Dineh
Jenny Manybeads passes away at 115, Nov 10, 1999
Emmett Bert Tso passes away at 68
From: DINETAH29@aol.com
Jenny Manybeads passes away at 115
By Sandra J. Wilson
THE OBSERVER
"They called her Left-Handed Lady-they knew her that way." A clan
relative introduced her thusly. The fact that Jenny Manybeads was left-handed
is hardly the most remarkable aspect of this world-famous woman.
What is amazing is that her fame came well after her 100th year of life
when her name was affixed to the First Amendment lawsuit against the United
States government in response to Navajo and Hopi relocation. And some would
wonder that she and other individuals affected by the relocation law have
done is attempt to live their lives out on the land of their birth in a
traditional manner. It has been suggested that Jenny may have often wondered
what all the fuss over her has been about. Manybeads passed
peacefully into the final rest the evening of November 3. It is thought
that she was 115. According to one woman who visited Manybeads at her final
home at Los Arcos in Flagstaff, "She never said much about relocation but
talked about friends and acquaintances, Navajo and Hopi alike. Her last
years were remembered that way. She talked about the good things in her
life, and spoke of people who I know are long gone." Obviously these people
still lived in Jenny’s heart and mind. She leaves many, many relatives
and people who will miss her. But they talk of how she was a happy, funny
person. "She was a great lady," said Mary Kahn of Flagstaff. "She was always
joking and teasing." People have been remembered for far worse.
This post was given by Mae Washington, John and Leonard Benally’s sister and granddaughter of Jenny Manybeads, who filed the Manybeads, class action law suit for Dineh religious freedom. Jenny Manybeads Passes away at 115 Jenny Manybeads was of the Mexican Clan, born for Bitterwater Clan. She was married into the Manygoats Clan. She was 115, born in 1884. She died Wednesday November 3, 1999 of natural causes. She was put to rest at Tuba City Community Cemetery. We did not make any attempt to put her to rest on her own homeland because we knew she could not be buried on her land. They denied my aunt, Alice Benally the right to be buried on her land and we could not face the same kind of situation again. That is why we buried her at Tuba City Cemetery. Jenny Manybeads is a fourth generation grandmother. She had 4 generations of grandkids. There are 86 first generation grandkids, 39 third generation grandkids and 8 fourth generation grandkids. Jenny lived all her life around Mosquito Spring vicinity. She was a rug weaver, herbalist, mid- wife. We don’t know how many children she delivered. I know it was many, many children. That was before hospitals. She always rode horses, that was her main transportation. She was a person that planned for the family. If anyone of her family was sick, she was the person that got all the people together from all the families in the community. She was a community leader and would call for dances and ceremonies and everyone would gather to help. Like the enemy way dance, she got people together, saying come help and get things done. She was very strong in her own way where people listened to what she had to say. She presented herself as an activist, a person that really cares about human rights and the quality of the human race. She believed that everyone was created equal, that no one was more or less than anyone else. The way she saw life is that every person has a purpose on this earth to carry out. She always strongly expressed that every human race did not have colors, rich or poor, they were all of the same creation and therefore you do not become greedy and take things for your own personal gain. If you do that you would pay for it when you leave this earth. So, she was always mindful that the Dineh people were put here to be the keeper of the Mother Earth. She would say, you take care of the Mother Earth the way Mother Earth takes care of you. The air, is the same way because it is so important, it gives us life and we breathe it every minute. Just as water is the essence of life. It gives us strength and life and we cannot do without it. Therefore we must have reverence for it. It is the same way with the energy of the sun, we should not abuse it or misuse it. These four elements, if we abuse any of them and have no respect for them, it will abuse us too and eventually take our life. People cause so much pollution we have global warming and one of these days if we don’t stop in the name of greed we will fry ourselves. For that matter, every element of this earth if we abuse it it will eventually take our life. That was her belief and she had really advocated for the rights of everyone living being on this earth, even down to the little ant. She would say, the tiny little ants, they have life here. We cannot just eradicate them because we think they are a nuisance. Every living thing on this earth has a purpose. So as a human being we cannot say we rule and take these things for granted. That was her basic message to us and to a lot of other people. And I think we should be very mindful that Jenny Manybeads did speak the truth. She said the land issue should not have come about in this manner with so many people relocated. She considered this an atrocity where you literally remove a person from their home by force threatening them, humiliating them, taking their livestock, their means of living away from them, making them helpless, powerless and causing them to live with tremendous stress from day to day because they do not know where their next meal is coming from, their basic life taken away from them. So these have no choice but to move away to an unknown land and unknown life, maybe into the city or into some other wasteland that has been contaminated by uranium where more and more people have died of many different kinds of illness. She also spoke of all the peole that have died of loneliness, despair, hopelessness, all created by the US federal government, Bureau of Indian Affairs, removing the people just so they could take the natural resources out of the land so the big corporations can become fat with their money. That was her argument. She said we cannot just give up, we must continue fighting for who we are and stand our ground and speak for ourselves and not allow the federal government to tell us what to do. This was her message to her grandchildren, her children and her people. Jenny was the one that filed the Manybeads lawsuit. Her husband Manybeads, a Medicine Man died in 1978 or 1979. She filed this class-action lawsuit for religious freedom on behalf of all her people so they could remain on the land, saying that relocation violates Dineh religion. She felt that the way the government handled the situation was just a way to take the land away from us, she called it the fleecing of America. The corporations and the government have money so it is really sad to see what has happened to her people. 400 million dollars of taxpayers money was spent to put a lot of people to death and live a life of misery. This is just like the concentration camp and a repeat of the Long Walk. I think she saw a lot of the things happening to her people, finally the big sleeping giant woke up and now it is going to devour us. Do we sit here or do we fight the big giant? And I think Jenny’s basic argument was our belief is tied to the land, that is the way we understand it. But to the government the land is an economic base. To us, in our belief it has a religious significance that you do not just dig out every tree on this land and contaminate all the water that was put here. They are just taking from us and not leaving anything for the people. That was really her belief and her life, her own nature and personality. She was always smiling, always laughing. She was really a happy person. I don’t think she ever picked a fight with people because she wanted to. She had a very settled way of dealing with any situation. She was very diplomatic in the way she handled issues at hand.She was the type of person that didn’t get out in the front line but was very visible. That is why she filed this lawsuit. She said we do not understand man made law. When man made law is imposed on us, it is full of lies and idioms. The way they translate words to us could be very tricky so we have to be very mindful to what they say and not agree to things that are written. For example, if they use two little words like and or, two little words, this could means you and I have this joint thing we own and neither one can do something without the other person giving consent. In the case of the US government it is you or I can do what we want, in most cases it is or, that little word can change a lot of things. That is the way this whole situation has been handled by the government. We never were a part of all the litigation that went on behind closed doors. That is not the way to deal with our lives, we have feelings, emotion, ties to the land, to everything around us. So how can they make decisions of what we they are doing to our life. She understood how things come about in the name of greed. Jenny was another Martin Luther King, another Mother Theresa. These people, she herself was that inspiration. This was the vibe you got from her when you talked with her. Every time I went to see her and talked with her I felt there was still hope when I spoke with her. Rena Babbitt Lane, an elder matriarch of Red Lake says, "I remember Jenny as a very kind woman, she worried if everyone had food and would butcher to help people out to make sure they were well fed. She always asked if we had enough for ourselves. And when she sheared her sheep she would give us wool to make rugs and support my family. She never said this is only for me, she always made sure she had something to share, even little things, you never went away from her empty handed. She helped our life. Jenny was always sharing things with people. If she had corn she would give us some. My mother was Jenny’s older sister. She was like my mother, my aunt. So in Navajo culture you don’t refer to her as my aunt, but as my mother’s older or younger sister, and she called me her daughter." Mae Washington, who translated this statement for Rena is the second generation great grandchild of Jenny Manybeads and a grand-mother herself with 5 grandchildren. If people want to communicate, send donations to help pay for funeral expenses and send condolence cards please contact: Bessie M. Begay and Alton Begay, P.O. Box 103, Tuba City, AZ 86045. Thank you,
Emmett Bert Tso passes away at 68
Emmett Tso is survived by his wife Faye B. Tso. He was born December 15, 1930 and passed away on November 7, 1999. Emmett says he was relocated 3 times from what is known as District 6 and then relocated from HPL where he lived near Huck and Genevieve Greyeyes. And each time he was told us to move, finally he said no more. Then he ended up subject to the Bennett Freeze. He said he and his family became refugees in their own homeland. He is survived by 8 children and a lot of grandchildren. Emmett Tso was very outspoken about the land issue and the Bennett Freeze, both he viewed as basically the same, ways the US government tortures the Dineh people, denying his people the right to live their life. When his kids were very small he used to live close to Moencopi and his house burned down and he lost everything and had to start out all over again. He thinks this happened because he was outspoken about land issues. He often talked about how many of his people were moved several times and were just told to move again. He lived in these type of situations all his life and suffered greatly. He was a Council delegate from Tuba City and served in a lot of different capacities as an official, always speaking for his people and serving them as a leader. He was never afraid to express himself. If anyone wants to write to his wife and his children to express their condolences, please contact Faye B. Tso, P.O. Box 583, Tuba City, AZ 86045. His family depleted all their resources trying to make him better. He was in the hospital for 1 month, using medicine men and doctors, in a coma. He never regained consciousness. Many of us believe we lost a great man with leadership ability and we miss him greatly. Thank you,