Editing Window Rock, Arizona (section)

== Name ==
[[File:Window Rock - panoramio (1).jpg|thumb|left|upright|{{spell-nv|Tségháhoodzání}}, the "Window Rock"]]
Until 1936, the area was sparsely populated and known by the Navajo only by its ceremonial name {{spell-nv|Niʼ Ałníiʼgi}} ("Center of the World"). [[John Collier (sociologist)|John Collier]], a reforming Commissioner of Indian Affairs, chose this site to establish the seat of the Navajo Central Agency, the [[Bureau of Indian Affairs]] official connection to the nation. His proposal to make the ceremonial name the official name met with resistance, and Navajos soon ridiculed it as "{{spell-nv|ni ałnííʼgóó}}" (~ "into your middle (parts)").

Due to this, the BIA chose the name of the major local landmark, the rock-with-hole-through-it (Navajo: {{spell-nv|tségháhoodzání}}) for this Indian agency site. It was rendered in English as ''Window Rock''.<ref>Linford, Laurent. ''Navajo Places.'' Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 2000.</ref> This landmark is north of the Navajo governmental administration buildings. It is important in the traditional Navajo Water Way Ceremony ({{lang|nv|Tóee}}), as one of the four places where Navajo medicine men go with their traditional woven water jugs to get water for the ceremony that is held to pray for an abundance of rainfall.<ref>http://www.lapahie.com {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210425155653/http://www.lapahie.com/ |date=April 25, 2021 }} window_rock_capitol.cfm</ref>