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97 pages 3 hours read

Joseph Bruchac

Code Talker

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2005

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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “Sent Away”

Code Talker begins with the novel’s six-year-old Navajo narrator crouching behind his family home, or hogan, on the reservation, which he calls Dinetah. His name is Kii Yázhí, and he is anxious about the possibility of being sent away from his family. Shortly thereafter, the youth is ushered into a wagon where his uncle awaits, but not before saying goodbye to his great-grandfather, his mother, and his father. Each family member urges Kii Yázhí to be strong, and each appears emotional about the send-off. His mother wears her finest traditional clothing and jewelry for the occasion. On the ride to the mission school in Gallup, New Mexico, Kii Yázhí’s uncle, the only family member to have attended a mission school, talks about why it’s beneficial for Navajo children to attend the boarding school. He says that understanding white, or bilagaanaa, culture is a way of protecting the Navajo people: “That is why you must go to school: not for yourself, but for your family, for our people, for our sacred land” (10).

Yázhí’s uncle reminds him about the sad history between the Navajo people and the US government in episodes like the Trail of Tears and the enslavement and subjugation of Indigenous Americans by both Mexican and Anglo-American forces. Over time, the Navajo have been driven into geographic and cultural exile. He says that part of the problem in those cases was the Navajo-English language barrier. Kii Yázhí’s uncle says that while assimilation can be a tool of survival for their people, they shouldn’t abandon Navajo culture and rituals.

Chapter 2 Summary: “Boarding School”

After several days on the road, Kii Yázhí and his uncle arrive at the Rehoboth Mission in Gallup. The narrator’s uncle is not permitted to escort his nephew into the school and departs quickly: “He did not say goodbye. There is no word for good-bye in Navajo” (12). Kii Yázhí is surrounded by many other children who are similarly alone and uncertain. The children begin to introduce themselves to one another in Navajo, even though many of them use different dialects of Navajo; they announce their names and who their parents are and where they traveled from. They have all been dressed carefully by their parents for the journey and been given supplies and tokens to remember their families. A big red-faced, red-haired man appears, interrupting the introductions and “roaring” at the children, though they can’t understand English. A Navajo man steps forward to translate for the children. At first they don’t recognize him as Navajo, because his hair is cut short and he’s dressed like a white man. This man is Jacob Benally, and he advises the children that they are forbidden from using their native language and must only use English, as they learn it. He teaches them all to say “hello.” Jacob Benally is gentle with the children, but he serves only briefly as their interpreter before returning to the stables, where he works.

Chapter 3 Summary: “To Be Forgotten”

Immediately following their brief orientation, Kii Yázhí and the other Navajo children are herded into a room to have their hair cut short. They aren’t warned about the haircut, and when it’s their turn, they are held down in the barber’s chair by two uniformed boys. The experience is jarring for the children, as in Navajo culture men and women keep their hair long; cutting it is considered bad luck. After the haircut, the boys and girls are separated into two buildings and forced to relinquish their clothes and jewelry. In return they’re issued ill-fitting, uncomfortable uniforms.

Later, Kii Yázhí discovers that their possessions have been sold. One by one, the kids are then brought before a man at a desk, Mr. Reamer, so that they can be assigned new names. The process is arbitrary; when Mr. Reamer (who mistakenly believes that he understands Navajo) can’t find an agreeable translation for the Navajo names, he selects a common name at random. Many of the children are named after former US presidents. When it’s Kii Yázhí’s turn, Reamer misunderstands part of his family name “Biye” (“son of”) to be “Begay,” so the child formerly referred to as Kii Yázhí is renamed Ned Begay.

Chapter 4 Summary “Progress”

On his second day at school, Ned gets a harsh lesson in the consequences of speaking Navajo within earshot of the teachers. He utters a deferential Navajo greeting to Mr. Reamer, and the man picks Ned up and takes him to a sink, where he violently scrubs Ned’s mouth with brown soap. The experience is so violent that Ned is unable to walk away afterward. Two Navajo boys lift him to his feet and console him quietly in Navajo. Ned recounts how lots of other children receive the same punishment during their early days at the school, whenever they accidentally lapse into Navajo. Some children, even after their initial arrival, remain defiant and continue to use their native language. These children are beaten severely “with heavy sticks” (25). One particularly recalcitrant boy, John Roanhorse, is eventually taken to a stone basement of the school and chained to a wall. The child is given nothing but bread and water. He is eventually freed from the basement, but Ned thinks a portion of John’s spirit remains forever in the basement.

Outwardly, Ned is a good student whose natural curiosity leads him to excel in school. He learns English quickly and is careful to always speak it with the teachers and school administrators, but he and other students continue to speak Navajo when they’re alone together. The school’s efforts to purge the children of Navajo makes Ned more determined not to forget it. At the end of Chapter 4, Ned foreshadows the book’s larger plot by remarking that he couldn’t then imagine how the Navajo language would be important to white people.

Chapters 1-4 Analysis

Code Talker’s initial chapters introduce us to our young protagonist, Ned, at a point of inflection in his life. He’s sent from his home on the Navajo reservation to an Indigenous boarding school. This journey is made partly because his family believes understanding English and adapting to non-Indigenous ways will benefit the Navajo tribe in the long run, since the English-Navajo language barrier led to misunderstandings, subjugation, and tragedy in the past. This narrative thread establishes a theme centering on Navajo culture and forced assimilation to white America.

At the boarding school, Ned and other children are thrust into a strict code of conduct and forced to shed their language and rituals in favor of learning English and practicing standards of white American culture. The children are punished for speaking Navajo and forced to cut their hair, and their Navajo names are replaced with Anglicized versions. Reamer epitomizes white American ignorance and arrogance: Believing he understands Navajo, he incorrectly assigns what he imagines are analogous Anglican names to the children. When he can’t make a successful translation, he simply hands out whatever name he feels like. Further, the children are inculcated about the inferiority of their tribal values. This type of ritual abuse and brainwashing was common for children sent to Indigenous boarding schools in the Southwest, and these schools symbolize the contempt in which white people held Indigenous culture.

Though Ned learns to adapt to the rigors and penalties of boarding school, he and other Navajo children secretly continue to speak their native tongue. In flouting school rules, the children demonstrate how important their heritage continues to be to them. Indeed, when Ned’s uncle encourages him to view assimilation as a tool to preserve Navajo culture, he also cautions that the Navajo must not abandon their traditions or rituals. This admonition foreshadows both Ned’s dedication to his culture and the significant role the Navajo language plays in World War Two.

This also introduces a thread of irony to the text. As a child, Ned is taught that it’s “no good to speak Navajo or be Navajo” (18). Some children who are caught conversing in Navajo are punished so severely that they can scarcely speak the language even when they want to. But the same undesirable trait that America tries to beat out of these children is later prized as a valuable skill, as the Navajo language—and the indigenous soldiers who speak it—prove indispensable to the war effort.

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