DELANO - BEAUTY IN NAVAJOLAND

nation of which all America is proud.'

Situated inulleg to the flolds. There was ample pasture fa flocks of heup and herds of wate and the place was las from any town or meriders. General Carlenen had the final ward on ite suitability and he approved it. He issued a plan for the bellding of hat-topped adoba houses fer the captive, and a bumpini fue aged and ili, and a schord for the childman where they could be taugie Zaglia and the ways of civillecd Christian people.

The General said that as the children leermod thun things and the old folks died out those would be an entirely diñernat Navaja Narles. And there was a church, a Catholis Chazret. A blackswaits shop was planned, and hare test m could and the farming implantents and learn to maks now casas if necessary. A plot was set eside for a constary where the Navajos onald bury their dead with Christian zises, and of course no te nda's snura supplying the Indians with all scars of luxuries, to be paid for with mags dhe wensa wove, grade valed by the men, and with deerakis and edhart wild ant mal polts. The Indians were to be supplied with food and clothing and all would smedve esedl lant exave until they wars independently and happily self sustaining van hoër farming, weer ing end stock zeising.

That was wisat was juunised to the Nueajos # thay would of their own accord leave their mountains and go to Busque Rodende.

Already foar hundred Mawalero Apaches, consquared by Carson, were living in that Indians paradise. They were allowed to have gans, go on hunts, hoop thes hmaus for long sides, and thay found geons and fewword plastful.

Long Ratnings and Genade Madhe kept weging the young raidina to listen to Carson. "If we keep at this fighting we shall soon all bo dugged down the white man's sad, nå and endy copetes will live in our land," they womod, but their words wate lost against the leadership of Mamudito and other hostile.

When the Moscaleros were panned, Carson, with seven hundred soldiers, went to Fort Defiance and called the headman to come for a talk. To them he explained there was nothing they could do but go to Bosque Redondo and lead a life sure that peaceful inhabitants were not to be questioned. He reviewed their broken promises, and the lack of control by the elders.

"Now," he said, "The Fathers at Washington will not listen to more crooked talk. They have told me to kill every one of you that refuses to go to Bosque Redondo."

Among his hostages were the Kusany Nava Jo, already acquainted with reservation life among the Pueblos, and they agreed to go. In November, 1863, this clan moved to the reservation.

Hundreds of the Navajó living far back from the mountains had no part in the warfare against Mexicans and other Indians, and the horses and sheep they owned were stolen by widows with the raiders. They had never appeared to sign a treaty. Led by Barboncito, they stood successfully aloof and had no intention of being poured out of the mountains, "We are more powerful than the whites. If they come to take us we will kill them."

Carson proposed for all-out wariness. His orders were short and to the point.

"Kill the Navajo men without parley; capture the women and children and assemble them at Fort Defiance Ute Indians were armed with guns and told to go Navajo isuming. It was Carson's plan as allow the Utss to kaup the wouses and abldren they capaned as paysant for their services. He esplained to Genend Carleton that the Uves sold these esprives to Mexicats and Spanien fenflies whost they were wall ansted and fed and nor ili wasted. They world learn civilesd ways and not trouble the settlers again. Bus that thought was quickly denied. All captives must go to Bouque Redonde, seed that included any and all Navajos wow held as slaves in the sarritory.

Carson's orders stated that Navajo horses must be captured end tamod in to the camry qorrenmaster who would pay the suldian so sach for than, and $1.00 nacia fer capturod dwes. Any horses not sold in the aanry wors to be suct. Sheep could be used on food the soldiers while away from the foxt and the carn and wheat they found was to be fed to the smy n каб andes unless it could be trans ported to headquartses. Otherswing all crops wore to be destroyed, corn and when burned end protective fences destroyed. Hogans with their contents were also to be bamond and ali wetscholes clonaly gumdad la order that Indians and flocke be deprived of water. Found twe the yaide of any lucky Nevajo owner, were to be cut down end grapevines upensured.

The antire tribe was to be so closely followed and barried that they could find mo place to zest or pasture tisse flocks. No time soas to be given thesa to plaze beans or cern for food, and oncis woman ceptured wys to he told there was food and warm bankatz for herself and her family at Fort Dafiance. If the aun would come in with their familias they The land of the Navajos is a big land. It is a land where the horizon dances seductively in the distance, a beckoning sorceress tempting with promises unfilled. The land of the Navajos is a big land, big enough for the wind to romp in and to get lost in, big enough for the sun to assume its regal role as a pompous dictator, which it does in royal and imperious splendor. It is a color-drenched, sun-drenched land whose intense coloration can be hard on the eyes but pleasing to the soul. It is a land worthy of the people who live in it the Navajos as colorful as their land - and a land of perpetual challenge to the artist. One such artist who has met the challenge with singular and pleasing success is Gerard Curtis Delano, whose work we feature herein.

Gerard Curtis Delano (pronounced DEL-ano) is best known for his sympathetic and colorful portrayal of the Navajos and the Southwest in both oils and watercolors. The artist types his paintings as designed realism. They are characterized by forceful composition, great simplicity, accurate drawing, obvious knowledge and understanding of his subject, and his definitely ennobling treatment of the Navajos. “They are,” says Delano, “a proud and beautiful people of great dignity. It is my purpose to show them as I know them. There are few poorer people anywhere; yet it would be difficult to find a happier people. I wonder if there is a lesson in this for us biligahnas as the Navajos call us?” Jerry Delano, a native of Marion, Massachusetts, grew up with a considerable interest in Indians. In fact, his first watercolor painting as a small child, featured Indians on horses, an omen of his later career. He received his art training at the Art Student's League and the Grand Central School of Art in New York City. He was also a pupil of the noted illustrators Dean Cornwell, Harvey Dunn, and N. C. Wyeth. He served in the Navy in World War I, and first visited the West in 1919, working a long summer as a hand on a Colorado cattle ranch.

DELANO BEAUTY IN NAVAJOLAND

In 1921 he filed claim on a homestead in the mountains of Colorado, where he built a log-cabin studio on Summit County's Cataract Creek. Subsequently returning to New York for more art training, Delano began a career as a successful illustrator and western-theme magazine cover artist. However, during the Great Depression, when many of the artist's magazine customers went out of business, Delano himself went flat "for keeps." The West became his country, its grandeur and colorful people his subjects. In 1937 the artist sold the idea of a weekly series of drawings with explanatory text to Street and Smith's Western Story Magazine. The series was a chronological account of all the events which highlighted the entire development of the West, from before the white man's days to modern times. It was titled, The Story of the West. This, by necessitating research, enabled the artist to establish a studio in Denver. Here he spent the winter months, with frequent trips to the public library for his facts, then drawing the illustrations and writing the text. From early May, when the snow had melted enough to get in, to October Delano spent the time on his Cataract Creek homestead, where he carried forward his work on The Story of the West. The series ran for two years from the time of first publication. It included the weekly publication of 106 drawings with text, and ended in 1940. This was a turning point in Delano's life, for it marked the ending of his work as an illustrator and the start of his career as a painter. Paintings of the old and today's West occupied the artist's attention for awhile, then, with sales of his canvases growing, he was able at last to follow his greatest desire. So it was in October of 1943 that Delano first visited vast, colorful Arizona and the Navajo Reservation. Here he found vivid landscapes to his liking. Here the sheer red sandstone canyon walls awed him with their towering magnificence; the vast, heavily-silenced sweeps of sage and sand-dotted distances completely thrilled and inspired him. And in his meeting with the Navajos Delano realized that they were the people he most wanted to know and to paint.

Why do the Navajos interest Delano?

"Well, for one reason," he says, "there is so much in the world that is ugly, drab, dreary, and sad, and there's so much utter tragedy that I feel it is important insofar as I can to give to the world as much beauty as my abilities allow. Arizona's picturesque settings, peopled with Diné ('The People,' as the Navajos call themselves), provide to my mind the greatest possible opportunity for pictorial beauty. They are themselves naturally artistic. Even in their daily lives they dress more colorfully than do the Indians of any other tribes. Again their affinity for silver and turquoise jewelry tends definitely to enhance their natural dark-skinned beauty. Then, too, I feel a great sympathy for them. They have survived a life of hardship; yet have done so with dignity and with heads held proudly high."

The artist, a member of the Cowboy Artists of America, maintains his studio in Denver, Colorado, where with his wife, Blanche, he lives and works during the winter months of the year. During summer they live in Blanche's native town of Opdyke, in southern Illinois, where the artist continues to paint what he knows and best remembers - the West and one of the most colorful parts of the West, his beloved Navajoland, and the people who belong in it.... R.C.

He would not be harmed but would have food and warm clothing until they could be moved to Bosque Redondo.

Carson was sorry to bring destruction to the proud, haughty race. He knew that hundreds of them were blameless, and that the high-up Mexicans pressing for their extermination had profited from many a slave raid on the tribe, but as a soldier under orders, he never lessened the pressure.

The baffling campaign went on with a few Navajo men killed each day and their families sent to the fort, while in turn the Navajos drove army mules away from the shadow of the same fort. Women were allowed to go back into the country and tell other families of the food and warmth they found when they surrendered and that led many minor chiefs to come in and ask for peace.

"Any Navajo wanting peace must surrender and go to Bosque Redondo," was the answer. Some two hundred families from around Black Mesa came in at one time and were encamped around the fort. But some of the "rico" chiefs took their herds and people and went into Ute country and to the Grand Canyon Indians. As long as they were out of the country and not likely to return Carson turned his guns on Canyon de Chelly, the last stronghold of the tribe. It had long been Navajo belief that they were safe in the thirty-mile-long chasm with sheer red rock walls from five hundred to a thousand feet high. These walls were dotted with prehistoric homes of Gone Away People whose spirits guarded the Navajo. A stream flowed down the canyon and there were hundreds of sheltered coves where peaches and grapes grew and beans and corn were safe from frost. Driftwood and other growth gave fuel and many hogans were year-around homes.

"Go through Canyon de Chelly, and clear it of Indians," ordered General Carleton, and when Kit plaintively explained that horses and mules were lacking for the expedition he got the unfeeling reply: "You will have the men carry their blankets and rations in haversacks. Your men must suffer some fatigue and privations or this war is lost. A very little flour, sugar, coffee and salt are all that's necessary. Now while the snow is deep is the time for striking. I am sending thirty-eight good mules, and I sincerely hope there will be no more reports of the Navajos stealing army mules.

"When all Indians are subdued you may send seventy-five hundred on to Bosque Redondo, in addition to what we already have there. These we can feed while it is determined if the army or Indian Affairs Bureau will have support of the captives. I note you say rich herd owners can feed themselves. In that case you may send an even ten thousand. Tell those with stock that if they will come in immediately they can take their herds with them. The rich ones can live on their stock at Bosque Redondo as well as where they are!"

With that ultimatum, Carson loaded equipment on an ox-drawn wagon, hitched other oxen to a small field cannon, and on January 6, 1864, started the fifty-mile march to the mouth of Canyon de Chelly. This spot was called Chinle, meaning to the Navajos: "The Coming Out Place." Here the sheer thousandfoot walls leveled down to the surrounding desert and the constant stream flowing through the canyon's length spread out and was lost in surrounding sand.

Carson sent a Captain Pfiffer, whose wife and children recently had been killed by Apaches, ahead with fifty mounted men to the eastern end of the canyon with orders to remain there and capture or kill any Navajos attempting to escape. This outfit traveled light and reached its objective before Carson was half way to the canyon's mouth. Most of his oxen died from exhaustion and hunger and the men walked on through two feet of snow, carrying food and helping to pull the cannon. When Kit finally reached the mouth of the canyon he was amazed to find the unpredictable Captain Pfiffer there with ninety prisoners he captured as he marched down the entire length of Canyon de Chelly.

Carson sent one Captain Carey to mop up the del Muerto branch of the Canyon and he returned with 110 additional prisoners who meekly followed Carson's army back to Fort Defiance after all hogans, food caches and fences in the canyon had been destroyed and the horses and sheep either killed or gathered to drive back to the army quartermaster. While this destruction went on the captives were fed and given blankets, and many of the wives asked to be allowed to leave the camp and talk to their husbands. Consent was given and scores of men joined the prisoners on the cold hard trek back to Defiance.

Several hundred Navajos were encamped around the fort where in 1860 two thousand howling, angry Navajos armed only with bows and arrows and long war lances had made a determined attack on the army post. The soldiers supplied the campers with blankets and what tents they could spare, and many Navajo families threw up hasty log and brush hogans for shelter while they waited to be transported.

Many asked permission to go into the mountains and explain to reluctant tribesmen just what they must do if they wanted to stay alive. Carson told these messengers to say: "All Navajos must go to Bosque Redondo. You know I do not want to kill those willing to surrender. I promise you that no Navajo will be kept as a slave, nor will any of you in our care be killed either by soldiers or Mexicans or other Indians. There is only this for you to do: Come in and go to Bosque Redondo, or I will hunt you from mountain to mountain like wolves and not stop until all of you are destroyed. You know my word is true. Now, what I have begun I will keep on doing if it takes years to finish the Navajos."

When news of the Canyon de Chelly entrance swept through the country the Navajos gave up. Even their ancient gods in their most sacred spot had forsaken them, it seemed. They went to Fort Defiance in large groups. Some times whole clans arrived at once, driving before them what sheep and horses the soldiers had left to them. Often on the way, Utes attacked them, killing some of the men, stealing girls and children, and taking horses away from them, so that soon the fort was the only place of safety the Diné knew. There they found food and warm blankets and friends of better days waiting for them. They were given a few cooking utensils, army food consisting of beans and white flour, bacon and green coffee beans. But they were not taught how to prepare the strange food, and many families lived on their sheep while they were still at the fort.

On March 6, 1864, twenty-four hundred Navajos began their journey into exile. They walked, those without horses, putting their old and crippled into ox-drawn wagons driven by contemptuous Mexicans. But there were always more crippled old folks and scared babies than could be fitted into the supply wagons, and weary mothers often carried one child on their backs and another fastened to its cradle board in her arms.

General Carleton had promised that their friend, Kit Carson, would be with them the first year of their captivity at Bosque Redondo, to show them how to adjust to white ways, and to act as their agent there. On the first day of their march he rode along with them, giving them what encouragement he could, full of pity for the old ones looking back sadly at their beloved mountains. Now and then he took a weary child in the saddle before him, while he rode slowly along with its family telling them not to give up hope of returning after they learned ways of peaceful living. When night came and they were herded into a circle surrounded by the wagons and encamped soldiers, he walked among them and showed them what to do with the unfamiliar fare issued to them. The green coffee beans were slowly parched in pans over hot coals, then pounded into coarse meal and boiled. He told them to mix the white flour into a stiff dough, wrap it around a clean stick and hold it over the coals until it was cooked. They had been eating the bacon raw and many were ill from it, declaring they were being poisoned by their captors. When morning came, Carson, promising

The 22nd Annual NAVAJO TRIBAL FAIR

It will be held at Window Rock, Arizona, August 30 through September 2. Last year more than seventy thousand attended the Tribe's showcase. The 1968 Fair will be a gala event commemorating the Navajo Century of Progress.

Joining them he would soon be with them at Bosque Redondo, turned back, but the assignment had been cancelled.

From Fort Wingate the wagon train moved eastward toward Isleta on the Rio Grande River, and the Navajos were terrified when they knew they must cross the wide, muddy stream. Navajos are not swimmers and many of them were drowned as they clung to the tails of swimming horses. The wagons were floated, the herds swam or sank or were washed far downstream out of sight. It took an entire day to get the train across. Exhausted, wet and half frozen, the Indians waited for members of their families torn away from them by swift waters, and for friends that never came. Many animals reached the eastern banks and straggled into camp where blankets were drying over smoking fires, and owners counted their losses. The cold was intense, and many of the weaker old people died there in camp. There was panic and despair, the Navajos believing they were being given wolf poison by the Mexicans that doled out their provisions.

Their medicine men walked among them and tried to lift their spirits. “This is the dark night of the Diné. Morning will come and we will return to our homes. Our gods have told us to travel east only in our sorrow and that we must not cross three rivers. We are forced to disobey, but as we walk to the forbidden east we must keep songs of beauty and bravery in our hearts.” The Navajo fear of death left their dead unburied unless the task was undertaken by escorting soldiers. Many were left wrapped in their blankets beside the trail. The cold March winds cut across the level land, and snow beat against exposed faces. There was little for the sheep to eat and even less for the Indians. Children, exhausted and feverish, were put into wagons, and crouched there in terror while their tired mothers tried to keep in sight of them. Moccasins wore thin and were patched again and again until there was nothing left to patch and bare feet bled against the frozen, rocky earth.

Now and then a beef was butchered and the broth from it gave strength to the toothless old ones, and to babies whose mothers' milk had failed from fatigue and hunger. South of Cubero they passed by the black flow of lava, blood of Yatso who was destroyed by the Earth People before the Diné came to old Navajoland. It brought a gleam of interest to the old ones, and that night around their scanty fires they retold tales of long ago.

“We were told never to journey to the east, and not to cross three rivers. Our gods have abandoned us,” they cried. But there was no turning back for them.

Now and then it was necessary to stop over a day while wagons were greased and harness repaired. Then sheep were killed and roasted and while the people were warm and their stomachs full, they could forget their sorrows for a little time and listen to their Singers.

They came to Cubers and were herded into a stockade of logs while angry Mexicans milled around shouting “Navajo Dogs, Indian Devils,” and some tried to snatch the young girls away to be sold as slaves in Mexico. The soldiers drove their tormenters away with fixed bayonets, and rations were distributed before most of the soldiers went into the village to find entertainment, leaving the terrified Indians expecting death from the Mexicans. At dawn the next morning the journey was resumed. Some of the Navajos had rags tied around their feet and others had fashioned crude moccasins from fresh cow hides. Day after day they dragged along until they reached the Promised Land, Bosque Redondo on the Pecos River.

While the bewildered Navajos looked at the desolate, barren land to which they had been brought, the soldiers hurriedly herded them into a walled compound one by one while a man on top of the wall counted them and marked the number in a book. Soldiers with fixed bayonets stood on each side of the gate and prodded the reluctant captives along. Nobody explained to them that this was the only way for the army to know exactly how many Indians they had to provide blankets for, or feed. Mothers held their babies close under their blankets to ward off the evil around them and that way many babies were not counted.

None of the dream houses visualized by General Carleton had been built and the Navajos would not have stayed inside them had they been ready. They began looking around for timber and brush with which to build hogans, but the established Apaches had cut down the trees and used them for firewood. Then the Navajos dug into the sandy soil, as deeply as they could without having the sides cave in on them, and they wove rough mats of grass and brush to line the holes and to make a shelter over them. What canvas was in the fort was given to them, but it was woefully short of requirements of the eight thousand Navajos sent to Bosque Redondo before the summer was over.

These makeshift habitats were crowded close together and there was no privacy whatever. Little sanitation had been provided for, and only a few of the rich Navajos could provide themselves with the cleansing sweathouse. All cooking was done out-of-doors no matter how hard the wind blew or how much sand was deposited in the thin gruel upon which they subsisted. Rain, snow, wind, blistering sun all added to the torture of the unhappy tribe. Their firewood was mostly the roots of mesquite which they dug and carried a long way. They were afraid to cross the river to obtain wood since several Navajo men carrying heavy loads of

to make the wool. These lined the dugouts where most of the families lived like prairie dogs in their burrows. A very few of these sagas of sorrow are now displayed in famous museums. Ten million dollars had already been spent on the Navajo fiasco in three years at Bosque Redondo, and when the third planting season came around the Navajos refused to go into the fields. "It is useless. Our gods are angry with us. We have no colored corn for sacred meal, no bright earth from our mountain home with which to make Sand Paintings." Strangeness, idleness, crowded conditions with no oppor to watch the few remaining sheep trying to find a blade of grass on the bare pasture land. Ganado Mucho, grand old leader that had always pleaded for peace, stood before General Sherman and said: "Let us go home to our mountains. Let us see our flocks feeding in the valleys, and let us ride again where we can smell the sage and know of hidden hogans by the smell of piñon smoke. Let us go where we can build those hogans in solitude and privacy and live again as men, not animals. Let us be free to build a better way of life and learn to live in peace in our own land where red buttes rise from Newsmen that had come to see the show, reported speeches of the Navajo and Carson, but they failed to say if Sherman made a close inspection of the reservation. But at the end of the day of parley he told the Navajos: "One has pity on you. Go slowly. Indeed I will help you!" On June 1, 1868, four years after they were imprisoned, the Navajos signed the papers which allowed them to leave Bosque Redondo. This treaty they have honored to the best of their belief. There have been mistakes and bad judgment on both sides, but the treaty holds.

Opportunity for the solitude and aloneness demanded by Navajo nature, cold and hunger ate away their will to live. They sat down and waited for death. Perhaps with its release their spirits would return to the mountains, they'd smell again the wild sweet scent of sage and pine and have the freedom essential to their mores. Washington's heart could be reached through desert sands, and eagles sweep across the sky. Let us go home. We have learned not to kill and not to drive away the flocks of others, for here we have been helpless against Comanche and our own flocks have been taken from us by Indians and whites alike. Here we have nothing. Our children grow up in ugliness and death. Let us go home!" Kit Carson stood beside the general and told him earnestly: "General, I'm not so sure the Great Spirit Generous provision for transporting the Indians back to their home was made but they were so excited, families and clans started walk ing as soon as release came. Among the quotes from papers of that day, Manuelito is made to say: "The days and nights were long before it was time for us to go to our homes. The day before we were to go many of us walked along the road we would take. When we saw the Washington's heart could be reached through its pocketbook, if not by Carson's pleas or tales of suffering among the captives. Congress refused to set aside more money for the project until it had a report to be trusted. General Sherman, having completed his march through Georgia, was sent out to see how expenses, and perhaps Indians, could be reduced. There was a cannon salute from the fort as seven carriages filled with top brass drew up at the Navajo compound. General Sherman "General, I'm not so sure the Great Spirit means for us whites to take over Indian lands. I brought this proud people to this place because they would not listen to Washington. Now they have heard, and three thousand died here while they were hearing. Let me lead them back while they still have the will to live." It had been Sherman's thought to send the Navajos to more distant exile. That was what politicians in New Mexico demanded. The Mexicans and whites, and even Pueblo chiefs tops of the mountains from Albuquerque, we were so happy we felt like talking to the ground. Many of the old men and women cried when again we reached our homeland." The homeward journey began. There was excited talk and laughter from a people that had been sad and silent for many moons. About a thousand horses had survived the years of exile, and a few hundred sheep "for seed," they stepped out and was greeted by Ganado Mucho, Barboncito, stately Manuelito with the scars of battle on his bare breast, and lesser chiefs. They begged the old soldier to look at the that had done their full share of raiding and stealing slaves for sale, were now trampling over one another to blame the Navajo for everything.

said, followed the wagons filled with rations for the journey, and with old folks and children filling in the empty places. Hundreds walked. Clad in old army blankets, still the gray ones for men and scarlet for the women, they talked burrows serving them as homes, to taste the water from the Pecos River with its muddy silt, Whether the travellers' quest be for beauty, or adding to his knowledge of history, or of the earth and its people, a trip to Navajoland will be richly rewarding. Here a relaxing serenity dominates the scene where past civilizations have left their mark in a gallery of natural wonders unlike those found anywhere else on earth.

The silver-haired nonagenarian reflects upon a fruitful past . . .

discarded army coats, and the men had pants of calico, slit from ankle to knee in the Pueblo manner. The women wore calico, too, but not the picturesque, swaying, full skirts of today. A spring wagon with padded seat carried their agent, Major Dodd. For some reason the Navajos called him “Big Gopher,” and when they reached Fort Wingate he accepted formal custody of the Navajos and sent the soldier escort back to Fort Sumner. Until late fall the Indians were kept in camp at Wingate, because the reservation land assigned to them had not yet been surveyed. Although it was their old homeland, not all of it was being given to the Navajos. They ate rabbits and prairie dogs and hunted for the plants and herbs they liked while they waited for rations each Friday.

Before the first snow they were moved on to Fort Defiance and from there many families fanned out, looking for their old hogans and pasture grounds. But their homes had been burned, the fences, corrals and peach trees destroyed, and there was no food hidden in the red cliffs. Each week they returned to the Fort to receive government food. That highwalled compound held no terrors for them, and they laughed and joked as they waited to be counted and given food tickets. If the Great White Father felt generous, one might receive a little sugar or salt or even a handful of tobacco to mix with their native plant. Beef was issued, and if a family was fortunate enough to receive a whole animal it was driven to a secluded place and butchered. The hide was used for moccasins, the suet gave bread a delicious flavor, and even the horns were used for cups. Flour sacks were precious beyond telling. By now the women knew how to mix a dough and fry it into tasty crispness, and there were no complaints about the food.

Before the exile, the Navajo people were a divided tribe, but now they gathered together for their Healing Sings and the Nine Day Ceremony, their priests happy once more with sand from the Painted Desert, colored corn meal, and fresh piñon branches for the rites. Big Gopher appointed Manuelito, Ganado Mucho and Barboncito to act as advisors to the tribe, and each ration day Ganado Mucho would stand on the compound wall and say to them: “Remember, we have made a promise, my relatives. No stealing, no killing. You must work.” When the promised sheep and goats were delivered by the government, the Navajo people took up their lives again in the homeland. Again the herds spread over the wide land, with little girls and grandmothers gently herding them away from danger. Again thin, sweet piñon smoke spoke of hidden hogans, and from distant horsemen came echoes of chants as young men rode into clean free winds. The dark night of the Navajo was past. They had come home to build a nation of which America is proud.