They were here first. That was the extent of my Native American history lessons in school. And the stuff about when the Pilgrims came and the Indians brought them corn for the first Thanksgiving. Then there were the countless westerns I watched, showing feathered Indians in deerskin bikini bottoms galloping across the plains to scalp innocent white men. And these days the only stories that seem to make it to the news are about the high unemployment, alcoholism and suicide rates among the million and a half Native Americans. I figured that I wasn't alone in my ignorance, so I went to northeastern Arizona to visit the Navajo and Hopi Indian Reservations, the largest of the 291 in the country (about the size of West Virginia, with the Hopi sitting in the middle of the Navajo). I wanted to see how girls there live, what they talk about, what they do for fun, and how they feel about being a misrepresented minority in a country that barely recognizes their existence.

MOCCASINS AND MOUSSE

As I'm driving across the plains toward Tuba City, the Navajo town where I'll be staying, I stop on a hill overlooking the reservation and step into the bright sun and gusting wind. The view is breathtaking, and I take off my sunglasses so there won't be anything between me and what I'm seeing. The sky and the wide stretch of almost fluorescent yellow grass are endless, and not one sign of life breaks the view between where I stand and the pink hills miles away. You can't help but feel small and insignificant, yet also totally connected to everything around you. Being in this serene and beautiful place, I am not surprised when I later learn how tied the Navajo and Hopi are to their land. It's not merely something they live on, it's almost like another person or relative they live with.

But there's depressing stuff too, like Tuba City itself: a dusty town built on a hill consisting of 100 or so trailer homes and a few low buildings, including a McDonald's and a Kentucky Friend Chicken. Lily Lane, my guide for the next four days and a Navajo counselor for The Department of Youth Services, is waiting on her office steps when I arrive. She introduces me to my first interview, Caille Tsingine (pronounced Sin-GIN-ny), a cute, 17-year-old Hopi with shoulder-length, layered hair. She shakes my hand so gently it's more like a brushing of fingers, then introduces me to her mom, Angie. They invite me to their house to meet the rest of the family.

I expected - actually hoped - that the Navajos would still live in the traditional hogans I had seen in photographs - rounded shelters of clay and wood purposely designed to blend in with the land. So I'm a little disappointed when I get to the Tsingines' home, a beige, one-story tract house that looks exactly like suburban homes anywhere in America (I find out later that only very traditional Navajos still live in hogans). It's also pretty obvious that I've met up with some major jocks. There are trophies all over the living room, and a basketball game is on the very large color TV. The only thing there's more of are family pictures: grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews and all four kids; Camille; Georgie, 16; Olin, 13; and Dean, 12. I remember what Lily told me on the phone about families on the reservation being much closer and more extended than among Anglos (the term everyone on the reservation uses for whites), with usually three generations living in one house, or at least close by.

Camille invites me to sit down just as her sister Georgia comes home in her white softball uniform. She has gorgeous long black hair and an incredibly warm smile. "So you guys are really into sports," I say, understatement of the year. "Last year our basketball team, The Warriorettes, was in the state tournament and we made second," says Camille, an all-conference player on the Tuba City High School varsity team. "It was so neat because we were succeeding outside of the reservation. You compete not just with Indians but with other people, and you're representing everyone from here."

As we're talking, Dean is getting measured for moccasins by his grandmother, who is tracing his feet on a piece of paper. Georgia tells me that her grandma really helps keep the old ways alive through stories and just always being around. "I learn everything from my Hopi godmother," Camille says, sitting up a little straighter. "Her name is Ramona and she's my mother's aunt. When I was 16, I was initiated into the Hopi tribe (the Tsingine kids are a quarter Navajo) and my parents gave me to her because she can help me with my religious stuff. She's like a wise person."

I say that this sounds a lot like when Christians get confirmed, and Mrs. Tsingine tells me that some Indians are Christians too. "There are a lot of similarities," she says, taking off her glasses. "We are Southern Baptists and we're waiting for the second coming of Christ, and at the same time in the Hopi tradition we're waiting for this one person to come back, the creator of all, that as Hopis we are thankful for, the earth, the corn, the sky and the rain. We don't worship these things, but we show appreciation for them. When you pray, you pray for the whole world, and the country you live in, and then you wind down to yourself and you pray for a long, good, strong life." Listening to all of this, I feel privileged that Mrs. Tsingine trusts an Anglo enough to invite her into her home, let her talk to her children and reveal all this personal stuff. But then I realize that it's not so strange, since they believe in the good of the Earth, which encompasses all people on it, including Anglos.

Camille and I start to talk about her upcoming graduation. Unlike most of her classmates, Camille, a B student who is also senior class president, will be going to college in the fall. (Only about 10 percent of her graduating class will go on to college; another 10 percent will go on to vocational training in things like carpentry or auto mechanics.) But going to college also means that she'll have to leave the reservation. When I ask her how she feels about this, Camille shifts uncomfortably before answering. "Actually I'm anxious to move. I want to be an engineer, and I'd be limited if I stayed here. But it will make me sad not to be on the reservation because I'll miss so much." Sensing Camille isn't telling me everything, I ask her what she means, and Camille tells me about going to summer school in New York when she was 16. "People asked me really dumb questions about being Navajo, like, "Do you live in a teepee or ride a horse to school?" I said, "We're just like you. We drive cars. We go to school. We play sports and we buy our food from stores." Camille hesitates and looks down. "Like, once I was reading an article about Clayton Lonetree [an American serviceman who was kicked out of the Marines in 1987 for committing espionage]. His other's from here. They made a whole bunch of assumptions about Navajos just based on him. Like, his dad drank and they made it seem like every parent here is an alcoholic [actually the alcoholism rate has gone way down, and it's now illegal to sell any kind of liquor on the reservation] and that every kid doesn't succeed in school. There are plenty of us who want to succeed and who don't believe in drugs."

Georgia and Camille have a good chance for making it in the Anglo world, maybe more than other kids on the reservation, since they have great role models. Their dad is an adult education specialist and works for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and their mom is a tutor at Tuba City Junior High School. This is unusual because of the 39 percent unemployment rate on the reservation; if you don't teach or have one of the few better-paying positions with the tribe, you have to rely on minimum-wage jobs at a general store or a place like McDonald's.

"I know Anglos wonder why Navajos don't just leave the reservation and get a job," Lily says later. She shows me an article about traditional Navajo people who were forced off their land and relocated to cities. Since all they knew how to do was farm, they couldn't get jobs. But beyond that, they felt as if part of themselves had been killed when their land was taken away. So a lot of these people turned to alcohol, while others died, because they couldn't adjust. "But you have to understand that our land is essential to our existence; it's part of our identity. We're not about that hectic pace in the city; we even have a different concept of time that's very tied to nature." Which doesn't mean the Navajos don't live according to clocks. Georgia, in fact, is obsessed right now about moussing her hair so she can meet her friends at the local mall's movie theater, where all the teenagers within a 70-mile radius spend their Friday and Saturday nights. I don't even have to hint too badly to get her to invite me along.

Lily had told me that 50 percent of the 180,000 people on the Navajo reservation are 18 and under as compared to 29 percent in the rest of the country and I can believe it when we get to the Toh Nanees Dizi (means weaving waters) Mall; there's scarcely an adult face in the army of guys and girls wearing Levi's, running shoes and black concert T-shirts. And it's pretty obvious that no one really cares about seeing Police Academy 6, the purpose of the evening being to play video games and scope on members of the opposite sex. A few girls pretend they don't notice the bunch of guys who are whispering about them, and I watch as they walk to the hill behind the theater. Soon, all I can see is the orange glow of cigarettes that make up their own constellation of lights, almost in the shape of the Little Dipper brightly shining above.

CORN GRINDING AND BEAUTY PAGEANTS

One thing about the reservation: it's big. So people are used to driving long distances, sometimes up to an hour and a half just to get groceries. But even though she's driven two and a half hours from a really tiny town called Leupp to meet me, Tanya McCabe is perfectly poised and fresh in her white cotton pants and pink blazer. (A lot of Native Americans were forced to take Anglo names when they started going to boarding school in the early 1900s, which is why many names sound Irish.) And like Camille, she's brought along her mom, Evelyn, a schoolteacher.

An 18-year-old freshman at Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona, Tanya's home every weekend to be with her family. When we sit down, I notice a very delicate diamond ring on her skinny ring finger. "Are you engaged?" I ask. "No," she says, smiling and showing the braces she had put on just a few months ago. "My cousin got me this ring because I've held four different titles on the reservation: Miss Teenage Leupp, Miss Western Teenage, Miss Navajo Nation Youth Princess and Miss Western Navajo."

Beauty pageants have always struck me as such a middle American, blond concept. I ask Tanya what got her into competing for titles. "I've really enjoyed many people and travel to different places," she says. "I'm glad that I can show people about the Navajos and our customs. But sometimes it's a problem because people are jealous and they talk about me, especially in Leupp. I've held so many titles and never stayed in one place to go to school, so they always say that I moved away because I was pregnant. Because lots of girls in Leupp have babies in high school."

Tanya offers to model one of the five traditional Navajo costumes she's competed in and brought along to show me. My favorite is called a rug dress. Women wear it on special occasions, like American indian Day on the fourth Friday of September. It's literally a woven rug of black wool with red and blue patterns, the black representing the universe, the blue the clouds and the red the earth. Tanya's put her long, permed hair up into the traditional Navajo style, a tight oblong bun tied with string.

Traditional Navajo women, she explains, never cut their hair because it symbolizes knowledge; during the day they tie it up to kind of conserve the knowledge. "I haven't cut my hair since I got my period when I was 11," she says. "That was an important time; it meant I could have children.

One of the coolest things about the Navajo and the Hopi is how important women are in their culture. And that's why motherhood, birth and fertility, which symbolize the power of the earth to regenerate itself, are sacred. So when a girl gets her period, there is a big four-day ceremony. "I went out to my grandparents' place and stayed in a hogan," remembers Tanya. "I had to stay up all night on the third night, and my grandfather, who is a medicine man, sang. The fourth morning my grandmother washed my hair with a yucca plant, and just before sunrise I ran two miles to greet the sun. I also had to grind corn, which is sacred to us because it's our main source of food, and make a special cake that I baked and buried in the ground to show my appreciation to the earth."

"Does every girl go through this ceremony?" I ask, remembering my own first period and how I was too ashamed to tell my mom, let alone celebrate with Grandpa. "No," Tanya says sadly, "my family's very traditional. But most aren't. I think my culture is dying out because a lot of the young people are moving out to the cities. Kids who've forgotten they're Navajo want to be treated the same as white students. They change their hair, they bleach it a lighter, redder color. They dress differently than Navajos. I wouldn't wear a miniskirt or anything low-cut or high heels. Dressing up is important to everyone, but all these fancy accessories are not Navajo," adds Tanya, who also regrets losing touch with some traditions. "I can speak some Navajo, but I can't really carry on a conversation [only about nine percent of the people on the reservation still speak Navajo exclusively]. But at the same time, I want to succeed in computer business to show other people that I'm just like them. It's sad that I have to leave, but I'll do more for my tribe if I have a higher education."

"Do a lot of whites still believe you're not as good as them?" I ask. "There's still prejudice," Tanya says, looking across at her mother, who nods that it's okay to talk about it. "There's a lot of it in Flagstaff. When I went to high school, if some classes were too full and an Anglo didn't have a place to sit, the teacher would ask a Navajo student to go out and something." Tanya looks at me and her big, sweet smile fades away. "At times I feel like crying because I'll be standing in line at K Mart and the salesperson will help everyone before me." Evelyn nods her head in agreement, and I'm reminded of the man and woman at a Flagstaff rental car counter who automatically handed me a pile of brochures for the nearby Grand Canyon. When I told them I was skipping it for a trip to the reservation to interview Navajo teenagers, their perma-smiles faded and the woman said, "Oh, yes, that could be interesting. Some of the Indians are educated."

"Has that kind of prejudice ever made you wish you weren't Navajo?" I ask, knowing what her answer will be, and I'm not disappointed. "No," she says quickly. "I've always been happy to say that I am Navajo."

As I'm leaving, I notice both Tanya and her mom have gotten a little teary at the thought of Tanya leaving the reservation to find work, and I can feel again the conflict that someone like Tanya faces. I leave her hoping that she'll succeed in her quest to show the Anglo world what Native Americans are really like.

CRADLEBOARDS AND METALLICA

When we get to our next stop, at own called Navajo Mountain, I can't believe how small it is. There's a trading post (basically a general store), a community center, a basketball hoop and about 10 buildings and trailers, all set against the spectacular snowcapped mountain the town is named for. As we pull up to a new elementary school when I am meeting my third interview, 16-year-old Ruth King, Lily tells me that 19 percent of the kids who live on the reservation are forced to go to boarding school, often as early as five years old. "There isn't any choice," Lily explains softly. "There aren't enough schools on the reservation. Most kids would have to travel hours to get to one. And if people were to move into cities so their kids could go to school, they would lose their land, and that's inconceivable."

Ruth King's family lives here in Navajo Mountain, but she spends each week at boarding school in Tuba City, three hours away. "I've gone since seventh grade," she says soon after we get talking, "and I come home every weekend." Ruth shrugs this off like it's no big deal. I see pretty quickly that, like a lot of the more rural Navajos I've met, she does not talk much. And her gestures are so small you could miss them if you blinked. It's ironic that in such a huge, open landscape, everything would become more subtle. But then I realize that I'm used to New York City, a place so noisy and crowded you practically have to scream to be heard or noticed. On the reservation people seem to communicate almost without speaking.

"Hey, do you want to walk over to my house? It's just over there on the path," Ruth says to us. For the life of me, I can't see any path, even when I'm supposedly on it. But Ruth obviously does, and I follow her up a steep hill that smells of sage. She points to the left, at a patch of cedar trees in the distance, and tells us there are some sheep grazing there. Again, I can't see a thing; not until we've walked about 200 yards closer. And my eyes are supposedly 20/20.

When we get to the top of the hill, Ruth points down to where she lives. There are some old cars scattered around and four different houses: a hogan, used for storage; another smaller hogan-shaped house where her grandparents live; an old trailer where her parents sleep; and a modern one-story house, which is the kids' territory. The Kings are pretty typical of the reservation families who live in the outlying regions. Her dad works as a cashier at the trading post and her mother makes beautiful baskets that are sold for around $50. Except for her oldest brother, who lives in Tuba, all six kids live at home and don't have jobs simply because there are none.

Ruth invites me into the kids' house and, after miles of silence, it's weird to hear speed metal blaring out from one of the bedrooms. She introduces Lily and me to her sister and brothers. Two of them, Nathan and Nicholas, 22-year-old twins, are playing with their own kids. There are baby bottles all over the place, and Nicholas's seven-month-old babies, also twins, are sleeping in beautifully carved and polished wood cradleboards, the traditional baby cradles that mothers used to carry on their backs, but now hold in their arms. "It is customary for a husband to spend a few months making a cradleboard when his wife becomes pregnant," explains Lily. I look over at Nicholas and have a hard time imagining that this guy in a Metallica T-shirt would be excited enough to spend two months handcarving something for his kid. But that's what's so touching about the Navajos. Even thought they have willingly adopted a lot of the really tacky parts of Anglo culture, most haven't let it interfere with their own beautiful traditions and very pure spirituality.

Ruth takes us outside to show us the well where the family gets all their water. Her face lights up when she sees her dog, and it's obvious how happy she is to be outside in this gorgeous area that surrounds her house. Unlike Camille and Tanya, Ruth has decided not to go to college, and I get the feeling she may never leave the reservation.

As we're walking back to Lily's truck, Ruth runs up to this perfectly formed pine tree and flashes a huge smile. "That's our Christmas tree," she says excitedly. "Are you going to decorate it and put it in your house this Christmas?" I ask. "Well, no, it was just always here," she answers, and gives me a funny look, like, "What a queer idea."

The next morning I check out of the Tuba Motel and reluctantly drive back to Flagstaff. I take one last look at the beautiful pink cliffs, and start driving toward the huge snowcapped mountain called the San Francisco Peak. Tanya told me that the mountain is sacred to all the Navajo and the Hopi. "There's a woman in our mythology called Changing Woman," she said, "and that's who the mountain is. See, she's lying on her back and there's her face and her breasts and her pregnant stomach. She symbolizes life and rebirth. If you're a Navajo you can never walk to the top of the mountain, because it is sacred and should be respected. Sacred to us," she added, looking a mixture of angry and really sad. "But the Anglos in Flagstaff built a ski resort on it."

Remembering this and all that I've seen, I feel angry that the rest of us were only taught to think of Native Americans as war-whooping hunters and lazy alcoholics, or as victims we should feel sorry for. What we never learned about; their respect for their families and traditions, their incredible commitment to the Earth are what they're really about. And at a time when our planet is literally rotting beneath our feet, I can't help but wonder if we had left this country to them, or at least shown the same respect for the Earth that they always have, it wouldn't be in the frightening state that it's in today.

editors note: originally from www.sassy-magazine.com which seems to have disappeared from the internet.