Manuelito Wheeler isn't sure exactly why Navajo elders admire Western films.
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It could be that many of them were treated to the films in boarding schools off the reservation decades ago. Or, like his father, they told stories of gathering around a television growing up to watch gunslingers in a battle against good and evil on familiar-looking landscapes.
Whatever the reason, Navajo elders have been asking Wheeler to dub a Western in the Navajo language ever since "Star Wars IV: A New Hope" was translated into Navajo and released in 2013.
The result? "Béeso Dah Yiníłjaa'" or "A Fistful of Dollars," an iconic Western starring Clint Eastwood who plays a stranger – known as "The Man With No Name" –entering a Mexican village among a power struggle between families.
A premiere for the crew and all-Navajo cast of voice actors is scheduled Nov. 16 at the movie theater in Window Rock, Arizona.
It will be screened for free later this month at other places on or near the Navajo Nation, which extends into Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
"A Fistful of Dollars" is the third major film dubbed in Navajo, an effort financed by the tribe to preserve the language. Elbert Jumbo voiced Bruce the shark and another fish in the Navajo version of "Finding Nemo," released in 2016.
Other popular films dubbed in Indigenous languages include "Bambi" in Arapaho, "Frozen 2" in Sámi, and "Moana" in Maori. The cartoon series "The Berenstain Bears" was translated into the Dakota and Lakota languages.
