Diné didn’t have chiefs, there were people who were considered leaders for some clan groups but they couldn’t claim leadership for others even if they were extensions of the same clan group. Pre-Euro contact, we were a decentralized matrilineal society with horizontal leadership.

Due to western chauvinism & misogyny, settlers would only deal with & write about “men”. This is why settler historians didn’t record the enormous contributions of countless Native womxn & femme people. For every Jaunita Manuelito & Lozen, there are 1000s left unknown.

For Diné, these histories are instead kept alive through oral storytelling. Each clan, each family has a womxn & NB superhero who was wise in hozho but also in military strategy & diplomacy. They were often deeply involved with decisions that affected more than their clan groups.

The complexities of Native societies on this continent are why one socialist ideology, be it anarchism or communism, can’t be simply retrofitted or revisioned for all based on some journals entries written by Franciscan friars.

It’d be wildly arrogant to claim so. It also doesn’t mean we should reject anarchism, communism, or socialism as a way forward. They’re today’s weapons for monster slaying. As a Diné, I see anarchism as a unifying entity & I reject its euro-centered conflicts with communism.

Again, it’s racist & paternalistic to lump all indigenous societies into a simple political group. With more study & humility, we learn that these weapons are older & common globally. So too is our kinship and unity to slay these monsters together.