“You imagine Miss USA or Miss Universe slaughter a sheep?” explained to Los Angeles Times a contestant for Miss Navajo. Far from standard beauty contests, this competition has everything of an obstacle course, halfway between tradition and modernity. Report in Arizona.
The 69th annual Miss Navajo Pageant, held in Window Rock, Arizona, kicked off Monday, September 6, shortly before 7 a.m.
Three young women, who wore brightly colored long dresses and aprons, faced three bound and bleating sheep. They blessed the animals by patting them with short pine branches. “Let the slaughter begin”, launched the master of ceremonies.
They then each drew a knife and grabbed a beast by the jaw to slit its throat. Blood flowed on the clay.
The Miss Navajo pageant is unlike any other. In the face of the decline of the traditional way of life, this competition celebrates in-depth knowledge of Navajo culture, customs and language, as well as the skills needed to succeed in today’s world.
In the fall of 2020, this six-day demonstration was canceled due to Covid-19, which claimed more than 1,400 lives within the reserve which has a population of nearly 200,000.
At the beginning of September 2021, the alumni kicked off the new edition: the general public was not invited, but a few journalists were invited, and Navajo videographers broadcast the event live on YouTube and Facebook.
Under a white barnum, the candidates had one hour to kill and skin the sheep, then thirty minutes to gut it and twenty minutes to cut it up.
Shandiin Yazzie, 25, was busy removing all the skin from the sheep. “Rescuer!” she screamed after cutting herself. Her finger was quickly taped, but then she needed five stitches. She did not withdraw for as much.
One of her two rivals, 19-year-old Oshkaillah Lakota Ironshell, was methodically skinning her beast, starting with the belly.
While the young women were at work, three judges observed them, took notes and asked them all kinds of questions. Why did you make a cut here? What is this particular piece for?
“Ultimate competition”
Niagara Rockbridge, 22, had the answer. In forty-five minutes, well ahead of her two adversaries, she had skinned and gutted her mutton, and was beginning to clean the guts. “Miss Navajo is the quintessential Navajo woman”, she points out:
It is the ultimate competition, as it tests the mental and physical strength of the contestant. Can you imagine Miss USA or Miss Universe slaughtering a sheep?”
The contest was first held in 1952 at the Navajo Nation Fair and attracted thousands of visitors. It quickly became an annual event. There were often a good dozen candidates, judged on their appearance in traditional dress.
The public chose the winner. “It was the one that triggered the greatest thunder of applause”, says Sophina Shorty, crowned miss in 1988 and commentator this year.
A matrilineal society
Back then, when supermarkets were scarce on reservations, slaughtering a sheep was a common skill, and the Navajo language was spoken by many locals. As language and traditions lost ground, organizers reinvented the contest, knowing they had to act now.
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