See What Canyon Life Is Like for a Navajo Pageant Winner | Short Film Showcase

He hey! [Music] I read your status last night. You posted that someone else was holding you tight.

Hey, hey! 1, 2! [Applause] 3!

We y because it makes the spirits hear us, that we're here in the canyon. The spirits in the ruins should know people are going into the canyon. We want them to know we are there because they protect us. Some of my grandma died in there. My dad wants them to hear his kids that were born.

That's how they get to know us. That's how it feels in the canyon when they go in there. When we're in the canyon, we start getting excited. We get to explore things that we haven't seen before. We start talking to each other for a long time about all these stories in the canyon. There's some stories on the walls from a long time ago. It's about clans and what you're related [Music] to in Navajo culture.

When it comes to a person that doesn't know their clans, they call him or her an abandoned Indian. An abandoned Indian usually meant that their parents don't teach them about their culture, what they have to care about, and what their clans are.

My name is Daniel Draper. I live in Canyon deay. At first, I was really negative about Navajo tradition because I grew up in the church. My paternal grandfather was a preacher, but my maternal grandfather said to me, "US natives have the DNA of a tree." I started learning myself how we do have a Navajo tradition, and that's why I try to teach my kids. From the Anazi time, corn was planted in the canyon, and the way the Nabood people used to give lands to each other a long time ago was generation to generation to the oldest daughter.

I want them to keep the tradition going. I love that my dad is teaching me these things because I get to learn more about my Navajo tradition, my Navajo culture, and my Navajo language.

I slept in L kave when I was growing up. It was the most peaceful place in the world. At night, when you sleep there, you can hear people talking different dialects. You can't talk to them, but you can hear them talking to each other.

You know what they say? "Hey, we have a [Music] visitor!" [Music] Our family came back from that long world to Canon, the shell, and we should live down there.

When we were down there, you know, we used to use wagons and horses, and we were herding sheep and taking care of the cows. They used to plant a lot of stuff: cantaloupe, beets, carrots, corn. It was fun, and I missed it.

When we were growing up at the boarding school, we were not supposed to talk in our own language. When we spoke Navajo to each other, we would get our mouth washed with soap, and we were supposed to dress the way white people dressed. We were not supposed to have long hair. We went to church too. We lived in two different cultures, but we were trying to [Music] survive.

Chisha is my second granddaughter. She even has my name. People call her Dala because she was doing what I'm doing and how I'm [Music] acting, how to sing, and how to dress up, and how to introduce herself in Navajo and what her clan is, and all that stuff.

Okay, she learned it from me. I am 2014-2015 Miss Central Navajo. [Music] I prayed to be in the pageant. My grandmother taught me the Navajo language, and she's the person who taught me all the songs I [Music] know.

I would like to keep going through all these pageants and be Miss Na Nation. These young ladies, they're really unique. You guys all look beautiful. To be in that pageant, you have to butcher a sheep and name all the parts in Navajo, and you have to make tortillas and fry bread for the judges and for the contestants.

I would like to say good luck to you all, and if you lose, you're still a winner inside. I feel kind of happy and sad at the same time. The happy part is about the things I did in my community. The sad part is I gave up my crown to a young little girl, and I hope she would do the same as I [Applause] [Music] did. [Applause] [Music]

I've seen a lot of different natives that are not keeping their tradition alive. They're losing their heritage and their language. I wasn't really here for my kids when I was a young guy. I didn't really teach them anything because I was working on the road most of the time as an electrician.

Last year, my wife was trying to tell me to go back on the road, but I couldn't do that. I wanted to stay around my kids and teach them more and more of the Navajo tradition. That's what, for me, I cherish the [Music] most.

And you just put your hand in there, and then it'll come [Music] on. We had to do some kind of prayer before we eat the corn to see if it's good or not.

I hope in 100 years that my grandkids will learn from their dads about all these stories in the canyon that my dad told [Music]. When we're leaving the canyon, we usually get leaves off the trees, and we say goodbye. We drop the leaves into the water. It's our special way to say goodbye to all the fun we've been having.

When we leave, all those feelings stay in the [Music] canyon.

I will take you home, way. I will take you home, we hey hey. I read your status last night. You posted that someone else was holding you tight.

You shouted out for all our friends to see. I don't want to go through this Facebook drama, so I pressed the "like." [Music] Where oh hey, way oh hey, yeah, hey! [Music]