

to be filed against the tribal council.  And there were

a lot of discussions, there were a lot of debates among

the staff, among our community representatives, whether

we should even bring on that case, because we all knew

that it was going smack right into tribal politics.

And so I handled the case, and lo and behold, won the

case in the Tribal Courts, where I got an order out of

the Tribal Court.  I remember the judge was Merwyn

Lynch [phonetic spelling].  He signed an order

mandating that the council not dismiss its current

session until they reapportioned the seats.  And I had

to make that presentation to the tribal council.  That

got me right into the middle of tribal politics really

fast.  And I was just a young man.  And I remember

being with my mother and with my father at one of those

times, and my mother was really discouraging me, not to

get involved into that kind of thing.  My father, on

the other hand, was glad.  He said, "It's about time!

That's why you went to school.  That's why all you kids

went to school.  If there's a wrong here, we just can't

sit around and see the continuation of that wrong being

continued.  So your job is to correct that situation."

I remember him saying that.

   So anyway, we did what we had to do, the tribal

council reapportioned itself, but it was a bitter

battle among all of the council delegates.  And so

those were interesting cases that came out of DNA.

   How the traders and the trading posts got involved

in all of those kinds of legal activities at DNA was

there were just too many complaints that were coming

into DNA offices, all the offices, because by that time

we had about seven or eight offices that were open

among the Navajo agencies.  There was an office in Tuba

City, there was an office in Chinle, for example; Fort

Defiance Agency; Shiprock; and Crownpoint.  And so we

had opened all those offices.  At the same time, we

were having an office open in White River for the

Apaches and Hopi in the heart of Hopiland.  And so we

were out there among the people, advocating to have

Indian individuals who are indigent, to have them work

in such a way that their legal rights are exercised and

protected.  And so the more we told the community

people about some of their legal rights, the more cases

they brought to us.  And it was at that point, I think,

the trading post problems came into existence, where

just too many people were coming to our offices

complaining about the traders.  And I'll use one or two

examples of what kind of complaints.

   One complaint was where the traders would only deal

with some Navajo people insofar as getting work off the

reservation.  Railroad jobs at that time were very

popular among Navajo people who are not trained.  They

were laborers.  So Union Pacific and Santa Fe Railroads

would call the trading posts, and they would call, for

example, the McGee family, and say, "We want ten

Navajos that are good workers."  Well, the way the

trader made that decision was "good workers" meant the

people who owed them the most money.  (laughter)  So

what they did is that they ended up sending those

people on a railroad job.  On one occasion, I know the

trader was transporting some Navajo young people from

Keams Canyon to Holbrook to put 'em on a train to go to

Kansas.  And the trader sent the young kid, the son.  I

don't remember what the age was, it was just a young

boy.  The young boy took the pickup, and they put all

the Navajo workers in the back and they were on their

way to Holbrook.  They got into a car accident.

(Powers:  Oh, yes.)  I don't know if you remember it.

They got into a car accident, and many of them were

hurt.  I don't remember the details, but some of them

may have even died.  I don't know that, we'd have to

look at the records to see.  But for sure a couple of

them really got hurt seriously.  And those families

came to DNA and said, "We want you to do something

about it.  We want to file a suit."  And so that raised

a lot of consciousness among the Navajo families.  So

the more we looked into it, that's how the Navajo

workers, Santa Fe Railroad workers, were chosen, was

the individuals who owed the most money at those

trading posts.  There was one good example of what

happened.

   The other one was where the Navajo people who gave

their local address--as you know, you don't have street

addresses out there, so you use your local trading post

as your local address.  And when Navajo people go out

there, outside of the reservation, and work, they would

always have some kind of a check coming, and following

them after coming back into the Navajo [Reservation]--

either in the form of severance pay or retirement check

or last payment on the job, or something.  And the

traders, as we understood it, based on the complaints,

would always know which letter contained a check

inside.  And the trader would put that check into a

different box, and would leave all of the other mail in

the box for the people to come and check.  But they

would know that there's a check in here, so they would

put it somewhere.  So an individual [would] ask to see

if the mail is there.  Then they would look at that

other pile, and they would look through it.  And the

trader worked in such a way that he always got his

money back from that individual.  And the individuals

were saying that "the trader should not hide the check

from me," or "they should not open my mail," or "they

should not put this over the light bulb and see if

there's a check inside.  You know, that's my right.

They're violating my rights."  So we got into a big

fight with the traders over that issue.  And I remember

I was right in the middle of it.

   And the third kind is where--and this is how the

Federal Trade Commission got involved, FTC--and the

third kind was where if you pawned something of value--

jewelry, saddle, belt, beads, squash blossom,

moccasins--when you pawned something at the trading

posts, you were paying such a high, high interest rate

on those pawned articles, to a point where it was

described as unconscionable, that nowhere else in the

country do you go to a pawn broker, for example, and do

you pawn an article such as high as the trader would

charging the interest on those.  And so we got into a

big dispute with the traders over that issue.  And

related to the same pawn article, was where if you have

some good squash blossom and Navajo beads, for example,

or sash belt, when the pawn became dead was always an

issue.  The traders, as we understand it, through the

complaints that were coming to our office, if there is

some good valuable squash blossom, the trader worked in

such a way, kept their records in such a way, that it

became a dead pawn immediately.  So if there's a

tourist coming by Keams Canyon, driving across the

reservation, and if they're really interested in that

bead [necklace], if it was labeled "dead pawn," they

would sell it, and they would get a huge amount of

money off that article.  For example, a Navajo might

pawn a bead necklace for $100, and the Navajo lady

might be paying the interest on that on a monthly

basis, so that it won't become dead.  The trader would

maybe get tired of that, because so little money is

coming off that pawn.  He would declare it dead pawn,

and then sell it for $500, $800, $1,000, and they would

keep all of that money.  Our claim from DNA was that

that money belongs to the person who owns the beads or

the necklace--that the person who owns the beads should

get a good portion of that money, and not the trader.

The trader should only get back for the amount of the

pawned article, and the other should go back to the

owner.  So we got into a big hassle over that.

   The hassle and the dispute relative to those pawned

articles was such a big thing that we got the Federal

Trade Commission involved to regulate the traders.

   

   Powers:  The DNA did?

   

   Zah:  Yes.

   

   Powers:  You and the DNA--not the tribe?  Was the

tribal council involved in some way?  Sorry, I didn't

mean to interrupt.

   

   Zah:  Yeah.  I think the way the whole thing worked

was that the name of the case was Rockbridge versus

BIA.  John Rockbridge was an old Navajo man from Keet

Seely area, from north of Piñon there.  Around Fourth

Lake, John Rockbridge.  He was the guy that brought the

suit, Rockbridge versus BIA.  And Rockbridge versus BIA

then the legal case became so big, and it involved all

of the other traders, that it was decided that the

Federal Trade Commission should get involved, as an

entity of the federal agency that should look into all

of these allegations.  So they got involved as a result

of the lawsuit.  Then the tribal government was also

asked where they stand, relative to the Federal Trade

Commission coming out and, as I remember correctly,

either Peter MacDonald was this young first year,

second year into his office, he supported that Federal

Trade Commission coming out.

   And the other major, major complaint that the local

people came to DNA with was the inferior merchandise

and food items--in particular, the meat.  That the

trading post had groceries, and most of what they sold

was the canned goods, but there was always some fresh

meat that they sold.  I think we had some Navajo people

that bought some meat, and they took it home and the

meat was spoiled.  They were not properly ventilated

and they were not kept in the cold, refrigerated

container.  And so Southwest Indian Development was

just young college students that came back there in the

summer.  They decided to take on that responsibility.

And I remember there was a young gal who's now either

the superintendent or principal at Window Rock High

School:  Gloria Hale Showalter [phonetic spelling] I

think is now the principal at Window Rock High School.

She was just the first year in college when she decided

to join Southwest Indian Development, and she did the

trading post study.  And they did a report.  And

Charlie John, a tribal judge, was the chair or the head

of the survey and study.  And what they did was pick

and choose at random, trading posts--five or six

trading posts.  And the students went out and they

surveyed the fresh meat at those trading posts, and

what they were doing.  And I think they even checked

some scales, too.  You know, when the Navajo people

bring their wool in, and where the traders--some Navajo

people were complaining about the scale, when you put

items on there it didn't show the correct weight, and

their weight was rigged.  So they went out and they

checked the scale.  You know, they may have something

like a fifty-pound sack of flour, and they asked the

trader, "We want to put this fifty-pound sack of flour

on your scale."  If the trader said no, then they knew

that something was wrong.  So it was a real simple,

simple investigation that they went on.  And they

discovered and brought back a report that yes, a lot of

perishable items were not properly ventilated and kept

in refrigerated places, and that those should not be

out.  So then the idea, "Now, who regulates a trading

post?  Who has the responsibility?"  BIA was saying,

"No, we don't."  So it was just an appropriate thing to

bring in the Federal Trade Commission.  So the Federal

Trade Commission then came in and they issued that

report on the trading posts.  Now, the traders didn't

like what we did, but I was there.  We didn't have a

choice.  The complaints against the traders were just

too overwhelming.  I mean, what would you do if you get

so many complaints about the scales not working when

they bring in their wool?  Who's gonna keep an eye on

whether the scale is right or wrong, to so many trading

posts out there in the spring, when the sheep are being

sheared?  When a family says, "I bought this meat, and

I was beginning to cook it, thought it was okay.  I ate

it until I tasted it, and it came from this trading

post."  You know, who's there to supervise that and to

oversee the way things are done?  When people say, "My

check was put in a different box, it wasn't in the

general box, and the trader then hid that from me,

because they knew that the check was in there.  And

they wanted to make sure before they cashed my check--

it was a $200 check, I owed them $100 out of the $200

that's in here.  So when I signed it over, they got

their $100 back and I got $100.  Is that right or

wrong?"  You know, those kinds of questions.  There

were just too many allegations and complaints.  So the

BIA came out with trader regulations.  And the trader

regulations required that a note be taken on every pawn

item.  For a man to come in with a saddle, the trader's

job is to give a piece of paper, a slip that says what

the interest rate is, the day it was pawned, and all of

that.  The man whose pawning the saddle then got this

piece of paper.  So that was all done through the FTC

traders' hearings.  And so that was the extent of my

involvement with the traders.

   Now, that isn't saying anything about the good

services of the traders have meant to the Navajo people

for all these years.  It was just a situation where the

complaints have compounded during a certain period of

time.  And the Navajos were going out.  More and more

Navajos were going out to Flagstaff, Winslow, Cortez,

and Farmington to shop.  (Powers:  Right.)  And they

were beginning to see the difference between the

trading post, what it has to offer, and the shopping

centers out there.  They were beginning to compare

prices, they were beginning to compare the quality of

the merchandise they were buying.  And to me, it was

just inevitable that this thing came about [in] the

manner in which it did.  It was one of those things

that it just had to come at that time, in the history

of the Navajo people.

   And then from that was an upshot of shopping

centers.  Chinle Shopping Center was born as a result

of all of that.  Tuba City Shopping Center then was

constructed.  And so all around the reservation you

have these big chain stores like Basha's, that came in.

Those new shopping centers and your food chain stores,

they have to comply with your federal regulations, to

police the area so that none of this that I was

describing will repeat itself.

   

   Powers:  It's almost as if the traders were

traditional and thus very out of date.  And what was

going on, on the reservation was a real change after

the Second World War.  They wanted things just like

everybody else had them.

   

   Zah:  Well, the way I see all of that is that....

And the traders may not have anything to do with this,

where the Navajo people were kept on that reservation,

almost like in captivity, for all these years.  We just

stayed there, we didn't know the outside world.  We

didn't know the good things that were happening out

there.  So all of a sudden two things happened.  One of

them was that many of our Navajo people went out of the

Navajo Reservation to serve this country during the

war.  So they had contacts.  My father is a good

example.  He went into the service and he saw what kind

of society is out there, because he rode the train

between Los Angeles and San Francisco so many times

when he was stationed in San Diego.  And so he saw for

himself the way life is out there.  A lot of Navajos

did the same thing.  So after the war, in the mid-

1940s, they came back in.  So that's one thing that

happened.

   The second thing that started happening was the

scholarship program kicked into place.  Paul Jones and

Scott Preston had allocated $10 million for the Navajo

Scholarship Program, and they said anyone who's able,

willing, aggressive, and that has good grades, can use

this money to go to college.  So then more Navajo kids

started going out, getting their college education.

They saw with their own eyes the kind of life that

exists out there.  They came back into the Navajo

[Nation].  Then, as a result, they started saying,

"Hey, we have this situation here."  And so those two

things began happening, and as a result of those two

things, a lot of Navajos were beginning to question

some of the activities of the traders.  And the traders

may not have had anything to do with all of this.  It's

just that the evolution of Navajo history that took

place, that came about at this time, that resulted in

the so-called trading post problem.

   

   Cole:  Did DNA get many complaints about off-

reservation traders?

   

   Zah:  I think they were some off-reservation

traders--mainly the pawn brokers, the car dealers--you

know, other forms of complaints that the Navajos were

leveling against business people, were also happening

at the time.  With car dealerships, it was one of

repossession.  And then maybe with financing--that's

also a story in itself, in dealing with the car

dealers.  The car dealers and the traders were kind of

identical--both of them were huge, huge problems.

   

   Steiger:  I've got two [questions].  You said your

dad went in the late thirties to the service.  Was he

drafted?  I mean, World War II didn't start really

heatin' up until we were bombed, it seemed like.  And I

wonder, did he just sign up to go?

   

   Zah:  If he did go in, it must have been 1939, but I

think he was drafted.  It may have been after Pearl

Harbor was bombed.

   

   Steiger:  And I have one other quick one.  When you

were a kid sittin' in the sweat lodge with those guys,

and they were talking politics, what were the issues

that they were talking about then?--if you want to get

into that.  Maybe that's too much of a digression, and

I swear I'll shut up.

   

   Zah:  Well, one of the issues back then was a

national issue of the use of medicine men.  See, the

BIA had this big thing about the Sun Dance in the

Dakotas and the Wyoming area with the Sioux, and how

the United States viewed that as not such a good idea

to have, to do, by an Indian tribe--that it was not a

religious activity, it was a way of torturing a human

being.  But the way the Sioux were looking at it was in

a religious way, similar to your sacrifices that one

has to do.  So it was a form of sacrifice.  And the

United States was thinking about doing away with some

Indian religious activities.  On the Navajo

[Reservation], the Native American Church was just

beginning to crop up through the Navajo Reservation.

And if you have a religious Sioux activity as an

activity that bothered the United States, whether they

should even practice that or not, then having the

Native American Church for the Oklahoma Indians coming

into the Navajo, then the Navajo religion was also

being raised also as an issue.  And Scott Preston was a

medicine man.  And that kind of a discussion was a big

topic in the sweat bath, because he was kind of also a

guy with a sense of humor.  They would be talking

about, "They want to do away with even this sweat

lodge.  They want to maybe even do away with these

songs."  And then Scott Preston would say in his own

Navajo way, with a lot of common sense and a sense of

humor, and he would say, "Brother, they're talking

about all of this, that we shouldn't be doing this,

being in the sweat lodge.  But to hell with them, let

me sing this song for you."  And then the two of them

would laugh and they would start singing.  He says,

"Who are they to come to this country to tell us that

this is an inappropriate thing to do?  This is between

our great Creator, our spirit, and our communication

with the Great Spirit.  To hell with those other guys,

what they think!" and they would start singing.  So the

old man had a great sense of humor in that way.  And he

says, "I'm happy.  And I know when we get out of this

sweat bath, I'll be happy that I saw you and we had a

chance to talk about this."  So those were the topics.

Navajo-Hopi was also a topic all the time.

   

   Powers:  We should stop.  Your time is up.  I know

you have an appointment.

   

   Zah:  _____________ (comment obscured by laughter)

   

   Powers:  That's what I was thinking.  But thank you,

that was very, very interesting, very valuable.  A

different perspective.

   

   [END OF INTERVIEW]