Native American Cultural and Music Festival

In a humble house painted with Navajo culture, my childhood friend told me the story of the coyote, the Trickster. Mesmerized with insight into her very different upbringing, traditions, and lifestyle, I sat, eyes wide and mouth open, soaking in her words. Summer after summer, my friend dusted our nights of boy-bands and junk food with stories of the Navajo Tribe. They fell in and out of conversation organically, the way my stories about the family vacation to Yellowstone did. Years later, only a facebook friendship remains of our adolescent bond. And the stories of her Tribe.

Growing up in the heart of Navajo county and moving to the diverse community of Flagstaff is an innate part of my personality and character. So innate, in fact, that I often take it for granted, until half a decade later when I'd give anything for a bite of the Navajo Tacos served in my high school cafeteria... the only school lunch I actually liked.

The unique exposure to Native American Culture goes unnoticed, unrecognized, unappreciated. So when an event like the Native American Cultural and Music Festival comes to the Flagstaff Pepsi Amphitheater at Fort Tuthill, I don't think anything of it.


My Native American Religions professor frequently dropped events like this into lectures. He even offered extra credit for attending from time to time, but more often than not, Friday nights downtown and Saturdays at the creek trumped my desire to learn about this simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar culture.

Not that there's anything wrong with patronizing local businesses and soaking in the summer... actually, everything's right about it. But in Flagstaff, we have the incredible opportunity to be a part of culture and history. Yet, even as I write this, I'm thinking of 100 other places I want to be on July 16.

The tribes that populate the Reservations in Arizona are trying desperately to keep their culture from dying. The local natives singing, dancing, cooking, and supporting their family at the Festival are bombarded every day with opportunities to let their traditions fade, but they fight back, subsequently giving us the pleasure to support them. I wouldn't say that by not attending you're contributing to the hardships contemporary Native culture faces, but I wouldn't not say it.

-Whitney