The Navajos — Their Lives and Customs

The Navojos—Their Lives and Customs

NAVAJO is a very common word to citizens and visitors of the Southwest. It is the name of one of the largest tribes of Indians in the United States, who occupy the largest Indian reservation now in existence. We are not sure of its origin but it appears to have sprung from the Tewa or pueblo word, Navaju, meaning a large area of cultivated land adjacent to a Pueblo.

It appears that the Spanish first heard the word in the seventeenth century from the Tewa clan who used it in reference to the powerful tribe known to them as Apache-de Navajo to distinguish them from other Indians known to them as "Apaches." Navajos seldom use the word, but refer to themselves as "Deneh," which simply means "people."

Many questions are asked regarding the origin of the Navajo people, but it is difficult to definitely determine their origin. According to their own traditions, they were created by the gods in southern Colorado or Utah. They do not believe that they were the first people on earth, but that their predecessors had been destroyed by monsters of various kinds.

Many of the old medicine men today tell a story of themselves which coincides almost perfectly with the white man's theory of evolution. They all agree that they have progressed from a much lower type to their present status and it is very interesting to listen to the tales of different clansmen regarding their origin.

They believe that there was but one clan in the beginning, though now there are perhaps as many as fifty clans in all. Each clan takes its name from the place of its origin or the circumstance or thing to which their origin is attributed, Such as, Salt, Narrow Canyon, Mountain Base, Mountain Top, Willows, Yellow Bodies, Many Hust, Red House, Mexican, Deer Spring, Lone Tree, Beads and so forth.

The Navajos are a very interesting, really wonderful people. They have more real character and personality than most tribes and are more reliable and agreeable. They are most like the Indian of tradition than any we know and it is easy enough for the writer or painter to find his true "characters" among them.

Physically they are usually tall and strong and in this respect they resemble the Sioux, but since they have dwelt near the Hopis and Pueblos for many generations, and have inter-married with these tribes, many are found among them whose features resemble those of the Hopi or Pueblo more than they do the original Navajo.

strong and in this respect they resemble the Sioux, but since they have dwelt near the Hopis and Pueblos for many generations, and have inter-married with these tribes, many are found among them whose features resemble those of the Hopi or Pueblo more than they do the original Navajo.

From the time they were first discovered by the Spaniards, which was probably as early as 1849, until about the year of 1863, the Navajos were known as a very war-like people; but their warspirit was broken when Colonel Kit Carson in that year rounded them up and took them to Fort Sumner, where they were held captives until 1868, when they were allowed to return to the reservation under the promise of remaining peaceful thereafter.

Since that time, they have kept their promise as a tribe, faithfully, and have caused practically no trouble. Today they are probably the most agreeable Indians we have to deal with.

The line of descent of the Navajo is through the mother, and, like Jews and some other races, they must not marry relatives. A man must take his wife from some other clan.

Marriage among the Navajos is a business like and really serious matter. When a girl reaches the marriagable age, her uncle on the mother's side, begins to look about for a young man whose father is well-to-do. When the proper young man is found negotiations are immediately entered into for the marriage. If the father or near relatives of the man have a sufficient number of horses, cattle or trinkets to offer, the marriage is soon brought about; if not, it becomes necessary for the uncle to look elsewhere.

After all else is settled, the relatives of each meet at the home of the girl, where they take their places in the hogan in two lines, with the couple to be married at the head of the lines. The young couple are seated and presented with a Piute wedding basket containing some kind of a mush. After eating as much as they like from this basket, it is passed down the line of the girl's relative until all have eaten from the basket. It is then given to the young man's relatives who eat and pass it along in the some manner. The last man served receives the basket as a gift. The ceremony usually ends with a dance or a feast after which the young couple go on their way rejoicing.

As loveless as these marriages may appear, we find fewer separations or divorces among the Navejos than we do among the white people. A man may have two or three wives, according to his wealth, but all are looked after and taken care of in the same manner.

It was formerly a common practice for a man to marry a woman much older than himself if she had one or two good looking daughters who would soon be of marriageable age. It was understood that the daughters were to become his wives also when they reached the proper age. This practice is practically broken up now, though many cases still exist where the mothers and daughters are wives to the same husband.

When the family is once established the father and husband is not considered as a very essential member. The wife's people still claim her and are responsible for her and the children in case the father dies or leaves them.

VACATION LAND, 1929 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Page Twenty-nine

The Navajos occupy approximately nine million acres of desert territory, in northwestern New Mexico, northeastern Arizona, Southern Utah and Colorado. Their reservation lies north of the Santa Fe Railroad and between the Colorado rivers. There are about forty thousand of them most of whom live upon their reservation, but there are a few scattered over other sections of the country.

Because of the nature of their country, these people can do practically no farming, yet many of them cultivate small patches of ground where they plant corn, pumpkins, alfalfa and other crops. Some have learned to cultivate fruit trees, and in traveling about over the reservation one comes upon small orchards in some of the most remote sections. In the civilized centers more farming is done and many fruit trees may be found.

Navajos are naturally herdsmen and because of the sparse vegetation in their country it is necessary for them to move about over the reservation constantly in search of food for their animals, making them nomadic by nature. Because of these conditions, they can not construct modern homes and equip them as other Indians or white people do, but they construct what is known as a "hogan," from sticks and earth or such other materials as may be at hand.

Their furniture and utensils are of the most meagre type for they cannot be handicapped by a lot of plunder when it becomes necessary for them to move from one grazing ground to another. This is a factor which greatly handicaps their progress along sanitary and educational lines.

Many persons have the erroneous idea that the Navajos are a vanishing people. This comes from the fact that they were at one time, no doubt, decreasing in number and the idea has been kept alive to some extent by the use of the phrase "the Vanishing Anzerican.On the other hand, they have for many years been increasing and during recent years their increase has been quite rap-id, due to improved sanitary conditions and health education through govern-ment schools and other agencies.

At the time they were rounded up by Kit Carson there were probably about seven or eight thousand Navajos in all. Now, according to fairly accurate census figures, there are approximately forty thousand.

The most serious disease among the Navajos are tuberculosis and trachoma. The government during recent years has been making special efforts to improvehealth conditions and to that end has erected hospitals for the treatment of these and other diseases. Special tuber-cular sanatoriums and eye hospitals have been constructed at various points in the Navajo country and larger appro-priations are being made each year for employment of competent medical per-sonnel and the construction of addi-tional facilities of this type.

The Navajos have many dances or ceremonies that are very picturesque and beautiful, such as the Yebechi, Squaw Dance, Fire Dance and others. Some of the medicine men make very beautiful sand paintings in connection with some of these dances by sprinkling sands of many colors over smooth surfaces of earth. Stalks of corn, birds, Indians and grotesque figures of many kinds may be found, beautifully done, with these materials.

Navajo Boys After Three Months in School

The sand is always washed until it is clean and shiny, so that it seems to have more luster when found in the clearest streams.

In the fall of the year, when the crops are in and the frost comes, there are many Fire Dances and Yebechis.

The Fire Dance is a very interesting ceremony, which seems to be a sort of fire worship. The dancers play with the fire and even dance in it without being burned or in any way injured.

In the Yebechi, the dancers are masked, so that they cannot be identified, the masks being painted to represent figures of spirits and gods. The singing or yelling in connection with this dance, when once heard will never be forgotten.

The squaw dance is usually for the debut of the young ladies. It is always well conducted and is much more decent than many of our own.

The muck dance is perhaps, the crudest and most degrading dance still practiced among them, but has almost been forgotten. It is intended to be a healing ceremony, but with the plastering of patients with muck and expectoration of juices from butter weeds and plants into the faces of the patients, it can hardly be said to be proper. This is really the only dance of the Navajos that could not be approved of and that is discouraged.

All tribes have their peculiar way of disposing of the dead. The Navajo has a great fear of death and for that reason the body is disposed of immediately after death by the medicine man or some of the near relatives or friends. It is usually left in the hogan where it is buried in a shallow grave, after which a hole is made through the rear of the hogan through which the burial party leaves. The structure oftentimes is completely demolished or burned, but in many cases it is closed up with sticks or brush to keep out wild animals and is left standing. When friends or relatives perform this service it is the usual custom for them to fast four days. This practice no doubt comes from long and sad experience from epidemics in the early days that destroyed great numbers of them.

There are many interesting things to be learned and told about the Navajos, but they are most interesting to those who work with them and have the interests of the Indians at heart. There are no Indians that deserve more consideration than these people.

A young Swede was told to write a description of the frog. This is his description: What a wonderful bird the frog are. When he sit he stand almost. When he hop he fly, almost. He ain't got no sense almost hardly. He ain't got no little tail almost hardly. When he sit he sit on what he ain't got almost hardlly.