Greetings. I am honored to be a
part of the High Star / Sun Eagle Sun Dance. I am Dine from
a place called Hogback, New Mexico and Red Valley, Arizona.
Born at home on August 8th, 1957 (age 48), I currently serve
on the Navajo Nation Council, to which I was elected in 1995
by the great Dine people of the Hogback Community. I have served
the community and the Navajo People to the best of my abilities.
Also in 1995, I became interested in some work that was on going
in the United Nations having to do with the creation of a document
called the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. My involvement with
this work has taken me to many parts of the world. Recently
our Nation has become a Sector Member of ITU, International
Telecommunications Union, in whose 2006 council meeting in Doha,
Qatar, I had the honor to cast votes equal in weight to that
of other world countries on behalf of the Dine People. I also
currently serve as Secretary/Treasurer to the Council of Large
Land Based Tribes.
I attended my first Sun Dance in
Porcupine, South Dakota in 1978 with my adopted brother Joe
Lafferty and my brother Delvin, and we have been involved with
Sun Dance since. In the early eighties my brother Howard Bad
Hand invited myself, my brothers Elvin, Delvin and Raymond Keeswood
Jr, Jerry Wilson and my sons Ervin Jr, and Derrick along with
our families to help sing at the Big Mountain Sun Dance. Since
that time we have been involved with Sun Dance singing, and
more recently my sons have carried the singing on, traveling
to South Dakota annually to help out at Jerome Lebeau's Thunder
Valley Sun Dance. With help of my brother Bill Manus, our Sun
Dance singing group released a Sun Dance tape in the Dine language
several years ago, and since that time more young Dines have
joined in the Dine Sun Dances.
Our family has truly been blessed
through music. As the Sun Eagle Singers, we have composed many
songs over the years, and now our sons and daughters carry on
what my brothers started those many years ago. Our other family
drum group names are the Southern Outlawz, Mile Post 30 and
Sun Eagle Jr's.
We all hold gratitude and honor
to my father Raymond Keeswood Sr. and our mother, whom we dearly
miss, Lucy Keeswood, for their love and teachings which made
us who we are today.
As you come to the High Star / Sun
Eagle Sun Dance to pray for all in the world, remember, PEACE
STARTS WITHIN ONE’S SELF.
