The Navajo tribe belongs to what is commonly referred to as the Southwest Native Americans. These rural people mainly occupied the regions now known as Arizona, New Mexico, Southern Colorado and northern parts of Mexico.

Navajos
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Navajos

   The Navajo tribe preferred to call themselves Dine. They were a break away group of their Apache cousins. Once they secured their settlement, they populated the region of northern New Mexico. Their land came to be known as Dinetah, home of the people. It was of vital importance to the Navajos that they become known as a distinct tribe rather than a part of a conglomerate of Southwest natives. In the process they transformed themselves, thoroughly absorbing their new environment.

   When the Navajo tribe arrived in the Southwest some 1,000 years ago, they met with farmers who became known to them as the Pueblo tribe. The Navajo people, although equipped with a wealth of culture and spirituality, had few material possessions. By comparison, the Pueblo people and their rich villages appeared to have everything needed. The Navajo people settled beside them, and adopted many of their ways.

Navajo Plains
Regalia

Navajo hogan
at Tappen Spri

Slowly the Navajo tribe established their own reservation, which was intertwined with Pueblo styles and practices. Their staple crops were corn, tobacco, beans and melon. The Navajos became renowned for their farming abilities. The methods that they adopted contributed to their new identity.

   They learned to weave baskets and make pottery, these items reflecting their beliefs and dreams. A Navaho house is called a "hogan" and is made of logs, brush, and earth. Summer houses are also utilized and made of brush with a windbreak.

Navajo
summer houses

Navajo woman
with baby

   Clothing for both men and women initially was deerskin for shirts and skirts. The men later wore cotton or velvet shirts with no collars, breeches below the knee, and moccasins. Women gradually wore the "squaw dress," made of plain dark blankets.

   Most Navaho ceremonies are conducted, at least primarily, for the purpose of healing disease; and while designated medicine ceremonies, they are, in fact, ritualistic prayers.

Navajo
medicineman

Haschebaad
navajo

    The principal ceremonies are those that require nine days and nine nights in their performance. Each is based on a mythic story, and each has four dry-paintings, or so-called altars. Besides these nine days' ceremonies there are others whose performance requires four days, and many simpler ones requiring only a single day, each with its own dry-painting.

   The medicine-men, who are termed singers, "Hatali", are a dominant factor in Navaho life. Like all primitive people, the Navaho are intensely religious, and the medicine-men, whose function it is to be versed in the mysteries of religion, are ever prone to cultivate in the minds of the people the belief that they are powerful not only in curing disease of mind and body but of preventing it by their incantations.

Navajo man. Many early
explorers and settlers
commented on the superb
bone structure of the native
Americans

Navajo
seal

   Since the Long Walk in the 1860's, the Navajo Nation decimated to a population of only 8,000. The land that the Navajos returned to in the late summer of 1868 had been rendered desolate by war and neglect. The old cornfields were overgrown with weeds, the ditches were filled with sand, and what had been orchards were now fields of tree stumps. Most families had no livestock at all. But with the support of civilian and military officials, the Navajos made remarkable economic strides in the subsequent quarter century. By the late 1880s and very early 1890s, they had attained a level of prosperity which they had never known before, and which they have never known since. The Navajo tribe increased from 9,000 to 18,000 in the prosperous years between 1868 and 1892.

   The Navajo reservation has been enlarged several times since its original creation in 1868, and now encompasses the northeast corner of Arizona and the Four Corners region, including parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The Navajo reservation is by far the largest reservation in the U.S., with over 15 million acres of land, and a human population of over 148,000.

The Interior
of the Navajo

Manulito War Chief,
Navajo, 1874

   In its infancy, the Navajo Nation governed itself by a complex language and clan system. The discovery of oil in the early 1920's clarified the need for a more systematic form of government. So, in 1923, the Navajos established a tribal government; thus providing an entity to deal with American oil companies wishing to lease Navajoland for exploration.

   Outsiders do not perceive Navajoland as the Navajo, as the sacred homeland created for the Dineh. This strong spiritual belief in the land requires that Mother Earth be treated with the deepest respect. The arid-looking surface of Navajoland belies what lies underneath a world of hidden treasures...tons of oil, gas, coal and uranium...waiting to be tapped. In 1987 alone, some $43 million was poured into the Navajo Nation's coffers from mineral royalty payments. Coal alone contributed $28 million to the tribal treasury. Minerals excavated from Navajoland not only benefit the Navajo Nation, but also provide various forms of energy to millions of people throughout the United States.

Navajo Weavers,
1885

   With a burgeoning population, the Navajo Nation has found it necessary to increase its landbase substantially over the past several years. Some 17.5 million acres have been added to tribal lands. And there are plans to increase this base even more.

Navajo
rug

    It was reorganized in 1991 to form a three branch government - executive, legislative an judicial. It embodies an elected tribal President, Vice-president and 88 council delegates representing 110 local units of government (known as chapters) throughout the Navajo Nation. Council delegates meet a minimum of four times a year as a full body in Window Rock, Arizona, the Navajo Nation capital. In addition to their duties as chapter representatives, council delegates also are appointed by the tribal council to serve on at least one of 11 standing tribal committees.

   The Navajo Nation continues to forge ahead in its goal to attain economic self-sufficiency . Yet in the midst of it all, the Dineh (or the People) still adhere to their cultural, social and traditional values; the same tenacious values that have made the Navajo Nation unique and fascinating throughout its history. The traditional history of the Navajo Nation, with its strong emphasis on adapting trends with modern day America will continue to perpetuate the enduring Navajo into the future.

Navajo
rug