A story from a wonderful Dané (Navajo ) woman. Many thanks

"Here in the Southwest and throughout Native America, Native peoples are reclaiming their traditional languages. They are unraveling the influences of colonialism by remembering and speaking. One of the most fundamental parts of this process is knowing who you are as an individual, where you are from, your families and ancestries, all while sharing this through personal introductions in one's language. This allows others to know how you fit within the ideological universe(s) you belong to. "Identity" is a fundamental aspect of one's life in which colonial agents attack and aim to detach from the human spirit subject. This weekend I endured a three in a half, very painful, session upon which I received my first tattoo -with imagery indicative of where I am from and what I believe defines me. Underneath this is my grandmother's traditional name, which directly ties into the imagery above. Quite literally, I now have these very powerful influences "watching my back" and the love of my life, my grandmother, has her name engraved in my flesh for eternity. Someday my children and grandchildren will look at this tattoo and want to know her story. I will tell them, and it will be memorable and meaningful to them as to who this woman is in our family, and they will remember her traditional name. This is a very special thing to me."