MAN OF THE LONELY PLACES

No other portion of North America is as fantastically beautiful as the land set aside as a reservation for the Navajo Indians. This high horizon country is a great plateau lying in northern Arizona and New Mexico, with an average elevation of 6000 feet above sea level and rising in places to nine and ten thousand feet. It is gashed with deep canyons cut by the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers and their tributaries. Limitless stretches of the sixteen million acres are barren desert, wipped constantly by punishing winds and pitiless sun. Other portions are covered with fragrant juniper and piñon which give way to towering yellow pines and quaking aspen in the mountains. Sage flats appear everywhere and only in the few watered spots are cottonwood and willows found. Beauty lies in the far vistas and distant mountains with their crowns of snow. Pink mesas rising from the gray gold desert are like mirages. The deep shadowy canyons hold loneliness and the jagged lines of cliffs are mysterious and forbidding.

It is a fit land for the proud strange Indians that move with dignity and beauty through its plateaus and canyons. Utterly unlike any other Indian tribe, these Navajos number 55,000, and in spite of high mortality among the children, are increasing at the rate of a thousand a year. It's the largest of all tribes, and to students of Indian history, ceremony, legends and arts and crafts, certainly the most interesting.

Authorities on primitive people say that sometime between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, bands of Atabascans drifted southward from the Bering Strait region in a long roving search for food. These were the ancestors of our present day Navajos and were vandals, living catch as catch can, mostly by raiding and robbing already established Pueblo dwellers. This sort of existence continued for centuries, and was going merrily along when Old Spain's restless adventurers pushed in from the South and set the Pueblo Indians up with flocks of sheep and goats, peach trees, horses and ambitious missionaries. Although not consulted in the matter, the alert Navajos approved of all these gifts with the exception of the missionaries. They stole the sheep, ate the peaches, and from their first contact with Spanish horses they knew walking should become a lost art! Navajos and horses were made for each other.

It wasn't until late in the seventeenth century that the Mexican Government still in command of the Southwest, realized their territory was completely at the mercy of a great ruthless horde of raiders called Navajos. By that time the invaders had so diligently looted both Mexican and Indian villages of livestock, women, slaves and food they were the dominant force in that section.

Already they had learned to utilize the sheep's wool for weaving coarse warm coverings, and were trading them for things they couldn't steal. The flocks tended to limit their roving and they had more or less permanent camps in the land they now occupy. The stolen flocks increased, and so did the stolen horses. The Navajos were no longer mere camp robbers, they were lords of the desert. When the United States acquired their homeland immediate steps were taken to curb the Navajo depredations. Cowering Mexicans and other Indians were promised protection. It took three armies and twenty years intermittent fighting before that promise was fulfilled.

In 1863 when all other methods had failed. an invading army under the direction of Kit Carson, threw all scruples to the wind and went all out for the 'scorched earth' policy. Flocks and all stored food were destroyed; hogans burned, peach orchards and corn fi..ds eliminated. Finally, to prove to the Navajos that there was no place of hiding for them, soldiers entered the sacred Canyon de Chelly gorge and followed its three branches from entrance to end. This deep chasm witin thousand foot walls of red sandstone had heretofore been thought impregnable. The spectacular prehistoric dwellings tucked high in caves or against the sheer cliffs were homes of long ago vanished people, but Navajo Gods had moved into them and from there protected the tribe. That refuge gone, there was nothing to do but surrender.

Perhaps twelve thousand Navajos were exiled to Ft. Sumner, on the San Juan River in New Mexico. Another thousand or two managed to escape and join the Utes and other tribes, and later slipped back to their destroyed homes where they carefully kept the peace. At Ft. Sumner the Navajos were assigned about twelve square miles of land on which they wero supposed to raise sufficient corn and beans for food. For four years the exiles existed there in hunger, illness and even starvation. Many died of sheer homesickness for their own wild free highlands where winds beat against grim stone spires and eagles wheeled above the lonely land. Now they were eager to make peace, and through the efforts of General Sherman, they were released. A yellowed with age parchment at Ft. Defiance reads: "Treaty With The Navajos: 1868.

"From this day forward all war between the parties to this agreement shall forever cease. The Government of the United States desires peace, and its honor is hereby pledged to keep it. The Indians desire peace, and they now pledge their honor to keep it."

Defeated and destitute, but unbroken in spirit or pride, the 7,304 survivors began life anew seventy-seven years ago. The army issued food to them until a crop could be planted and harvested. Each Navajo was given two sheep and a goat. Henry Chee Dodge, the great Navajo chief tells this story: "I was very small when we went on the great walk. My mother and her baby died as we moved along and I was added to another woman's family. I was always hungry. When we got back home, the old men tied a wild goat to a tree where it fought and butted all day long. The young men were made to look at it and listen while they were told, 'Our efforts to fight the white men are just as foolish as that.' "

There are 55,000 Navajos now. And they occupy the 25,000 square miles of their reservation and overflow on to 3,000,000 additional acres in Southern Utah and Colorado. Still they are crowded.

Crowded? When one can drive half a day through that silent lonely land without seeing a hogan or an Indian? It is such a vast territory of rough broken country. A network of dirt roads spiderwebs it leading to widely scattered schools, trading posts, government centers and the few hospitals. These roads, if stretched out would be approximateOnly the distance from San Francisco to New York, roughly three thousand miles! And they do not include the wagon track trails. leading from isolated hogans to waterholes and sheep camps. Even when government buses are sent out to pick up Navajo children. who attend day schools, those children sometimes ride ten miles on horses or in a wagon before they reach a road buses can travel.

I have driven all day long over Navajo Reservation roads without meeting another car, or seeing any Indians other than a few children herding sheep, or riders loping their horses across country miles away. Once the road was blocked by a trader's truck. Something had gone wrong with the motor, and the middle aged Navajo driver worked diligently to repair it. He was a clever mechanic, as are so many Indians, but something was broken beyond repair. We shared cigarettes and opinions regarding the weather while he rested in the shade of my car. After a final futile effort to start the truck he came back to me and with a whimsical grin, said: "The damn thing is no good. Let's give it to the Navajos!" That is a sample of the sharp humor of the tribe.

Hogans are hard to see unless one knows to look for an earth colored sort of igloo tucked away from the wind's violence against a protecting ledge, or in the lee of a hill. Once located, there's lots to see. An occupied hogan means sheep and their quaint corral of upright piñon logs sunk in the ground and bound together with rawhide rope or trading post wire. Where there are sheep there are brightly clad women, who own the sheep, and shy children, darting away from white visitors like startled quail. There are quiet keen eyed men, too, and always their prized horses. Navajo Land is peopled with Indians worthy of the sombre grandeur and solitude surrounding them.

One reason hogans are so hard to find is that, in that arid country, a Navajo home has to be established where water can be secured without too long a haul. Some families have to go as far as twenty miles for the water they

"GRIM LAND"

use for drinking and cooking. The hard summer rains run in torrents down the deep washes because the range has been so badly overgrazed there's nothing left to hold the moisture when it falls.

The government has dug some wells on the Reservation, but they are costly, and half a dozen may be dug before good water is found. The Navajos know a trader never builds his post until he has located plenty of good water.. and that is where they go with their water barrels in the wagon bed. Practically every family owns a wagon.

In addition to water, there must be a planting field where corn and beans can be raised. Most Navajo children are always hungry, but they would probably starve to death were it not for the corn each family at least tries to raise.

There must be range for the woman's sheep. As long as possible the sheep are driven to pasture each morning and left in charge of children or an old woman, then driven back to the hogan and corralled for the night. But when they have eaten all growth into the ground then they are driven farther away and the herders must stay with them day and night. The herd is led by a few hardy goats who will venture into out of the way places searching food, and the sheep follow them. Too, the goats are a protection against coyotes and even rattlesnakes.

All these things must be found within the territory designated as homeland for the Clan to which the wife belongs. Navajo women own the children and the sheep, and inheritance is through her rather than the man of the hogan. Navajo etiquette does not permit the man to see or talk with his mother in law. Consequently there are few Navajo divorces.

"See that no red anthills are nearby," directs the old men who give marriage advice to wedding couples. There is a very sacred ceremony connected with the red ant who is credited with causing a rift between Navajo First Man and God. "Your house must be far from a pine tree which has been The land of the Navajo is a land of deep canyons and jutting peaks and miles of windswept mesu

"NOMADS OF THE DESERT" Time is not important for either the Navajo or his land. Distance means nothing. There is the sun and the wind for company.

"NAVAJO SILVERSMITH" The Navajo silversmith is now world-famed for his fine jewelry. The art was brought into the area by the early Spaniards.

"RUGMAKER" Rugmaking is another art in which the Navajo Indians excel. Real Navajo rugs are noted for their beauty and wear well.

scratched by a bear or struck by lightning." Bears are bad medicine to Navajos, and lightning, which is sacred, is swift and sure death. "Look to the east from where the hogan entrance will be. Nothing must become between you and the God of Sunrise. The first Dawn light must waken the woman so that last night's dead a hes may be collected and scattered north of the hogan before Sun appears. And when the man steps through the doorway to address his prayers to the Sun, no shadow must fall between them."

The opening of a hogan must always face the east, from whence comes light and warmth to this superstitious people. True, there are hogans with an entrance torn through the north side, but those are chindee dwellings, occupied only by evil spirits, and no Navajo looks twice at one. Death to some member of the family has happened there before the victim could be carried out to a deserted place and left alone to die.

The hogan's shape is in honor of the sun who is the Navajo's shield from all ills. Sometimes the walls are made of stones fitted together with clay, and the roof of logs laid on in an eight sided circle and gradually drawn in toward the center, where an opening is made for the escape of smoke from the fire built below it. Or perhaps all the hogan is made of logs with the cracks chinked in the winter, and the clay dug out in summer to allow cool breezes to enter.

There are no windows, and often only a Navajo rug hangs in the doorway. But of late, since the Navajos have been compelled to move constantly to find feed for their depleted flocks, stout wooden doors are being hung and padlocked in the family's absence.

The dirt floor is dug down a few inches to avoid drafts, and packed to a flinty hardness. Sometimes the fire is built on it within a small circle of stones. But ingenious Indians have learned how to fashion practical stoves from half a steel oil barrel. With a place cut in the side for feeding the fire and removing the ashes, and another in the head of the drum for a stovepipe, what better 'range' could any hogan housewife desire.

A hogan is cozy on cold days when sleet or snow drops down to die hissing on the hot drumhead.

Before the family moves into the dwelling there is a house blessing ceremony which includes fastening a bunch of cornhusks and eagle feathers to a ceiling log, and sprinkling sacred meal around. The Medicine Man chants in a high falsetto key, "House made of Dawn, House made of Evening Light, House made of Dark Clouds, I have prepared a smoke for you. May it be Beautiful above me. In Beauty it is finished. All around is Beauty." To a Navajo it is a beautiful home. There is beauty in the strong fragrant pine logs and in the hard packed earthen floor - in the fire's orange flame, in warmth and shelter. All around is Beauty.

A Navajo man never needs to glare at his wife and say, "I wish I had a place where my belongings would be left where I put them!" The hogan is divided into male and female sides, and if the man stays on his portion he needn't be afraid of stepping on the baby or putting his foot into a cooking pot. His wife knows she won't fall over his saddle or upset his silversmith outfit when she walks around on her side.

The furnishings are pegs driven between the logs, and on these are hung sacks of ground corn, hanks of prepared yarn, the best clothes of the family, an alarm clock, and often the cradleboard on which is tightly strapped the household baby! Up there it is safely out of the way while mother weaves or runs out after wood or looks to the needs of feeble lambs or crippled sheep not able to follow the flock to pasture.

Simple tin dishes, a coffeepot and frying pan, as well as the can of baking powder, frying fat and store flour, are stored in cupboards made from apple or orange crates. In winter the woman's loom and the silver working place of the man's are inside the hogan. Usually there is no furniture other than some blocks of wood for stools. Beds are sheepskins laid flat on the hard floor,

LAST GREAT CHIEF

Henry Chee Dodge, chairman of the tribal council, is chief of the Navajo Indians. He has fought hard for justice for his brave people.

And the bedding consists of the bright Pendleton blankets with which each adult swathes himself when out of doors. In winter it keeps the cold wind out and in summer it protects its wearer from hot sunrays. Members of the family lie with their feet toward the fire which is kept burning all night during cold weather.

In such homes hidden away in a land of vermilion buttes, blue gray badlands, tall red spires turned to crimson gold by the setting sun, fifty-five thousand Navajo Indians are sheltered. Living in such a kaleidoscope of color it is not strange that they clothe themselves in soft glowing velveteens and bright cottons which give their proud dark faces a gypsy-like look. The number of full long skirts, and the amount of silver and turquoise jewelry a Navajo woman wears at one time establishes her social position. It is not unusual for one to have on six or seven cotton skirts each one containing ten yards of cloth. The skirts may be black sateen trimmed with a mile or so of bright braid, or they may be bright color with dark banding. Regardless of the color of the skirt the blouse will be maroon or blue, orange, purple or brown, and it will be liberally decorated with rows of silver buttons running from collar to hem in front, and from the cuffs up her arms to the neck. These may be the exquisite shimmering buttons made by her menfolks or they may be dimes and quarters made by Uncle Sam, and turned into usefulness as adornments by having copper loops soldered on one side, so they can be sewn on at pleasure, and removed by pressure of financial embarrassment! Many a can of baking powder is paid for by a quarter cut off the purchaser's velvet blouse.

It takes two and a half yards of plush or velvet to make one of the blouses, which are always long sleeved and high necked, and reaching to the hips. The Navajo feminine wardrobe is fashioned along the line they saw army officers' wives wearing at Ft. Sunmer in 1863. Basques and muttonleg sleeves were in style then.

Footwear of the Navajos is tops for comfort. Soles are made from rawhide softened until every imprint of the wearer's foot is shaped in it. It is hardened that way, and no Justin handmade boot is more individual. The uppers are soft reddish buckskin sewn to the sole with sinew. The fastening at the ankle is with a silver button.

Navajo women have beautiful long gleam-ing hair, which they keep smooth and shimmering by frequent brushings with bunches of still grass. It is wound into a club at the back of the head and held in place with strands of bright yarn. Somewhere in its ebony masses a turquoise iş tied to ward off evil influences. Little girls are dressed exactly like their mothers just as soon as they are released from the cradle board.

The men nearly all wear Levis, but their love of color expresses itself in their bright shirts of sateen or velveteen, and the gaudy silk scarf with which they bind their waist-long clubbed hair out of their eyes. The army barbers must have been amazed at these modern Samsons when they appeared for GI haircuts! 3500 young Navajos, men and women, wore the uniform in every theatre of war. Some of the finest Marine traditions will grow from the exploits of the Indian fighters, and South Pacific Islands were the background for heroic action. With their characteristic humor the Navajos used to paint themselves in war colors and confound the natives with their queer dancing and singing. But the Navajo language was used to good advantage to confuse the enemy listening in on communications. Ernie Pyle wrote in his unaffected heart-warming manner of the loyalty and cunning of the Navajos. To him they talked the universal language of homesickness and of longing for their great reservation with its sombre savage beauty, and the hogans warm and familiar.

Since silverwork is their chief money making occupation, Navajo men deck themselves with their handiwork. Over their bright colored shirts are hung necklaces of turquoise and silver, and many strands of fine old coral, time softened into a rosy glow. Lumps of turquoise hang from their ears; their arms are heavy with bracelets and they wear the heavy belts made of silver conchos strung on leather. Being a walking showcase has its advantages. There are always tourists who stop a man and bargain for the ornaments. Jewelry is collateral at any trading post when flour and sugar and coffee are needed. And, if by chance, a man should drop into a friend's hogan for a little game of poker, a bracelet or belt is legal tender.

It is hard to believe that such exquisite work in silver and turquoise can be done with the few crude tools a Navajo commands. His workbench is a stout block of wood to which is fastened a heavy piece of iron. He has some pliers, files, a bellows to blow charcoal into glowing heat, and some steel dies of his own making. Silver slugs and wire,

Turquoise and soldering material are usually kept in a wooden cigar box.

Since greed has prompted white men to start 'Indian jewelry' factories practically on the threshold of Navajo silversmiths, the craft is threatened. These factories produce synthetic 'Indian jewelry' on a production line basis, hundreds and thousands of the same object, stamped silver lavishly set with machine cut and polished turquoise.

In an effort to cling to their ancient craft which means all the difference between food to satisfy the pangs of hunger, and actual starvation, the better silversmiths on the reservation have turned again to their old 'sandmould' work.

For moulded work, which depends entirely on design and craftsmanship for its incomparable beauty, the worker secures a slab of soft sandstone and rubs it quite smooth. Then on it he draws the design of the object he intends to make. Perhaps it is a bracelet, or a buckle or fine pin or button. With a pocket knife he gouges out the design until it is the proper depth. Sometimes this mould is greased with mutton tallow so the silver won't stick. Into it he pours the melted silver and when it is cool enough to handle it is carefully lifted from the mould and bent into shape, should it be a bracelet. With file and emery every rough surface is removed. Then the completed article is heated in the charcoal fire and dropped into a bucket of boiling salt water which quickly whitens it ready for the polishing and rubbing which gives good Navajo silver the shimmering softness so appreciated by connoisseurs. The soft sandstone required for this type of work is scarce. There is a thin ledge of it running along a mesa near Greasewood, but the best material comes from the top of a little hill not far from Albuquerque. Since it is on Public Domain the Navajos go there with crosscut saws and hew great slabs of it out. Like jewelry, it is as good as money for use among the Navajos. What one worker does not need for himself he can trade to good advantage.

It is interesting to watch a silversmith prepare charcoal for use in his work. Just at sunset he kindles a fire of juniper and keeps adding heavier chunks of wood until there are plenty of live coals. Then he heaps earth over the fire and leaves it. When he is ready to work the next day the coals are put into a bucket and quickly brought to life by use of the bellows.

Practically all Navajo men sing. Silversmiths sing at their work, and men caring fer the flocks during lambing season pass the time by practicing their endless healing songs. They sing while they lope their ponies across the sage. Particularly they sing when they are alone at night and are a bit scared of the evil spirits that take charge of the universe once the protecting sun is out of sight. But, -you'll never hear a Navajo whistle at night! "The dead should not be disturbed by whistling, for at night they are up and about their own affairs." That is one of the Navajo commandments. A Navajo may have been taken far from his land which is studded with great prehistoric ruins of Pueblo III and IV Ruins. He may have grown up far from Aztec and Pueblo Bonita, and Keetseel and Inscription House. But he couldn't go far enough away or stay long enough to get rid of the superstition which is a part of every Navajo's makeup.

Death to a Navajo is a fearful and terrible thing. Not his own death, for they are a brave people, but the death of a tribal member or even of his most dearly beloved, surrounds him with a horde of evil spirits all bent on destruction. Once breath has left a body it is an enemy, and only the utmost vigilance and observation of every ritual will protect the living from its dangers.

No family ever willingly allows a member to die inside the hogan. With a wild instinct they sense the nearness of death and the sufferer is carried far from the living and left to die. Once dead, every effort is made to have some white man bury the body, but if that cannot be engineered four male members of the family strip down to their Gstrings and hurriedly cave a sandbank over it or pile rocks and dirt over their dead. Sometimes the best jewelry and clothes have been put on the sick person before death. Late years find the wily Navajos taking their hopelessly ill folks into, government hospitals and just forgetting to return to see if they lived or died! The burial crew when its work is done, backs from the grave brushing out their tracks with brooms made of piñon boughs. There is a period of cleaning sweat baths and prayer before they can rejoin their families.

It seems impossible that a race of people living in the heart of an enlightened country should be so under the black shadow of superstition. But they still are influenced by their Medicine Men who find it lucrative to keep the fear of witchcraft, chindees, signs and owls alive in their subjects.

Medicine Men are always magicians, and those of the Navajos are matchlessly clever and adroit. Their lives are not those of ease.

They must constantly fast and practice their songs and sleight of hand if they are to keep ahead of their rival healers.

Navajo magic always comes to the front during healing ceremonies, called sings. When a Navajo is troubled with bad dreams over a period of time he consults a Healer and the time and place for a 'sing' is arranged. The afflicted man's family must provide fuel for fires of visiting Navajos, of which there will be plenty. Also there must be mutton for their cooking pots and flour for their bread, and coffee for the always bubbling bucket over the coals. Treatment differs of course with the affliction, whether it be of mind or body. The sing lasts as a rule three days, the healing chants in falsetto male chorus taking place at night, one team "spelling" another as the hours wear away. The sick person appears after each song and is touched with bunches of herbs, sprinkled with sacred meal and perhaps divested of a horned toad, which the Medicine Man seemingly extracts from the victim's heart. Perhaps it was a great thorn he draws from a thigh. Those healers can put Houdini to shame anytime. During the daylight hours of such healing sings, the young men have horse races and tugs of war. Women exchange gossip and compare their babies while admiring or envying one another's clothes and jewelry. Whole families, leaving only one child or an old person to look after the flocks, load into the wagon and drive all day long to attend this feasting and visiting. Its a real social occasion, regardless of the benefit received by the hapless host.

Very beautiful ceremonials are held by the Medicine Men at times. The Mountain Chant amounts to High Mass, and other of their "sings" held for nine days After the Thunder Sleeps, are pageants of color and sound.

The Navajos cling to these ceremonies in spite of missionary efforts or formal education. With an arrogance, more effective perhaps on account of its utter lack of awareness, they Take from the white race just the things they want to accept, disregarding the rest with disdain.

Famine and freezing are Navajo familiars, walking close beside them each day of their lives.

Back in 1880 an erosion cycle began in their reservation and it still continues. In an effort to combat the effects flocks have been reduced by the government until the only means of livelihood has been taken from many families. Without sheep there is no wool for the women to weave into blankets, and there's no mutton for food. Still, the grass for the sheep is just not there, and something had to be done.

The little moist plots where Navajos can raise food are scarce and far apart, but they hopefully plant corn and beans and pumpkins, and a few peppers and sunflowers. The average annual rainfall is from 5 to 10 inches, and 37% of that comes in July and August, most in the form of sweeping devastating cloudbursts. It's all in the laps of the Navajo gods, this food raising. Once in the ground the crops are at the mercy of the sun's and rain's caprices, of drought and unseasonable frost. The Indians stare into the sky looking for clouds. If rain comes, will there be so much of it their little fields will be swept down to join the silt above Boulder Dam? How could one know if the gods had heard the songs and prayers, or having heard if they would heed?

The growing season of the Navajo Reservation is 98 days. It takes regular corn from 90 to 140 days to mature, but they have developed a type which will mature in less time if given a fair chance. Should the rainfall vary their fields are scorched by drought. First plantings are often killed by late frosts, and unripe corn ruined by early ones.

When we are tempted to criticize the Navajos for their feasting and lack of thrift it is only fair to remember that experience teaches them that too often they lose what they try to save for a rainy day.

Their wants are so simple. Corn to be roasted green in the husks or dried and ground into meal. Just enough mutton to keep a potful simmering, to which can be added some beans and cornmeal for thickening. One of their staple foods is fried bread.

This is flour and salt and water mixed together and patted into flat little cakes. Fat mutton is fried in a skillet and lifted out. Then the bread is dropped in and sinks to the bottom. When it rises it is speckled with bubbles and the edges are brown. It is turned with a sharp stick and cooked until brown and crisp.

Sometimes goat's milk is kept in a bucket for several days close to the fire. When it is thick and sour the water is poured off and the curd crumbled and left until it melts down into a creamy soft cheese. This goat's cheese spread on the hot fried bread is one of the things good Navajo warriors dreamed of while they fought in jungle and desert.

These warriors know that the old ways are not good enough for them if they are to take their rightful place in America. Although granted citizenship in 1924, they are still barred by the State laws of Arizona and New Mexico from voting. A new deal is due them they feel. They have defended this country which was theirs before white men knew of its existence, and they are determined to make for themselves and their children a niche where education, security and equality are assured. With the spirit which has carried them through centuries of uncertainty they'll work out their own destinies.

It is a way the resourceful Navajos have