Shoe Game featured on New Year’s Eve

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — It’s a tradition that has been passed on for generations among the Diné people. Now the Navajo Nation Museum is holding its first Navajo shoe game on New Year’s Eve from 6 p.m. to midnight, and museum education curator Char Kruger is hoping that it will become an annual event.

“Since the shoe game is played during the winter time, we thought it would be a nice thing to do for the community,” Kruger said.

The shoe game is a winter game and tells a story that goes back to when the creation was happening, she said.

“The animals needed to determine if it should be day all day or night all night,” she said.

The day animals wanted it to be day all the time while the night animals wanted it to be night all the time. The two groups played the shoe game to decide. Though the groups played all night, the game was not finished and now we have both day and night.

“They called it the moccasin game then. We call it shoe game now,” Kruger said.

The object of the game is to guess which shoe the ball is hidden in. Each side sings songs to distract the players.

The songs that are sung also contain stories and some are humorous, Kruger said.

The songs and having fun are her favorite parts of the game.

Kruger has done research and presentations on the shoe game and she grew up playing the game.

The New Year’s Eve shoe game is limited to eight teams, each of which will be charged a $50 entry fee. There will be a first prize of five loads of wood and a second prize of 10 bales of hay. Other activities will include string games, Coyote stories videos, hourly door prizes and food concessions.

“We’re focusing on the winter time —all the things that were played by our grandmothers or grandfathers,” Kruger said. “And since we’re a museum, we’re focusing on our culture, our language and our tradition.”

If eight teams show up, there will be four games going and a grand finale will take place in the lobby of the museum.

Radio station KTNN AM 660 will broadcast the shoe game as it counts down to 2009.

Shoe games are very popular in the wintertime throughout Navajo, Kruger said.

“You’ll see it all over. We’re not the only ones doing it,” she said.

People from across the Navajo Nation and Diné in Phoenix have expressed interest in participating in the museum’s game, she said.

“It’s about getting together and laughing and singing,” Kruger said. “A lot of the songs are a story within itself about the Coyote. It’s teachings actually.”

In the wintertime, children couldn’t go outside much because it was too cold, so shoe games were held and string games were taught to keep them from getting bored and to teach stories.

“That’s what we’re striving for — to keep our tradition and our culture going and to keep teaching it to our younger generation and that it continues to be passed on from generation to generation,” Kruger said.

The shoe game is open to the public and there is no admission to watch. Only the teams will be charged the entry fee.  

Kruger, who recently returned to the Navajo Nation from Canada , said that activities will be held at the museum monthly. On Jan. 10, a presentation on how to make blue corn mush will be held at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.