An Insider

Brunavard who started off being an outsider of the Navajo tribe adapted to their culture and declared himself an insider.  He made close relationships, married a Navajo woman, and engaged in Navajo duties.  He even gave tours to the Americans as if he new everything about the area and was a true member of the Navajo culture.  As he began to feel comfortable within the culture it came to his attention that he had not mastered the language, which is the most important part of the culture.  Not knowing the language set him back to the stage of being an outsider.  Eager to learn the language he received help from a Navajo graduate student.  During this time Brunavand became the interviewer all over again he asked questions and recorded every thing that was said so that he would miss anything.  One thing that I observed from reading the article is that when interviewing and recording people you have to abide by the rules of their beliefs and culture out of respect.  In the article the graduate student was reluctant to tell Burnavand the tales that were to only be told in the winter in concern that Burnavard would repeat them at an inappropriate time.  Burnavard promised to obey the rules of their culture and agreed to not even replay the recordings of the stories unless it was in the winter.  Brunavard was very intrigued to learn everything about the culture and language, him asking so many questions would have made him looked suspicious of witchcraft to any other Navajo member.  Witch Craft was a very serious issue in the Navajo culture.  Even though it was not easily understood by outsiders it had a huge impact on the members within the culture. Witchcraft can cause death, poverty, insanity, poor health, and isolation.   Another thing that greatly confused Brunavard was the purpose and the meanings of the coyote stories.   As an outsider it is hard to grasp the main moral of the coyote story.  In the begging of the class when we began to observe the writings of Tolken and Brunvand we observed that the coyote stories where told as a form of education to educate the children about how natural occurrences and features happen.  For example the story about the coyote getting sap in his eyes, we took the meaning of that story to describe to us why coyotes have brown fur around their eyes but the Navajo tribe not only uses those stories for those meanings but for life long meanings.  These stories are way beyond children stories they are told to people of all ages at appropriate times.  In most stories the coyote possess characteristics of selfishness, self-destructive, foolish, and gluttonous.  All of these characteristics lead to destruction and wont allow you to prosper.  In the article the Navajo graduate continues to tell Brunavand the coyotes story about how he killed and cooked the prairie dogs that insulted him.  I believe that the Navajo graduate continues to tell Brunavard this story in hopes that he will be cautious in what he says so that he will not insult the other Navajo members on accident, while trying to collect his findings.