Navajo

Name

Navajo (pronounced NAH-vah-ho.). The name comes from a Tewa (Pueblo) Indian word, Navahu, meaning “the large area of cultivated fields.” The Navajo call themselves Diné (“the People”).

Location

The Navajo make their home on a federal reservation called the Navajo Nation. The largest reservation in the United States, it covers more than 26,000 square miles (67,340 square kilometers) of their former homelands in the canyons, mountains, deserts, and forests of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. Three other bands live on small reservations in western New Mexico. Some Navajo also share the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation in Arizona with the Hopi, Mohave, and Chemehuevi.

Population

In 1868 there were about ten thousand Navajo. In the 1990 U.S. Census, 225,298 people identified themselves as Navajo. In 2000 that number increased to 276,775, making the Navajo tribe the second largest in the United States.

Language family

Athabaskan.

Origins and group affiliations

Navajo accounts of their own history correspond with what scientists and historians say about Navajo ancestors moving from the far North to the Southwest over long periods of time. The Navajo traditions tell of the First World, or Black World, which is similar to that of a frigid flatland area, possibly the far north in Alaska. The Navajo Second World (Blue-Green World) features landmarks and animal life similar to those found in western and central Canada. The Navajo Third World (Yellow World) contains mountains and plains that resemble those on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest. The Navajo Fourth World (Glittering World) reflects the surroundings at the Navajo Nation today in northwestern New Mexico. The Navajo have probably inhabited the Southwest for nearly one thousand years. Their closest allies were the Apache and the Pueblo.

Once a group whose fierce warriors struck fear in the hearts of their enemies, the Navajo are a mysterious, complex people who have maintained more of their culture than most other tribes. In the early twenty-first century the majority of Navajo are under the age of thirty, and nine out of ten tribal members inhabit reservation lands. Although the people live a variety of lifestyles and work at many different jobs, they value their traditions and strive to keep alive the ancient Navajo ways.

History

Outside influences

The Navajo may have arrived in the American Southwest as early as the eleventh century. Until about 1650 the people were mainly hunters and gatherers who noted the practices of other societies and adopted those that they thought would be useful to them.

The Spanish came to the land of the Navajo in the seventeenth century and tried to convert the Native Americans to the Spanish way of life. From around 1650 to 1775 the Navajo learned from both the Spanish and the Pueblo (see entry) how to farm corn, herd sheep, weave wool, and work silver. The Spanish also taught them how to grow new fruits and vegetables such as peaches, wheat, and potatoes, and introduced them to the cattle, sheep, and horses that over time would become important to the Navajo way of life. By the late 1600s the use of horses allowed the Navajo to travel far distances on horse raids and increase the scope of their trading. But very few Navajo converted to the Catholic religion of the Spanish, perhaps because the Spanish showed disrespect for the Native culture.

Beginning in the late 1600s the Navajo moved westward into the lands of present-day New Mexico and Arizona because of hostilities with Comanche and Ute tribes (see entries) and Spaniards who lived on three sides of their territory. The Navajo did not like the customs of the Spanish, who fought with the Native Americans and sometimes took them as slaves. The Navajo joined the Pueblo and Apache (see entry) to fight off the Spanish. Around 1750 the tribe established a fortified town in Canyon de Chelly (pronounced SHAY.). The next several decades were marked by the development of the arts and intricate ceremonies.

Important Dates

1626: The Spanish first encounter the Navajo people.

1864: The devastating Long Walk, a forced removal from their homelands, leads the Navajo to a harsh exile at Bosque Redondo.

1868: The Navajo reservation is established by treaty with the United States, and the people return from Bosque Redondo.

1923: The Navajo unify under a tribal council.

1941–45: Navajo Code Talkers send and receive secret messages in their Native language, making a major contribution to the U.S. war effort during World War II.

1974: The U.S. Congress passes the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act, which established a Joint-Use Area and requires the relocation of individual tribe members to their own tribal lands.

1996: The Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute Act allows the Dinéh more time to relocate, but some stay.

U.S. government dealings with Navajo

Even though they were mainly farmers and herders, the Navajo sometimes raided neighboring societies. Usually they did this to feed themselves after a crop failure, to get more horses and other livestock, or to rescue their children who had been captured for the slave trade.

In the early 1800s the original Spanish colonists in the Southwest rebelled against Spain and founded the nation of Mexico. Although they claimed the northern territory where the Navajo lived as their own, most Mexicans lived farther south. Then the United States took possession of most of the Southwest in 1848, as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War (1846–48; a war fought between the United States and Mexico which led to loss of about one-half of Mexico’s national territory to the United States). At first the Americans made an effort to establish a treaty-based relationship with the Navajo. The Americans, however, mistakenly assumed that the leaders of the Navajo bands who signed various treaties represented all Navajo people. In fact each headman represented only his own band.

When bands that had not signed treaties continued to raid, the Americans thought their agreements had been violated. As further land disputes arose, people on both sides were killed. In 1864 the U.S. government decided to settle the “Navajo problem” by adopting an all-out policy of subduing the entire Navajo population. Kit Carson (1809–1868), an early frontiersman, led the American troops. Rather than engaging in military battles, Carson and his army proceeded through Navajo lands taking livestock and burning homes and crops. In the process some women and children were molested, and some of the captured women were sold into slavery. Finally Carson’s troops attacked Canyon de Chelly, crushing most of the remaining Navajo resistance. Thousands of nearly starving Navajo surrendered.

The Long Walk

During 1864 eight thousand Navajo were resettled at a place called Bosque (pronounced BOSK.) Redondo near Fort Sumner in east central New Mexico. They made the 300-mile (483-kilometer) journey on foot, a terrible event that has become known as the Long Walk. Those who could not keep up were either taken into slavery or were shot by military guards. People who complained of illness, including women soon to give birth, were also shot. More than two thousand died during the forced march.

Once they arrived at the 40-square-acre reservation at Fort Sumner, the brokenhearted Navajo found the land unsuitable for growing adequate food. On this land where agriculture was impossible, the Navajo were expected to become farmers. The water was bad, firewood was in short supply, and insects plagued them. They also fell victim to raids by their Native American enemies. More than two thousand more Navajo died at Bosque Redondo from starvation and diseases.

During their period of exile at Bosque Redondo only about half of the Navajo survived. Hundreds of people escaped and returned to their homelands to join the thousands of other Navajo who had remained free. Those who avoided the relocation by hiding on their lands grew crops, gathered wild foods, and raised livestock, confident that in time the others would come home from the Long Walk. They built homes and planted gardens, trying to reestablish their former way of life before their kinspeople returned.

The U.S. government did little to help the sick and dying Navajo until a Santa Fe newspaper wrote about the terrible conditions on the reservation, and the American public protested. In time, the U.S. government admitted that the resettlement had been a terrible mistake. In 1868 Congress created a reservation within the original Navajo homelands, and invited Navajo people to return from Bosque Redondo. But they were only permitted to return to an area called “Treaty Reservation,” a section of land that was only 10 percent of their former lands. This land was surrounded by non-Native Americans who had moved in while the Navajo were gone and had established towns and trading posts. Before long the Santa Fe Railroad brought even more whites to the area.

Four Navajo reservations

The 3.5-million-acre Navajo Nation reservation established by the U.S. government was expanded over time by additional grants of land. The reservation is now the largest Native American reservation in the United States; it includes more than 17 million acres and is about equal to the size of West Virginia.

After their departure from Bosque Redondo, three bands of Navajo chose to settle apart from the main tribe. These bands established three small, isolated offshoot reservations in western New Mexico. Today more than 5,800 Navajo live on the Ramah, Cañoncito (now called To’Hajiilee), and Alamo Reservations. The vast Navajo Nation boasts spectacular scenery, but not much of the land is useful for farming or grazing.

Modern life

Coal and oil were first found on the Navajo Nation around 1920, and the Navajo have made some money from these resources. As of 2007 mining was one of the largest sources of income for the tribe. Along with coal and oil, natural gas brought in more than $75 million in royalties for the tribe. In 1997, concerned over resources being mined for others’ use while many tribal members had no electricity or gas in their homes, the Nation created the Navajo Oil and Gas Company. By 2008, however, both mining companies will shut down, causing a loss of revenue and jobs.

Many Navajo volunteered for military service in World War I (1914–18; a war in which Great Britain, France, the United States and their allies defeated Germany, Austria-Hungary, and their allies). In 1924 all Native Americans were granted U.S. citizenship largely because of that. The Navajo made a very important contribution during World War II (1939–45; a war in which Great Britain, France, the United States, and their allies defeated Germany, Italy, and Japan). Men called Navajo Code Talkers used the Navajo language to send secret messages to branches of the American military. Their messages baffled enemy Japanese code-breakers. Survivors of the 420 Code Talkers who served with the U.S. Marines remain among the most respected elders of the modern Navajo Nation.

The Navajo Code Talkers

After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, the U.S. government declared war on Japan and entered World War II (1939–45). Americans discovered that the Japanese were eavesdropping on the U.S. Marines and decoding their secret messages. In early 1942 a white man who had been brought up at the Navajo Nation suggested that the military could use Navajo men to devise unbreakable codes. Other than fifty thousand Navajo, fewer than thirty people in the world knew the Navajo language; none were Japanese.

Young Navajo men were recruited as Code Talkers. Because the Navajo language lacked words for modern military terms, Navajo Code Talker Carl Gorman (1907–1998) and others worked out a two-tier code in which English military words were represented by different Navajo words. For example Navajo words for different birds substituted for names of planes. When the Japanese figured out Marine radio operators were speaking Navajo, they forced a captured soldier who spoke the language to translate. Although he knew a term such as chay-da-gahi meant turtle, he did not know that “turtle” meant “tank” to the code talkers.

Young Navajo soldiers proved to be adept at night scouting and were excellent undercover fighters. They lived off the land in Japan and made stew from chickens, goats, and horses they killed with slingshots. Now the Navajo, who at one time were forbidden to speak their own language by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, used that language to help the United States win the war. In 1982 President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004; served 1881–89) proclaimed August 14 as National Navajo Code Talkers Day. Most Code Talkers who are still alive do not partake in the celebrations, however, because they do not believe in glorifying war.

The Navajo-Hopi land dispute

Since the founding of their reservations, the Navajo and Hopi have been engaged in a land dispute. The original Navajo Nation authorized by Congress included only ten percent of the tribe’s original land. The Hopi reservation was created adjoining the Navajo Nation in 1882, and in 1934 Congress expanded the Navajo reservation so that it completely surrounded the Hopi reservation. Each tribe thought that land given to the other was rightfully their own.

In 1962 a federal court ruling established an area surrounding the Hopi land as a Joint Use Area (JUA) for both tribes. The discovery of oil and coal in the JUA made the tribes more interested in clearly defining ownership. When the U.S. Congress passed the Navajo-Hopi Settlement Act in 1974, it authorized the division of the JUA between the two tribes and required people living on the other tribe’s land to relocate. (This applied to nearly ten thousand Navajo.) Thousands of people voluntarily moved, but many became separated from their extended families and relocated to suburban-area homes where they could not find work. In time, one-third of them lost their new homes.

After a long delay the matter neared a resolution in 1997. The Navajo still living on Hopi land were permitted to stay in their homes if they signed a non-renewable, 75-year lease and agreed to live under Hopi regulations. The choice was a difficult one for the Navajo because of spiritual ties, the fact that they would be obliged to ask for Hopi permission to conduct many of their ceremonies, and because they would not be allowed to bury their dead on the leased land. Still most Navajo signed the lease in March 1997. But the long dispute disrupted many lives and further strained relations between the two tribes.

The Navajo today

At the start of the twenty-first century the Navajo educational system, economy, and government had grown strong despite some leaders who misused tribal money. Young Navajo continued to learn their language and participate in tribal ceremonies, and the tribe is preserving their ancient culture.

Religion

The Navajo religion helps the people strive for harmony with nature and with others. The tribe sees the universe as orderly. Everything in the world, no matter how tiny, has an important place.

Among the Navajo gods are many Holy People, including Changing Woman (who created the People from cornmeal and flakes of skin that had fallen from her own body), Spider Woman (who taught the People to weave), Talking God (who showed the People how to build their houses), and Coyote (an occasionally helpful, clever prankster whose tricks provide many lessons). Ceremonies called “Blessingways” are given in thankfulness for a long and happy life or to celebrate the occasion of a new house or a new marriage.

Mountain Earth bundles are the most important ceremonial objects. They are made of tanned, undamaged buckskin taken from a deer suffocated during a special ritual. The bundle contains small pouches of soil and other items from the top of each of the four sacred mountains that surround the Navajo homeland.

>Anything But Piñon Pitch

One day Coyote was out walking. He was walking in the forest. He saw Rabbit. He started to chase Rabbit. Rabbit ran in a hole. Coyote said: “I’ll get you out of that hole. Let me think.” Coyote sat down to think. “Now I know. I’ll get you out. I’ll get weeds. I’ll put them in the hole. I’ll set fire to them. Then you will come out,” said Coyote.

Rabbit laughed. “No, I will not come out, my cousin. I like weeds. I’ll eat the weeds.”

“Do you eat milkweeds?” asked Coyote. “I’ll get milkweeds.”

“Yes, I like milkweeds. I’ll eat milkweeds,” said Rabbit.

“Do you eat foxtail grass?” asked Coyote. “I’ll get foxtail grass.”

“Yes. I like foxtail grass. I’ll eat foxtail grass.”

“Do you eat rabbit brush?” asked Coyote. “I’ll get rabbit brush.”

“Rabbit brush? I like rabbit brush best of all. I’ll eat rabbit brush, too,” said Rabbit.

“I know,” said Coyote. “Piñon pitch.”

Rabbit looked sad. “You will kill me. I do not eat piñon pitch,” said Rabbit.

Coyote was happy. He ran from piñon tree to piñon tree. He gathered piñon pitch. He put the piñon pitch in the hole. He set the piñon pitch on fire. He bent low. He blew on the fire.

“Come closer,” said Rabbit, “blow harder.” Coyote came closer. He blew harder. “I’m nearly dead,” said Rabbit, “come closer. Blow a little harder.”

Rabbit turned. He kicked hard. The fire flew in Coyote’s face. Rabbit ran away. He was laughing very hard.

Erdoes, Richard, and Alfonso Ortiz. American Indian Trickster Tales. New York: Viking, 1998.

Navajo Christians

Roman Catholic missionaries in the 1600s were only the first of various Christian groups that tried to convert the Navajo to their faith. In the late 1860s and 1870s Presbyterians and Mormon missionaries were a presence on the reservation. In the 1890s Catholic priests began a mission, St. Michael’s, and later opened a school that became a center for studying the Navajo religion, language, and way of life. In time other Protestant denominations also began churches and schools, and many Navajo became Christians.

Present-day Navajo often combine Christianity with their traditional religious beliefs and practices. About twenty-five thousand Navajo are members of the Native American Church, which was formed in 1918 by followers of the Peyote (pronounced pay-O-tee,) religion who had developed an intricate belief system embracing traditional Native American values and visions of the spiritual world attained through the use of dreams, prayers, rituals and the peyote plant. Thousands more participate in peyote ceremonies without claiming membership in the church. Peyote is a substance that comes from cactus; when it is consumed, it causes the taker to go into a trance-like state and see visions. The use of peyote was prohibited on the Navajo Nation for twenty-seven years, until the tribal council legalized its religious use in 1967.

Language

Navajo and six Apache dialects (varieties) make up the southwestern branch of the Athabaskan language family. The language includes sounds from the natural world and pronunciation requirements are very strict. Spoken Navajo has a mechanical flavor about it that almost sounds like the talk of a robot. Language experts say that the only people who can pronounce Navajo perfectly are the native-born.

The Navajo believe that some words have the power to ward off evil, while others are so dangerous that only special persons under specific conditions can speak them. Unlike many other tribes, the Navajo rarely add words from other languages into their vocabulary. Instead, they combine traditional terms to describe new objects or events. For example, the Navajo word for “elephant” means “one that lassoes with his nose.” An automobile is a “chuggi,” which sounds like a car’s engine, and gasoline is described as “car’s water.”

Navajo Words

• ahe’ee … “thank you”
• at’ééd … “girl”
• aoo’ … “yes”
• ashkii … q>boy”
• gah … “rabbit”
• hooghan … “homeq>
• líí’ … “horse”
• nahosdzáán … “earth”
• ólta’ … “school”
• deesháál … “I will come/go.”
• jiní … q>it is said”

Government

Until modern times the tribe consisted of small, independent bands headed by chiefs or headmen. The discovery of coal and oil on the Navajo Nation in 1920 made it necessary for the tribe to organize in a different way. The U.S. government founded the Navajo Business Council in 1922 to grant oil and mineral leases in the name of the Navajo Nation, but many leases were not favorable to the Navajo.

In 1938 the Navajo rejected the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), which would have given them a federally structured tribal government and constitution. Instead, with the federal government’s permission, they held their own constitutional convention. The tribe wrote a constitution that would give them independence from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The U.S. government rejected this plan and formed a new Navajo Business Council. This council was composed of 74 elected Navajo members and became known as the “Rule of 1938.” This was the basis for the present Navajo Tribal Council.

Since 1922 local government has been organized into chapters, each with its own Chapter House. The nation is headed by an eighty-eight member council representing the 110 chapters, and it has a three-branch government—executive, legislative, and judicial—headed by a president who is elected every four years. A speaker is elected every two years to head the legislative branch. A chief justice is appointed to oversee the court system.

Economy

Farming and ranching

Traditionally Navajo farmers did not irrigate their fields; their seeds could be sustained by underground water. But farming methods have changed. In the 1960s Congress approved the Navajo Irrigation Implementation Project (NIIP). The system used canals, pipelines, pumping stations, and sprinklers to irrigate crops. Water was stored thirty miles away behind a new dam on the San Juan River. In the mid-1990s a 70,000-acre tribal farm called Navajo Agricultural Products Incorporated (NAPI) began producing profitable harvests of alfalfa, pinto beans, potatoes, onions, and mushrooms. In addition to growing crops, NAPI processes and packages them.

Traditional ranching, too, underwent changes. Since the seventeenth century sheep herding has been a vital part of Navajo life. Sheep provided meat, their tendons made bowstrings, and their wool was woven into clothing and blankets. During the late 1930s an extreme drought made the central and southern United States so dry the area was called the “dust bowl.” At this time the U.S. government decided that the Navajo were raising too many sheep and that their grazing resulted in soil erosion by stripping plant cover off topsoil, causing it to dry out and blow away. Agricultural Department agents killed tens of thousands of Navajo sheep. For several decades after this relations between the Navajo and the U.S. government were hostile. During the twentieth century cattle raising largely replaced sheep herding on the reservation.

Other sources of income

In the early twenty-first century, in addition to tax revenue, the Navajo Nation gains income by leasing its land for gas and oil drilling as well as through coal mining, forestry, and the operation of seven industrial parks. In the mid-1990s the Navajo Oil and Gas Company built its own oil refinery. Manufacturing businesses on reservation lands produce missiles, wood products, circuit boards, locomotive computers, modems, computer parts, and many other products. More than 250 trade operations, including shopping centers and banks, also operate on the reservation, and construction workers are building new homes and buildings there.

Navajo weavers command good prices for their handmade woolen rugs, belts, and blankets. Navajo trading posts sell crafts objects such as silver work, an art form they learned from the Mexicans. Navajo artisans make silver bracelets, rings, earrings, necklaces, and belts decorated with the opaque blue stone called turquoise.

Service businesses make substantial profits from the more than 2.5 million annual visitors who come to the reservation. Several resort facilities operate there, including the Chinle Holiday Inn and the Navajo Nation Inn in Window Rock. In 1997 the tribe entered into a partnership with the U.S. National Park Service and developed a new resort and marina complex at Antelope Point on Lake Powell.

Daily life

Families

Navajo family units were made up of two or more families centered around a mother and her daughters. The unit was bound together by ties of marriage and close relationships. Women held an important social position.

Navajo society is based on clans (groups of people who claim descent from a common ancestor). Some clans trace their origins to creation by the Holy People. The original clans were Towering House, Bitterwater, Big Water, and One-who-walks-around. Other clans arose when new groups became Navajos. Each Navajo person is associated with four different, unrelated clans.

Among the Navajo a person’s ancestry is traced through the mother’s side of the family and determines the clan to which a person belongs. A child must marry outside his or her clan. Navajo relationships are often hard for outsiders to understand as the people have different terms for aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives.

Buildings

Traditional Navajo houses are called hogans. Older versions, built around a wooden post frame, were cone-shaped. Beginning in the mid-1800s log cabins with beehive-shaped log roofs became more popular. Usually the roofs, and sometimes the walls, were covered with packed earth. A smoke hole was left at the center of the roof. When wood was scarce, hogans were built of stones held together with mud mortar.

In recent years cinderblock houses have become more popular, and family homes usually include several additional structures. There are corrals made of brush, open-walled workspaces with flat roofs, and storage structures or dugouts. Usually a sweat lodge, built like a small version of the old, conical hogans, sits nearby in a secluded spot, since curing ceremonies can only be conducted in the traditional structure.

Newly built hogans are sprinkled with corn pollen or meal, and prayers are offered to ensure they will be places of happiness. According to legend the Holy People built the first hogans from such precious materials as turquoise, jet, or shell. Now, as then, hogan doors face east, toward the rising sun. Navajo families often have two homes: one to live in during the cold winter months, and one to stay in while farming in the summer.

Clothing and adornment

Early Navajo clothed themselves in breechcloths (flaps of material that cover the front and back and are suspended from the waist), leggings, skirts, and blankets woven from the yucca plant or cedar bark or made of fur. Animal skins were used to make moccasins with braided yucca soles.

By the early seventeenth century men wore tanned buckskin clothing, and women wore dresses of fabric, often wool. By the time of the Long Walk clothing had become quite colorful. Some men wore knee-length buckskin pants decorated with brass and silver buttons along the outer seams and woolen leggings dyed blue and held up by bright red garters. Women’s ankle-length dresses, fashioned from two woven panels and sewn together along the sides and over both shoulders, were belted at the waist with a red woven sash. Women also wore leggings made by wrapping strips of dyed buckskin around the legs from ankle to knee; these were adorned with silver buttons.

During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century women usually wore long, full skirts of cotton with bright blouses, often made of velveteen fabric. Men usually wore blue jeans, colorful shirts (sometimes of velveteen), boots, belts decorated with decorative silver disks, and headbands made of rolled kerchiefs. Both men and women have traditionally worn their hair long, wound into an hourglass shape at the base of the neck and bound with wool string. Silver and turquoise necklaces, earrings, and bracelets have long been popular with both men and women.

Food

When they first moved to the Southwest between the ninth and twelfth centuries the Navajo hunted and gathered wild vegetation. They learned from the Pueblo Indians how to grow corn, beans, and squash. The Spanish, who came in the 1600s, taught the Native Americans to grow wheat and oats and to herd sheep and goats.

By the time of their exile to Bosque Redondo the Navajo commonly ate mutton (sheep meat), corn, frybread (plate-sized disks of bread fried in hot fat), and coffee laced with sugar and goat’s milk. They picked corn early to avoid frost damage. Then they husked, sun dried, and removed it from the cob before storing it in bags for later use. Fresh corn served as a special treat. The people often ate a cooked mush made from cornmeal or wild seed meal mixed with water or goat’s milk. This substance was used to prepare many foods. The addition of garden vegetables and meat—prairie dog continues to be a favorite—made the mush a well-balanced meal.

Navajo Peach Pudding

The Southwest produces a small peach that is sweeter than the peaches usually available commercially. That peach is recommended for this Navajo recipe, updated by Lois Ellen Frank.

• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 pound fresh peaches, pitted and peeled
• 1 cup water
• 1 package unflavored gelatin
• 1 cup whipping cream

In a food processor, purée the honey and peaches together. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, mix together the water and gelatin and let stand 1 minute. Over medium-low heat, stir mixture until the gelatin has completely dissolved, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat, slowly add the gelatin mixture to the peach honey, and blend thoroughly.

While the peach mixture is cooling, beat the cream until firm peaks form, about 2 minutes [For best results, use an electric mixer, a chilled bowl, and chilled beaters].

Fold the whipped cream into the peach mixture in a circular motion, leaving swirls of white cream in the peach pudding. Do not mix together completely.

Place the pudding in the refrigerator and chill until firm. Scoop out servings with a large spoon.

Serves 6.

Frank, Louis Ellen. Native American Cooking: Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations,. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1991, p. 78.

Education

For centuries Navajo children learned skills by observing their parents and members of their extended families. During the nineteenth century the Navajo opposed efforts to start white-style schools for their children. Until 1896 missionaries ran most of the schools and tried to change the student’s religion. Navajo parents saw these schools as a threat to their way of life and to their families. Many Navajo, whose children had been sold into slavery, were also reluctant to let their other children leave home for anywhere from two to eight years.

In 1907 a Navajo who protested against children attending Shiprock Boarding School was jailed and remained in prison with no trial for over a year. In spite of the tribe’s objections, children were taken from their parents and sent to boarding schools, where they were taught to speak and dress like whites.

During World War II many families lived off the reservation to take advantage of work opportunities, and their children attended public schools. In the mid-2000s the Navajo Nation’s educational facilities included state schools that serve grades K–12 as well as several Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools and some private mission schools. Northland Pioneer College, Crownpoint Institute of Technology, and Diné Community College (formerly Navajo Community College) at Tsaile, Arizona, along with its five branch campuses, offer students a variety of courses of study.

Healing practices

For the Navajo sicknesses are an indication of disharmony. Curing ceremonies treat the cause of the ailment rather than the symptoms. When a person gets sick he or she normally goes to a person called a stargazer or hand trembler, who tells the patient the cause of the illness. The stargazer then recommends that the person see a special medicine person and take part in a particular ceremony. Illnesses can be caused by the accidental or intentional breaking of one of the society’s many taboos, by contact with a ghost, or by the spell of a witch.

The medicine person recommended by the stargazer is known as a Hataali (“singer”). The Hataali conducts a ceremony in which both the patient and his or her relatives participate. The ceremony may last nine nights and include the performance of more than five hundred songs. Sometimes the singer is assisted by dancers who wear masks representing appropriate spirits, called Yeis. A sand painting, created during the ritual, is destroyed at the completion of the ceremony. (Sand painting is a Navajo and Pueblo tradition in which sands of different colors are used to create a ceremonial design.) During a ceremony the healer may employ objects with special powers, medicines made from plants, and lengthy prayers. Ideally curing rituals are followed by the singing of the Blessingway, a prayer to restore harmony that has been called the backbone of the Navajo healing system.

In modern times, with the breakdown of the traditional, family- and clan-based educational systems, Diné Community College and other institutions have begun teaching Native healing arts. At the Medicine Man School in Rough Rock, Arizona, aspiring singer-healers are taught their trade from experienced healers. The students learn during actual ceremonies because it is wrong to address the spirits without a genuine need for healing or blessings. Because the training period cannot be scheduled and the ceremonies are complex, it can take four to six years to learn one of the longer rituals. Each singer is trained in a specialty that includes being able to perform between one and six different ceremonies. Although women are permitted to become singers, they rarely do, perhaps because they fear that some event or spirit they could encounter might affect their unborn children.

In the early twenty-first century Indian Health Service hospitals on the reservation have special rooms where medicine men can conduct traditional curing ceremonies. This new spirit of cooperation between modern and traditional medical people is bringing more Navajo people in for treatment. Medicine men display a knowledge of the use of native herbs for birth control, mild diabetes, and seizures.

Arts

Craftwork

Navajo women in traditional times were known for their excellent pottery, including ladles, jars with pointed bottoms, and variously shaped decorated bowls. They also made coiled baskets, food containers, and water bottles. The women learned to weave from the Pueblo people and produced rugs and blankets with intricate, unique designs, colored with natural dyes. Navajo craftspeople are also renowned for their unique silver and turquoise creations.

Customs

Taboos

The Navajo believe that the sacred order of the world must be maintained to avoid illness or other misfortunes. They accomplish this, in part, by observing many taboos (forbidden things or acts). A few of the thousands of actions that are forbidden include not touching lightning-struck trees; not killing coyotes, bears, snakes, and certain birds; never combing their hair at night; and never stepping over the body of another person sleeping in a hogan, no matter how crowded it may be. Pregnant women and their husbands or a person who has recently undergone a curing ritual observe even more taboos.

Puberty

Young girls undergo one of the oldest ceremonies of the Navajo culture, the “kinaaldá.” The two-day ritual takes place after a girl’s first menstrual period and is designed to teach her lessons she will need in adult life. The girl must perform several exhausting runs to ensure her physical conditioning and endurance. In addition, she must grind by hand some of the cornmeal and wheat she will use to prepare a traditional cake; in the process she is accompanied by the chanted prayers of a medicine man. Near the end of the ceremony a female relative massages the girl’s body to make it more beautiful. Then the girl prays over a group of young children. Following the ritual she is accepted into the community as an adult and is ready for marriage.

Ceremonies and festivals

Traditional rituals

Rituals were developed in ancient times to cope with the dangers and uncertainties of the universe. The Navajo have been able to preserve their traditional beliefs and practices in the face of long-time pressure from white culture. Many Navajo ceremonies are healing rituals used for many types of physical and emotional imbalances and problems of social maladjustment.

The most common ceremony may be the War Dance, which has the official name of The Enemyway. A three-day ceremony held in summer, it comes from the legend of Changing Woman’s twin sons, who went to see their father, the Sun, to seek his help in slaying the monsters who inhabit the earth so they could make it safe for the Navajo people.

The Enemyway sounds like a ritual to get ready for war, but it actually is a way for a patient to be rid of the effects of some “enemy.” For example it is held for people who feel weak or faint from the sight of blood or who have scary dreams. The ceremony involves the use of a Rattle Stick, a piece of juniper about 18 inches long carved with meaningful designs. Burnt herbs and melted wax are placed on the stick and on the face of the afflicted, and a complicated ceremony follows, ending with “killing” the enemy ghost and scattering his ashes, followed by a feast and final dance.

Modern festivals

Throughout the year a number of fairs, festivals, and rodeos are held at various sites around the reservation. As part of these activities people use sand painting, singing, dancing by masked impersonators of Holy People as well as cornmeal, corn pollen, feathered prayer sticks, and bundles containing sacred items.

Each year more than one hundred thousand people attend the Navajo Nation Fair, a five-day festival in Window Rock, Arizona, the capital of the Navajo Nation. The fair features Navajo traditions centering on the sacredness of food. It also offers art, crafts, chants, dances, and stories.

Courtship and marriage

Relatives usually arrange Navajo marriages after the boy reaches the proper age. Often an expensive gift (sheep or horses) is given to the girl’s family by the boy’s family. When a couple marries, the grandmother of the bride presents the new couple with a basket of cornmeal at the wedding site. Then the bride and groom exchange a pinch of cornmeal, from which they receive the strength and blessing of the spirit world.

Newly married couples usually build their houses near the home of the wife’s mother. This permits the wife and her children to have close contact with the maternal grandmother. But a large space is left between the homes, because a man is forbidden to look at or speak to his mother-in-law.

Funerals

The Navajo feared dead people and ghosts. Immediately after the death of a family member, close relatives showed their sadness by weeping and wailing, cutting their hair, and putting on old clothing. Elderly relatives washed the deceased’s hair and body and dressed the body in fine clothes. Burial took place in the daytime, and as soon as possible. They placed the corpse on a horse along with many personal possessions and took it far away, possibly to the hill country. A crevice in the rocks that could be covered with brush served as a grave. The horse was killed at the grave site, because the dead person would need it in the afterworld.

Those who accompanied the body returned home and burned their own clothing. Then all the mourners burned sage, or some other strong-smelling plant, and bathed in the smoke. Ashes were scattered around the camp to discourage the return of the dead one. The remaining possessions were broken or burned; nothing was kept that would remind the living of the dead person. No one mentioned the name of the deceased again. The building in which the death occurred was moved to different site. For a time mourning relatives did not participate in social events.

Current tribal issues

A current Navajo land ownership issue revolves around a 7,000-square-mile (18,130-square-kilometer) area known as the Checkerboard. When railroads were built in the late 1800s alternating sections in this region were granted to the railroad companies. Federal programs in the early twentieth century further fragmented lands in the area. At present nearly thirty thousand Navajo live in the Checkerboard. The tribe is making efforts to trade or buy land to create larger, more useful parcels.

One major concern of the tribe today is the high rate of cancer, especially in young females. Many believe it is a result of environmental pollution from uranium mining. Mining has also caused other difficulties, including sinkholes in the Hopi reservation. The two large mining companies that generate a great deal of income for the reservation are slated to close by 2008.

A related environmental problem—construction of the coal-fired Desert Rock power plant, the third power plant in the Four Corners area—has led to clashes between Navajo politicians and Diné Citizens Against Ruining the Environment (Diné CARE). While the politicians point out the benefits of additional power as well as more employment for the Navajo Nation, Diné CARE members’ concerns are expressed by Bradley Angel of Greenaction who opposes: “a coal-fired power plant that would contribute to global warming, contaminate the air with asthma-inducing pollutants and cause the eviction of Navajo elders from their homes … and of course, disturb the burials and cultural sites in the immediate vicinity of Desert Rock.”

Notable people

Navajo Peterson Zah (1937–), once a teacher on his reservation, served served as chief executive officer of the Navajo Nation government and chief fundraiser for the Navajo Education and Scholarship Foundation. In 1988 he founded a private firm that provided educational services to school districts on and off the reservation and worked to secure funds for new school construction on the Navajo and San Carlos Apache reservations.

Annie Dodge Wauneka (1910–1997), the first woman to be elected to the Navajo Tribal Council, was a strong advocate for the Navajo people in politics, economics, and health. In 1964 she became the first Native American to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Manuelito (1818–1894) was a powerful warrior in raids against the Mexicans, Hopi, and Zuñi, and rose to prominence within his band. Of all the resistant Navajo bands, Manuelito’s held out the longest against Kit Carson’s troops, who tried to kill hostile Navajo and relocate the rest to Bosque Redondo. Faced with army pursuit and starvation, Manuelito surrendered with his remaining warriors. He later traveled to Washington, D.C., to petition for the return of the Navajo homelands, then successfully served as principal Navajo chief and chief of tribal police.

Over a period of seventy years Henry Chee Dodge (c. 1857–1947) played a major role in forming a modern identity for the Navajo nation. Following the death of Manuelito, Dodge was chosen as Navajo head chief. Under his leadership, the tribe participated with the federal government in making and carrying out policies for mineral development, land rights issues, and federal programs like school development. In 1923 he was elected chairperson of the first Navajo tribal council.

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Ned Blackhawk, Associate Professor, Department of History, American Indian Studies Program, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Laurie Edwards

Laurie Edwards