Diné Bi Ch’iiya Bahane' - How to Make Blue Corn Tamales and Blue Corn Dumpling

[Music] the food demonstration that you are about to view on blue core dumpling and blue corn tamale is both in navajo and the english language [Music] leadership [Music] the biggest purpose that we want to teach here to the children and young mothers also people that don't know about corn food is to relearn because we've found out that these traditional foods are the healthiest food that you can have it's not like what you buy from the store the home-grown corn or the ones we've cared on all these years they always say don't mix it with the one from the store because the ones that come from the stores they've been treated with all kinds of things and they are different they are different you know they've been treated with all kinds of chemicals to preserve the food and all that and that's what causes our health problems diabetes and heart problems and all that so for our traditional corn we don't do stuff like that so we consider ours pure and that's why we don't want to intermix the two we really want our children to relearn that the most healthy food they can get is what you get from the corn field corn is a very sacred plant to us we use it in many different ways in ceremonies everyday life and when we plant a corn we have to care for it and nurture it and just every day you don't just plant and leave it alone you have to go out and check it all the time and then when it's ripened you get corn pollen and this is what we use to offer prayers and we get the corn pollen from the corn all corn and then we use it also for offerings in the morning you have to get up early in the morning and do your morning prayer sprinkling this and ask you know to have a good life and then also in the evening we use the yellow cornmeal so that's another way that we use corn and then there's ceremonies that we use the corn all the corn that we have here we use in the ceremonies and then we save them too we steam cook the corn in the ground and we save it for winter then we cook it with our mutton stew and then also we saved the husk and use it for cooking it's just like used use like tin foil and you have to teach your children how to do this and save them and the reason why i have different color strings on it is because i use it for different purpose that's why i i can identify it with the string and then we even save the corn cup to be used in a ceremony as a lighter that's why we save these and then as we do our cooking we also use our stirring stick to stir the mush or whatever we're cooking because a lot of times you know it has to be done with hot water so we use this to stir with every time we use it when we get cornmeal on our stirring stick we always pray with it we take it off the stick like this and put it in our mouth and we pray as we clean off the stirring stick and we pray for our family we pray for our home side we pray for what we have our relatives and then just the land we pray for everything so anything having to do with corn we always offer prayer because it's so sacred to us we have here blue cornmeal that that i bought from the store every time i buy cornmeal i always sift the cornmeal because when you sift it you have this part that's not grind very good yet and you have to sift it so you can separate the two and you can always regrind this and then put it back in there but the older people used to say if you didn't grind your corn right when you start making some type of food it'll just crumble just like the one i'm going to do in a little while the the dumplings do if it if the cornmeal is too rough and then it'll just crumble and then when you're making your blue corn patty the same way it has to be fine grind so it can hold together dig m i want to show you how i make blue corn dumpling with the blue cornmeal and then the ash juniper ash which is fine sifted and then also i'll be using the corn husk to roll the tamales in the and then it's important that you use very hot boiling water to um make the dough stick together real good if you use warm water then it's just going to crumble and then also if you want to sweden what what what you want to make you also have the ingredients here and then also we have sugar and raisin that you can use this morning i already made some of the what i call the blue corn tamale because it takes a while to cook that's the reason why i got it started already here but i will show how to make it here and what i'm going to do right now is make a dough with blue cornmeal and the same dough that i make you can divide it into two pieces and make the um dumplings and then also the tamale roll with it so that's what i'm going to show you and you need five cups of cornmeal so you level out your cornmeal not a heaping cup just level it out five cups that's three right there [Music] is you put a little dip in there so you can pour your your juniper ash in there and this one is two tablespoon and a half [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] when you put the hot water into the ash you mash it up a little bit like this and then you pour the rest of the water on it [Music] a [Music] that [Music] foreign i was just saying that i learned how to cook traditional foods from my grandma and my mom as a young child we had it almost daily when we had a grandma and when we were out herding sheep and we would come near the home and we would see a lot of smoke coming from home we would know that grandma is preparing traditional food because she has to burn cedar ash and that makes a lot of smoke and we would be so happy that was one of the greatest joy in my life okay what i've done so far is i've put five cups of cornmeal in here and added the ash two and a half tablespoon of ash into hot water and i strained it out to get all the black stuff off and then i put two more cups of hot water in there and i'm adding another cup and then i'm going to keep stirring it's very hot water so i have to use this to mix it but after a while i have to do it with do what i was saying here was that long time ago the older people used to test their in-laws with this they would tell them to make some type of traditional food like this and they were told to after a while you know to mix it with their hand and it's very hot and if they couldn't do it then they were told to go home that's what i was saying okay i'm gonna get another spoonful cupful people do it all different ways sometimes they add the ash right onto the cornmeal and they don't strain it through so some people i've seen doing that sometimes people add the ash to the cornmeal as they spoon into their bowl without filtering it out and then sometimes they add it to the ash to the boiling water before they pour it in so there's different ways to do it but it always comes out the same [Music] see if i'm brave enough to mix it [Music] the ash is what turns the the dough blue got beaches usually [Music] so [Music] so [Music] okay i'm dividing the dough uh part of it i'm gonna make the tamales and then part of it i'm gonna make the dumpling with it [Music] i'm trying to divide it so i can [Music] [Music] okay since i'm making two different dishes here i'll do the dumplings first so all i have in here is just the cornmeal and the ash that's all you need in here and this is the basic dough you can make other dishes with it just like the round the rom patty bread that that you've probably seen all you have to do is just roll it out then you put cook it on a griddle see it's the same basic dough from this one [Music] what i usually do is just roll it and then just pinch off little pieces and they say when you're taking food into a ceremony you do not take round food in there just like the round like marble here it could cause a hail storm and usually it's the winter ceremonies um i was saying that we have a lot of purpose for these um corns here different kinds of corn we use in ceremonies we have them we use them in the yay ceremony where they have to re-feed the mess it's just kind of like a blessing for the mass and then also we use it in a rain ceremony the people do prayer offering for rain ceremony and they have to prepare all the foods traditional foods and it's used in the rain ceremony and then also for medicine bundle reties so they can re-bless their medicine bundle and that's when it's used again different types of traditional foods and then also there's what we call our earth bundle that we have that some families have and every four years you're supposed to have it re-blessed and that's when corn is used in the ceremony and then children's birthdays puberty ceremonies and then also when you have a special guest you always want to treat them you know real nice and you make some corn food for them which is uh to show your um blessing you know to this person just pinch it off squish it down and then put it in here like i said in certain ceremonies you cannot take in round objects food to eat and this is one of the main ones that's why you have to kind of flatten it and they don't allow things like pinyon even even sunflower seeds now they get after the younger people when they start you know cracking pinions in a ceremony they don't like that those medicine men because it's usually the winter ceremonies like the mountain way ceremony and fire dance yep all those are done during the winter and that's the one where you can't be eating pinyons because they do swell up see when i work with the students they have to all come around and help me roll this out so we have a lot of fun doing this then i'll pinch off a piece and put it in there and every now and then you got to make sure you stir that they're not sticking together make sure it's not sticking to the bottom too but if you have a fast boil going then it won't stick to the bottom i don't make it too big they swell up [Music] foreign i'm going to show you how to do the [Music] tamales [Music] [Music] to do the thai ones the tamale thai one all you have to do is add sugar and raisin to this other mix it's the same basic dough it's just like when you're making dough if it gets too watery all you do is add some more flour to it today m when you twist it it's a lot stronger so that's why i always twist it [Music] and then i usually tie it this way that way you can just pull it pull it on one side and you'll untie it sometimes people will tie too tight and then you can't get it undone you have to fight with it see that's how you do it it's so much fun to do with little kids they'll make it all different sizes and so fun to [Music] [Music] [Music] when i do this with the students at a school when i have some leftovers they always say please cannot take some home for my grandma or grandpa it's always so sweet you know see this is the reason why i bring scissors to cut this off [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] foreign the dumpling is down now and it cooked a little faster because i made them real real small and um it makes its own gravy and this is how we eat it and um the older people used to eat it without salt and sugar in in this dish here but um since we started having sugar at the stores then we started adding sugar to it and and kids like to add milk to it and and eat it with milk too so these are the two dishes that i was able to make for you and i enjoyed doing it and i want to thank everybody for you know trying to learn about our traditional foods is very important and please teach your children and also if the grandmother cannot communicate with the child the mother should get in there and interpret and try to learn these things from the old the parents the older people because it seems like we're we're losing things real fast and we need to regain as much as we can so we can always carry on the good things that our older people taught us there are schools here on the reservation where children are being taught to plant they do it right on the school grounds and um we've worked with a program where where they planted corn and then as we as they harvest the corn then we showed them how you prepare a way to think the earth for the corn that was grown and that's the reason why i brought all these different kinds of corn and what you do is you take a little bit from each one of this corn of all types you grind it together just a little bit and then as you as you put the mush in the ground you make a cake just a small cake just like a puberty cake and then as you put the mush in the ground you have to offer a prayer and that's when all this mixed corn is used you grind it in a fine grind just like this and then all the people that are participating well take a little bit of that corn and sprinkle it on the cake and offer prayers for their corn fill and that's when all this different type of corn is used and you pray that you will always have good crops again the following year and that you will have a variety of crops and that's what you do and then you cook it overnight in the morning when the cake is cut out everybody will take a tiny piece of that cake they take it back to their corn field and right in the middle of their cornfield they dig a hole and put put that little piece of cake they save back into the ground and they think mother earth for the produce that they got from that and that's one of the things that we worked on too in one of the schools [Music] so there's an a yeah you know as you mature you start to think of all the things that that that you're thankful for and that's what your prayer is based on and that's that's how you you know begin to think in that way it it takes a while you know to to learn how to gather your thoughts for that and that's how like when you're um making your mush you know and you're stirring you always have good thoughts you know and then they always say you should always go in the cardinal direction that's another thing that you need to remember and then like we said all anything having to do with corn comes the prayer and so you're taught early to start thinking about prayers you know to be thankful for things in your life and they say there's um holy beings on all four directions you build up their learning how to say a prayer same way at noon time and then in the evening and then eventually as they grow older they'll be able to put in you know please help me in my schooling i have a test today help me you know be able to pass the test and make my mind strong and all that all that they'll be able to add on to it you know and then even if they have a sick person in the family you know they'll learn how to um add that on to their prayers you know and i've even heard little kids you know pray for their little puppies and cats and all that you know that's that's a learning process so that's that's really good to start them off praying in that way thank you very much [Music] okay [Music] you

Channel: Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation

Views: 11,827

Rating: 4.9042358 out of 5

Keywords: TCRHCC, Navajo Traditional Food, Blue Corn Tamales, Blue Corn Dumpling

Id: ZFo9oEu5pOU

Length: 41min 43sec (2503 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 16 2020