Before people
Shoe game pits day, night animals

Máii (coyote) team member Harry Begay chants the night away for the Navajo shoe game in Window Rock on Thursday. — © 2010 Gallup Independent / Adron Gardner

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The cold weather couldn’t keep away hundreds who turned out for the 2nd annual Navajo Nation Museum Shoe Game Tournament on New Year’s Eve. The spectators were there to see six teams play for prizes that included five truckloads of wood for the first place team and 10 bales of hay for the second place winners, and to countdown to the new year. Festivities, which also included coyote stories, string games and concession sales, lasted until after 2:30 a.m.

The shoe game is a recreation of the game that was played by the day animals and the night animals in Navajo creation stories.

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