Corona advice, Past epidemics, and the Holy People

I'm no health expert, but my common sense advice about the Corona virus is to stay home as much as possible. It does you no good to go out into the public contracting some disease that will jeopardize your life, family and community.  Zero percent is better than 3 or 4 percent death rate.  Then when I think about it, it's not really the Navajo people that travel, it's our elected leadership that travel to Las Vegas, Washington D.C., New York City, and Israel.  The average Navajo does not travel to these places.

There have been many epidemics in the past throughout human history.  Throughout European history, masses of Bilagana have died due to various diseases such as "Black Plague" in Europe and Asia in the 1300's. That was a very devastating disease.

In the Native American history, America was actually Native America.  The land was filled with millions of Native Americans from the New York shores to the shores of California. Then the European smallpox disease wiped out many of our tribes to a devastating degree which was how the Europeans stole the land from the Native Americans.

Among Navajoland, we have experienced epidemics ranging from tuberculosis to influenza in the early 1900's.  Later in the 1990's, the Hanta Virus came which did not kill that many people.  At that time, many of our traditional medicine people said that more diseases are coming to Navajo because most Navajos are no longer traditional and have lost touch with being Dine.  Most Dine no longer speak the Holy language, no longer say their prayers, and no longer make the Holy offerings. Without the language and offerings, we lose touch with our Gods, and the diseases "win" the people.  Nobody is really saying this anymore in 2020, probably because those wise people who use to be vocal about that in the 1990's have passed.  Absent in today's discussion of the Corona virus by our Navajo leaders is the traditional perspective. (Navajo Nation establishes Preparedness Team)  All our branch leaders have gone Christian.  In 1996, thousands of Dine made offerings in the footprints of Holy People who visited a Navajo elderly couple in Big Mountain on Black Mesa. As we go further, we are losing our language and our traditions. This may be another reason for the current Corona disease that's becoming a pandemic.

These epidemics are not new. Our ancestors dealt with it, now it's own turn.  It was bahadzid then, and it is bahadzid now.  The best way to deal with it practically is to stay out of its way by staying home as much as possible in these next few weeks and maybe months.