The medicine man guides the girl’s sponsor, her paternal grandmother, as she ceremoniously removes all the turquoise jewelry Kieloh is wearing, washes it in a bowl and sets the jewelry aside ...

She was on her way to perform a Kinaalda, a coming-of-age Navajo tradition, where a young woman who first shows signs of growing up takes part in a five-day process of performing adult duties.

FARMINGTON — A new episode of the National Geographic Channel series "The Story of God with Morgan Freeman" that airs Sunday will feature a Farmington family and familiar sites around Shiprock ...

1. The Navajo Kinaaldá ceremony In the Navajo culture of the southwestern United States, the Kinaaldá ceremony is an important celebration to mark a girl's first menstruation. It is rooted in ...

I’ve long known about the traditional kinaalda ceremony held by Navajo/Dine people to honor a girl’s first menses. A whole generation of Navajo women who went away to boarding schools were denied ...

When a Navajo girl enters puberty, she participates in the life-affirming kinaalda ritual. The young girl's extended family celebrates for nearly a week.

Sandia National Laboratories diversity workforce specialist Marie Capitan with her daughter during the Kinaalda ceremony, a celebration of womanhood in the Navajo tradition.

LUPTON – Hours before the sun will conquer the dark, a light rain falls, burning wood crackles and soft voices drift from a hogan. An 11-year-old Navajo girl, dressed in ...