Blessing Way
Medicine man preps for sacred ceremony

By Natasha Kaye Johnson
Diné Bureau

KAYENTA — A Kayenta medicine man will be conducting a Blessing Way Ceremony today at Dibe Nitsaa Mount Hesperus the sacred mountain of the North.

"The traditional people used to say that its one thing to have ceremony over a patient, but its another to have a ceremony as Diné as a whole," said medicine man Daniel Peaches, in a phone interview, as he was making his way to Durango, Colo.

Ceremonies conducted for the Diné people as a whole, he said, are done at sacred sites. Peaches said the ceremonies are usually conducted between the late and early summer, when the plants and trees are in their growing season. Similar ceremonies, he said, are also conducted in the fall.The ceremony has serves as a holistic purpose from ensuring that there is plenty of rain for the plants to bringing harmony back among the Diné people.

"It's so that there will be peace, and there will be no friction among the people," said Peaches.

Two years ago, Peaches conducted the same ceremony at the San Francisco Peaks, but it will be his first time carrying out the prayers at Mt. Hesperus. He will be conducting a Blessing Way ceremony near the sacred peaks in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona this summer.

After graduating from college, Peaches was mentored by a medicine man. He's been practicing traditional medicine for more than 25 years now.

Sometimes the community is given an open invitation to attend the ceremonies, but Peaches said the ceremony at the mountains is only open to medicine men.

"There's a special ceremony where a lot of people are invited," Peaches said. "The one I'm doing is not for the public to be involved."

Peaches said in the past, medicine men traveled on horseback to the sacred mountains, where they carried out ceremonies after giving offerings and gathering herbs.

"You go up there alone to get some message, and a vision from the Holy People," explained Peaches. "When there's a bunch of people, you don't get a vision."

Usually the ceremonies included a sweat lodge at the site as part of purification, he said, because people are not supposed to be in the presence of such sacred sites without purification.

"When I was learning from the medicine man, he told me you need to go out and go into the wilderness, so to speak, and get reacquainted with the Holy People out there," Peaches said. "That way your prayers and words will be accepted if you do a ceremony over a patient."

Other medicine men were invited, but Peaches said many of them are attending Enemy Way Ceremonies, which have already started.

Hubert Laughter, a medicine man from Shonto, is also planning a Blessing Way ceremony near Tsisnaasjini' Mount Blanca the sacred mountain to the East, near Alamosa, Colo. The dates have not been set yet.