The Airwaves of Navajo Nation

June 28, 2021 9:44 AM

"According to Navajo tradition, you’re not supposed to give a name to anything that is not good for the reservation . . . . The virus was like a monster. Traditionally, the more you talk about something like that, the more you’re inviting it into your home." Radio stations KTNN and KYAT working to serve as important information sources in pandemic times.
posted by JanetLand (18 comments total)

Ditto this.

I listen to Hopi KUYI 88.1 out of Arizone through Radio Nation. Impressive and eye-opening to the amount of public service devoted to community.
posted by goalyeehah at 9:53 AM on June 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

Naming is the origin
of all particular things

-The Tao Te Ching
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 9:57 AM on June 28, 2021 [5 favorites]

I can pick up KTNN on AM 660 here in Davis, California in the evenings. (I do a bit of mediumwave DXing.) I'm glad to hear about its role in public service.
posted by Numenius at 11:23 AM on June 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

I live near the Navajo Nation; the local programming is fantastic and necessary. Lots of isolated homes where internet and tv are nonexistent. Many of the shows remind me of the pirate radio stations near me when I was growing up — local people talking about very local issues, events, and resources.

@Numenius — how does one get started in mediumwave DXing? Are there web portals, or does one just use a standard AM radio?
posted by Silvery Fish at 11:44 AM on June 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

I lived near Stockton, Ca and would pick up Las Vegas station on AM radio in evenings sitting in a Peterbilt truck. Curious to know if their signal is that strong
posted by goalyeehah at 11:52 AM on June 28, 2021

Are there web portals, or does one just use a standard AM radio?

If you're truly DXing then you're receiving it over the air.

KTNN Streaming
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:16 PM on June 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

"According to Navajo tradition, you’re not supposed to give a name to anything that is not good for the reservation

You'll find a similar concern in traditional Jewish communities: certain diseases are never referred to explicitly; kennings and euphemisms ("that sickness") are used instead. I'd like to say that it was cross–cultural influence via the Yiddish-speaking Native Americans in Blazing Saddles, but it's probably a fairly common attitude among traditional communities generally.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:05 PM on June 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

Weren't there Sephardic Jews living amongst Native Americans, a few generations ahead of waves of Christian settlement (and thus the Inquisition), or is that apocryphal?
posted by acb at 3:36 PM on June 28, 2021

Silvery Fish, you can get started in MW DXing with an ordinary AM radio. The main thing is to tune around after dark on frequencies where there aren't strong local stations, and to play with changing the orientation of the radio, since the ferrite rod antenna in most AM radios is highly directional. KTNN seems pretty easy to receive from Central California.
posted by Numenius at 4:13 PM on June 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

Numenius - thanks! I realized the only AM radio currently owned is an portable emergency radio, powered by hand-cranking. This makes everything just a little more appealing.
posted by Silvery Fish at 4:22 PM on June 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

The LDS Church would have you believe that Jesus of Nazareth walked the Americas. I doubt the tales of Shepardic Jews among the Navajo.
posted by Oyéah at 5:40 PM on June 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

KTNN is available on Radio Garden, an app previously discussed on Metafilter. Sorry, for some reason, having troubles tonight with HTML
posted by etaoin at 6:33 PM on June 28, 2021

As a quick aside, here's an article about a documentary about Jews in the desert southwest of Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico. Don't want to make this thread about that, it's about Navajo radio.
posted by hippybear at 7:18 PM on June 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

I've been a listener to Native America Calling over various NPR outlets for decades, and the amount of native language stuff that is going on now feels exponential over what it was just a few years ago. I have not listened to either of the radio stations in this FPP, but I have heard on NAC that people really appreciate hearing their languages on the radio. I don't have any knowledge of Native languages, but it feels like there are many different ones in an episode at times.

I long ago heard about "the house spirits" and how they never hear a negative word, but are always listening for wishes. So you should never say "I hope they don't get in an accident", you should say "I hope they arrive safely".

I don't place any stock in such things as house spirits, but that does influence how I express things sometimes. It seems like the naming of things is a similar expression. Probably in a lot of cultures, as expressed in above comments.
posted by hippybear at 9:21 PM on June 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

The LDS Church would have you believe that Jesus of Nazareth walked the Americas. I doubt the tales of Shepardic Jews among the Navajo.

OTOH, there's some difference between Jesus sailing to America in 30CE or so and Spanish conversos in the new world running into the frontier to evade the Inquisition circa the 1600s.
posted by acb at 2:00 AM on June 29, 2021

Weren't there Sephardic Jews living amongst Native Americans, a few generations ahead of waves of Christian settlement (and thus the Inquisition), or is that apocryphal?


I believe the Sephardic Jews came as a way to *escape* the Inquisition. They still needed to practice in secret but this was easier to do in North America.

There was a PBS documentary about this.
posted by Ayn Marx at 12:43 PM on June 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

AFAIK, the Inquisition operated throughout the Spanish Empire, hence the legends of Sephardic Jews travelling beyond the borders of the Spanish-colonised Americas and settling among the (then still populous) First Nations settlements, and cultural exchange between the two groups.
posted by acb at 3:06 PM on June 29, 2021

Mod note: Folks, maybe aim for a post about the colonial American Jews thing in its own right if there's some good content on that and let this tack back to the subject of the post.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:11 PM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]