The Navajo Nation, similar to other Native American nations and tribes recognized by the federal government, has the status of “nation within a nation,” and as such, has internal responsibility for a number of judicial, legislative and administrative government functions.

Yazzie grew up in Rehoboth, N.M., with traditional Navajo values and attended Oberlin College. Following his graduation from the University of New Mexico School of Law and Harvard University, he practiced law in the Navajo courts, acted as a Navajo-English interpreter in the U.S. District Court and served as a consultant to law firms. After seven years as presiding judge of the district court in Window Rock, Ariz., he was appointed chief justice of the Navajo Nation in 1992.

Yazzie is a formidable leader in the Navajo campaign against domestic violence. In October 1992, the Navajo courts announced domestic violence rules in criminal and civil proceedings that allow victims to obtain relief. They integrate Navajo and U.S. common law concepts. The rules were developed through careful research of the extent of Navajo courts’ powers under common law and equity.

Yazzie is a strong advocate for victims’ rights. Since his appointment as chief justice in 1992, he has developed court rules, initiated a sentencing commission and expanded the Navajo Nation Peacemaker Division. The Navajo Nation Judicial Branch has received a Bureau of Indian Affairs grant to hire community organizers and liaisons to appoint peacemakers, also known as a “Naa’taanii,” in each of the 110 chapters located within the Navajo Nation.

The sentencing commission Yazzie created is composed of Navajo trial judges. The commission has established a sentencing plan which requires and presumes that in criminal cases the victim will receive relief under a Navajo common-law principle and will also be made whole for his or her injuries.

Internationally recognized, Yazzie has traveled to Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Fiji to compare Navajo peacemaking with the traditional procedures of those jurisdictions. He has participated in United Nations proceedings in Geneva, Switzerland, on the proposed Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He has discussed Saami rights under international law in Norway and he is a frequent visitor to Canada to discuss traditional Indian law and court policy. In the United States, he has presented Navajo perspectives of religion and law, traditional law, restorative justice and community justice.

Yazzie’s talk, along with other Native American Heritage Month events at Bates, is sponsored by college’s Multicultural Center. For more information, call 207-786-8215.

Bates College will celebrate Native American Heritage Month with a series of events sponsored by the Multicultural Center, beginning with a talk by photographer Kenji Kawano, author of the book “Warriors: Navajo Code Talkers” (Northland Publishing Company, 1990), at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 1, in Chase Hall Lounge. A reception featuring foods from five Native American nations will follow, and the public is invited to attend free of charge.

Kawano’s work, on display at Bates through Nov. 15 in Chase Hall Lounge, chronicles the contribution of Navajo Marines who provided the language used for communicating classified messages and troop movements for the U.S. Pacific campaign during World War II. The Japanese were unable to break the code.

Kawano, who left his native Japan for the United States in 1973, first learned about the code in 1974 while hitchhiking on the Navajo’s Arizona reservation. The driver who picked him up had been a code talker during World War II. Eventually, Kawano became the code talkers’ official photographer and an honorary member of their association.

“It felt somewhat strange, because my father was a survivor of the Japanese program of training men to be human torpedoes during the war in the South Pacific,” Kawano writes in the preface of his book. “These soldiers had been my father’s enemies at one time.”

Other Bates events honoring Native American heritage include a lecture by the Honorable Robert Yazzie, chief justice of the Navajo Nation, who will discuss The Unique Status of Tribal Courts in the Context of the U.S. Judicial System, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 7, in the Benjamin Mays Center; and a talk by Andrea Smith, a member of the Cherokee Nation and a founder of Women of All Red Nations (WARN) and INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence, who will discuss Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 29, in the Mays Center. The concert scheduled for Friday, Nov. 30, by the Native American rap group WithOutRezervation(WOR) has been canceled.

The Yazzie and Smith events are also open to the public at no charge. For more information, call the Bates College Multicultural Center at 207-786-8215.

Kawano’s work, on display at Bates through Nov. 15 in Chase Hall Lounge, chronicles the contribution of Navajo Marines who provided the language used for communicating classified messages and troop movements for the U.S. Pacific campaign during World War II. The Japanese were unable to break the code.

Kawano, who left his native Japan for the United States in 1973, first learned about the code in 1974 while hitchhiking on the Navajo’s Arizona reservation. The driver who picked him up had been a code talker during World War II. Eventually, Kawano became the code talkers’ official photographer and an honorary member of their association.

“It felt somewhat strange, because my father was a survivor of the Japanese program of training men to be human torpedoes during the war in the South Pacific,” Kawano writes in the preface of his book. “These soldiers had been my father’s enemies at one time.”

Other Bates events honoring Native American heritage include a lecture by the Honorable Robert Yazzie, chief justice of the Navajo Nation, who will discuss The Unique Status of Tribal Courts in the Context of the U.S. Judicial System, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 7, in the Benjamin Mays Center; a talk by Andrea Smith, a member of the Cherokee Nation and a founder of Women of All Red Nations (WARN) and INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence, who will discuss Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 29, in the Mays Center; and a concert by WithOutRezervation(WOR), a Native American rap group, at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30, in Chase Hall Lounge.

These three events are also open to the public at no charge. For more information, call the Bates College Multicultural Center at 207-786-8215.