Dust storms on the Navajo Reservation were so bad that this summer that residents traveled to medicine Man Ross Nez’ ranch for a three-day healing ceremony directed at Sei Nahogishii, “the tumbling sands.”

But many of the people on their way to the ceremony got stuck in blowing dust and sand.

“It looked like dust was raining from the clouds – it looked like rain, but it was dust,” said the medicine man’s son, Virgil Nez, tells Indian Country Today, here. “The sand was just grabbing their vehicles.”

The Navajo Nation is suffering the effects of global warming, reports the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals, which notes that the Southwest is experiencing the nation’s most rapid warming. It’s particularly noticeable in the thousands of square miles of dunes that make up a third of the huge Navajo reservation.

Indian Country Today’s Terri Hansen says that usually the dunes provide enough vegetation for grazing – but that didn’t happen this year. Lack of vegetation also means more erosion, and more loose soil blowing around.

“We’ve gone through droughts before, but never dust storms like this. It’s tearing off roofs, it’s sandblasting exterior walls. Today it blew off the top of my dad’s sheep corral and the barn,” Nez tells Hansen.

To make matters worse, midsummer monsoons failed to appear this year. Navajo officials declared a water shortage and many ranchers sold off their livestock, despite rock-bottom prices.

Hence, the traditional ceremonies. “It’s really hard to talk about these things, some you have to see for it to be explained and understand,” Nez says.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Cimate change, drought, Native American news, Navajo Nation