Diné Nihi Kéyah Project
A project of Indian Country Grassroots Support
Mapping Navajo Nation land history, law and custom
In order to be self-sufficient, there must be informed engagement
This project gathers information in order to map laws and trace them to their origins. The goal is for Navajo Nation communities to have a whole foundation on which to envision the wellbeing of future generations through practicable reform.
The site was last revised on June 14, 2026.
In April, 2026, the Diné Nihi Keyah Project team began collecting stories of mostly young parents across the Navajo Nation, reflecting their family experiences, challenges, and wishes for their families and communities on this reservation, their ancestral homeland.
For individual stories as they are posted, please click on each picture below. Thank you very much for reading all our stories.
Both My Parents Struggled with Alcohol
Tsé Daa’ Kaan, NM
Growing up, both of my parents struggled with alcohol. But I wasn’t alone my grandma stepped in. She became everything we needed. She made sure we had food, a clean home, and someone who was present. She taught me how to cook, how to clean, and how to take care of others.
Even the Animals Were Different
Tsé Daa’ Kaan, NM
Back then, we didn’t really hear about sickness the way we do now. People didn’t talk about diabetes or high blood pressure. That started to change later, around the 1980s and 1990s. That’s when I began to see more people getting sick. Even the animals were different.
You Have to Fight For It
Pinon, AZ
It took me years to get my homesite lease. There were constant fights and disagreements with surrounding families, people claiming land that didn’t belong to anyone. There were times I was ready to give up, and take my family back to the city. But something inside me wouldn’t let me leave. This is where you are from. You have to fight for it.
Community Briefing - ONGD Proposed Constitution
Mapping Paths to Ancestral Self-Governance
On Jan 4, 1975, Congress enacted PL 93-638 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA) which ended the federal policy of termination and commenced a policy of tribal self-determination. It allowed tribes to enter “638 contracts,”which the Navajo Nation has depended on government-wide now for nearly 50 years. The misinformation about such contracts is that they enable self-governance. They do not. They merely allow tribes to assume operation of BIA programs nearly in the manner operated by the federal gov’t until transitioning to other self-governance tools. CLICK HERE.
Discussions on Custom as Law
In the above 2 hour long video, systems thinker and Tlingit tribal member Patrick Anderson discusses with Retired Chief Justice Herb Yazzie and a zoom panel how tribal governments, especially a vast reservation like the Navajo Nation with more than a hundred communities within it, can and should reform their systems towards a Seventh Generation Future State through self-governance compacting, translational leadership, and ancestral humility.
Anderson has overseen systemic innovation of Alaska’s rural healthcare in Tlingit tribes through self-governance compacts without giving up fundamental cultural approaches. He is special advisor to the Diné Nihi Kéyah Project.
Customary law relies on the principle of immemorial usage, depending on what today is known as “holistic management” in governance, or holistic governance for short. Click below for a rough page in progress.
Blessing to open the project
Let there be beauty from here my mother earth, my blue heaven, the sun. Let there be beauty extended from all the holy ones. From here this morning we will be speaking to one another. Hear the planning we speak on, for the things we need. For this reason we are doing this, take heed to them. Please my mother earth, blue heaven, and holy ones. Each and every one of us we have our homes, acknowledge them. We are your children. From here, according to what we are capable of, we talk about planning and thinking with relationships as we speak, acknowledging each other with empathy, with love. Recognize us. Make it possible for us to walk on a straight corn pollen road. These things we plea for. We are thankful for our lives. We are certain, with our thinking and planning, good will materialize in the future, even if small. This way I say my prayer from all directions. Let there be beauty from the east, from the south, from the west, from the north and from the center of the earth and from everywhere there is holiness. Beauty exists again, beauty exists again, beauty exists again, beauty exists again.
The Diné Nihi Kéyah (Our Land) Project is a privately funded community-based educational effort of Indian Country Grassroots Support. The contents of this site are maintained as a historical narrative, a legal research archive, and a repository of proprietary policy scholarship. This project documents the evolution of laws in all their forms and their impact on rural infrastructure, land tenure, and public health data. All materials are preserved for educational and research purposes.