Navajo Nation (Diné)

Hello! We are the Diné. In our language, Diné means “The People.” We are also called the Navajo people. We want to tell you about our home and our families.

Our home is a very special land. We call it Dinétah. It is a beautiful place to live. When you look around our home, you see amazing things. There are big, strong rocks that are a lovely red color. We also have tall mesas. A mesa is like a mountain, but it has a flat top. The sky above Dinétah is very big and wide. It feels open and bright. Our home is located in a place where four big states meet. It is a very important place for us.

Many of our families live in special homes. We call our homes hogans. A hogan is a cozy place for a family to live. The door of the hogan always faces east. It faces the direction where the sun comes up every morning. We love to greet the new day. Besides our homes, our animals are important too. We take good care of our sheep. We make sure they have food and are safe. The sheep give us something very special. They give us soft, warm wool.

We use the wool from our sheep to create beautiful art. We are weavers. We take the wool and make colorful blankets. Our blankets have many pretty colors and patterns. We have been making these blankets for a long, long time. We are still weaving today. We make blankets for our families to use in our hogans. We also share our woven blankets with people all over the world. Our art helps tell our story.