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Youngest of the three young women, two sisters and a cousin, who were torn by history from their desert homeland, Natty chooses to reunite with her sisters, far across the prairie in Texas, rather than to return to Dinétah (the Navajo homeland) alone. The choice involves dangerous risks, which in her particular case do in fact materialize. How she deals with her plight and is helped along the way makes her as legendary as her somewhat famous cousin, Sunny Jefferson. Suffering much over the years from whites and natives alike, she marries into the white world. But like the other two women, Dahiná and Jóhonaá, she holds on to her Diné roots. A blend and bridge between Native American culture and the European, white, immigrant invaders and having become a literary woman with a poetic heart, she eventually comes to be occasionally called the Navajo Poet of Texas.
Some years later, her memoir, Desert Maiden to Lone Star Lady: Memories of the Old Southwest, enjoys some success and paints not only a picture of Texas from the late 1860s and onward to the turn of the century in 1900, but relates the dangerous exploits of the three Navajo women and the men who shared their lives.
Some years later, her memoir, Desert Maiden to Lone Star Lady: Memories of the Old Southwest, enjoys some success and paints not only a picture of Texas from the late 1860s and onward to the turn of the century in 1900, but relates the dangerous exploits of the three Navajo women and the men who shared their lives.
Naadáá ‘Natty’ Jones
All My Dreams
Mrs. Naadáá ‘Natty’ Jones
Austin, Texas, May 1876
(to her former cavalry officer husband)
All my dreams are just of you, all across the days and miles
I never thought I could look at you and ever cast a smile
Whence came you to my land ?
In the night when brave men sleep, only then to rise and die
In the glow of the Comanche moon, women lay and cry
Whence came this terror nigh ?
Families weep for broken homes all along these border lines
Native against native and yours against us all
In darkness lonely mothers cry
Whence came you . . . and why ?
In my red desert, on their high plains,
and all across this frontier sky
Even in your hogans large, peace is just a fleeting sigh
None is forever safe out here
Least of all you and I
From : All the Scattered Pieces
Mrs. Naadáá ‘Natty’ Jones
Austin, Texas, May 1876
(to her former cavalry officer husband)
All my dreams are just of you, all across the days and miles
I never thought I could look at you and ever cast a smile
Whence came you to my land ?
In the night when brave men sleep, only then to rise and die
In the glow of the Comanche moon, women lay and cry
Whence came this terror nigh ?
Families weep for broken homes all along these border lines
Native against native and yours against us all
In darkness lonely mothers cry
Whence came you . . . and why ?
In my red desert, on their high plains,
and all across this frontier sky
Even in your hogans large, peace is just a fleeting sigh
None is forever safe out here
Least of all you and I
From : All the Scattered Pieces
Jóhonaá 'Sunny' Jefferson
Down on the Brazos
Mrs. Naadáá ‘Natty’ Jones
Austin, Texas, December 1877
(the speaker in this poem is Jóhonaá 'Sunny' Jefferson, after
she and her husband Aaron find themselves finally safe in Texas.)
Down on the banks of the Brazos
Wading in the shallows alone
Remembering the trials of the traveler
And the pain that has brought us both home
Walking on the shore of the Brazos
Waiting in the canebrake alone
Remembering the sorrow and troubles
And all the reasons we roamed
Wrapped in the arms of the Brazos
And the arms of the friends we have known
We asked for His care by this river
And found we were never alone.
Holding your hand by the Brazos
Soaked in the flood of your charms
Wrapped in your love by these waters
And safely in God’s loving arms.
From : Rio de los Brazos de Dios
RIVER OF THE ARMS OF GOD
Mrs. Naadáá ‘Natty’ Jones
Austin, Texas, December 1877
(the speaker in this poem is Jóhonaá 'Sunny' Jefferson, after
she and her husband Aaron find themselves finally safe in Texas.)
Down on the banks of the Brazos
Wading in the shallows alone
Remembering the trials of the traveler
And the pain that has brought us both home
Walking on the shore of the Brazos
Waiting in the canebrake alone
Remembering the sorrow and troubles
And all the reasons we roamed
Wrapped in the arms of the Brazos
And the arms of the friends we have known
We asked for His care by this river
And found we were never alone.
Holding your hand by the Brazos
Soaked in the flood of your charms
Wrapped in your love by these waters
And safely in God’s loving arms.
From : Rio de los Brazos de Dios
RIVER OF THE ARMS OF GOD