[ Jason Curley Speaking in Navajo ]
>> Hello in Navajo to all of the visitors to this exhibition.
My name is Jason Curley.
I'm a member of the class of 2013 here at Dartmouth College,
and I am a major, double major in Native American Studies
and Anthropology with a hopeful minor in digital arts.
I come from a small community in Arizona, Northeastern Arizona,
on the Navajo reservation called Ganado, Arizona,
and its Navajo name is actually Lokaahnteel, which means "place
of the reeds," referring to the water
and the reeded area within that region.
I come from a people, a culture, and a tradition that means
so much to me, so valuable to my time here, that it has,
unlike some people would say, it would be a burden,
but I personally feel it would be --
it's a very positive and instrumental
and encouraging blessing, especially here at Dartmouth.
I am very happy and fortunate to have been able to make it here,
especially given the history, the difficulty of Native people
when it comes to Western education and institutions.
And my reasoning for choosing Dartmouth spans
from multiple reasons, first of all being
that they had a very extensive vast Native community
for a college this far away from what a lot of --
a lot of communities where there would be a high,
dense population of Natives, and the community here
when I first fame in fall of 2008 as part
of the Native Fly-in program was very welcoming,
very nurturing, very encouraging.
And it was an immediate hook for me,
of one of the reasons why I needed to come to Dartmouth,
because of what it had to offer of the community,
something that I personally think I needed, given the fact
that I had been raised
on the Navajo reservation for all of my life.
We as Native people know just how valuable a history
and a lineage is when it comes to knowing where it is
that we came for, how it is that we got here.
We can't understand ourselves today without looking back
at the way things were in history.
And that's one of the things that has been one
of the most instrumental pieces
to my education here at Dartmouth.
The professors and the facilitators, and the number
of people that just make this community,
the Native community itself, is just very powerful
and very influential to my success here at Dartmouth.
Everything we do should be done with a balance,
and nothing should ever override something,
another different aspect of life.
And that's something that I've come to internalize
and appreciate while here at Dartmouth,
given the high demands of academics and extracurriculars,
and just the limited amount of time.
When you look at the scope of what needs to get done here,
there's just so much that could override something else.
And the weaving in itself has been a reminder
that in my life here, in my studies here, there always need
to be a balance between my spirituality, my academics,
my physical well-being, my mental well-being,
the different components that make up life that need to be
in balance with each other in order for me to be happy,
in order for me to treat others in a way that they would want
to be treated and that is comfortable for them.
Being here at Dartmouth has been so important for me
to have these cultural connections, whether it be
through the songs I listen to of traditional ceremonies or songs
of the Native American church,
which historically is not itself Navajo, but has become adopted
by the Navajo to a point we've included our own methodology
and our own understanding of its use,
and that in itself has been instilled in me
since I was a young child and it has continuously been a part
of my development and my success
and my strength while here at Dartmouth.
And more recently, I brought back to Dartmouth
at the beginning of my sophomore year, this loom
and this rug here as another component to that strength
and that system of nourishment that I need to be able
to sustain myself here at Dartmouth.
And in itself, the loom is very, very sacred and precious to me.
When I was a little kid I would look at my grandma,
Helen Curley, who is actually the one
who taught me how to do this.
I would be a little kid and just stand at the side
and just watch her weave, just how graceful her hands would be.
And she's be so concentrated on what she was doing
and the designs and patterns she was making, that it seemed
like nothing in the world mattered at the time,
nothing bad, nothing wrong, because of that mentality
that she had, that what she put into her work needed
to be positive, needed to be full of good, positive energy
in order for that final piece, the final product to come
out to something useful, whether it be for commercial gain
or economic sustainability, or just to present as a gift,
because that in itself -- the thoughts that a weaver puts
in their masterpiece, their work of art, is something that needs
to be considered, and she did a very excellent job
at doing that.
It's another passage on which I can connect to her and her life,
and it's very empowering, it's very rich in knowledge
and education in itself, and I'm very proud and honored
to have been able to learn this from her.
And she was very -- she was very encouraging of it.
She didn't say it in words, but just the fact
that she was very -- she was very gung-ho about going about,
getting the loom set up for me and teaching me how
to do the warping here, that that was in itself a sign
and indication that she was proud
that I was showing an interest in something that has been
so lost in Navajo culture today.
Not many weavers today will be members
of the younger generation.