The Navajo People

A total of 300,000 people are currently counted as belonging to the formerly vast Navajo nation. The Navajos, an indigenous North American tribe scatterd over vast areas in Utah, New Mexico, California and Arizona, originally belong to the Athabaskan people which fan out from west-central Canada up to the American Southwest. According to oral Navajo traditions, this ethnic group split away from the larger Apaches clan sometime during the early 1500s before migrating further down towards the Mexican border, where it eventually settled. Navajos were first mentioned as a separate ethnicity around 1620, when the Spanish settlers make reference to the "Apachu de Navajo" when speaking of the tribes inhabiting the Chama river in the vicinity of Santa Fe. This documents quite a massive migration from the Great Plains even though an accurate timeline of this population movement is difficult to establish due to the Navajo"s austere lifestyle. These early people tended to construct rather modest dwellings and wield a small number of simple tools and goods. Thus, they clothed themselves in tanned and greased cowhides that they also used to erect winter hogans to protect themselves against inclement weather. During the bison hunting season, the tent would easily be dissembled and all belongings, including poles, were loaded on travoises pulled by Plains dogs. These traction animals were able to haul along an astonishing load of up to fifty pounds at a rate of two to three miles an hour.
These simple features of the Navajo lifestyle have long posed quite a challenge for archaeologists forced to work with a limited amount of data when piecing together the Navajo history. Nevertheless, it has been established that the Navajo forged strong commercial bonds with the Pueblo people of the Rio Grande valley in the midsts of the 16th century, with whom they traded bison meat, hides and material for stone tools in exchange for cotton and maize. Later in the 17th century, the Navajos occupied the abandoned Pueblo territories as relentless pressure from Spanish colonists and the intermittent warfare with neighboring tribes intensified.
The contact with the Pueblos and their other allies, the Utah and Comanche people, as well as the inevitable cultural clash with the European invaders brought about a change in the Navajo lifestyle. Primarily nomadic hunting gatherers, they later resorted to a more sedentary way of living and took up pottery, weaving and farming, while nevertheless preserving their own traditional values and system of beliefs. The Navajos penchant for simplicity is, for example, most evident in their woven blankets, which display symmetrical geometrical patterns in red yarn. The typical Germantown rugs are undoubtebly the finest pieces of textile art in Native American history. The same clean and unadorned lines are evident in the Navajo silversmithing technique, which favors the insertion of turquoise gem stones.
Navajo spiritual and religious practices share that nation"s purity of thought. They are designed chiefly to restore health, balance and harmony to the individual. It is believed that sickness is the result of contamination with impure elements as a result of the violation of certain taboos. These may include contact with lightening-struck elements, exposure to taboo animals such as snakes, or contact with the dead. Navajo warriors thus undergo a Blessing Way Ceremony before being sent off to war, as well as an Enemy Way Ceremony which allows them to cope with post-traumatic stress disorders. Such sacred ceremonies last an average of four days and require the presence of a large number of relatives and friends to ensure their success. Furthermore, they are to be performed according to a rigid set of rules by a trained medicine man, a Hatili, should they yield the desired effect. 1 [■] The preferred location of any religious ceremony is the hogan, which is a sacred place as it was built according to the instructions of the First Coyote, the mythological ancestor of the Navajo. 2 [■] The ceremonies are accompanied by numerous blessings and chants that reveal the rich heritage and profound spirituality of this indigenous tribe. 3 [■] They pay tribute to a matriarchal society, in which female dwellers are the only members allowed to own livestock or land. 4 [■] By custom, a newly married Navajo male will move into his bride"s hogan, and any accumulated goods will be inherited along the matrimonial line. This sharp contrast to the currently accepted patriarchal system must be the reason for the Navajo"s inherent non-aggressive and pacifist behavior.

Glossary

hogan: a Navajo Indian dwelling constructed of earth and branches and covered with mud or sod
travois: a transport device, formally used by the Plains Indians, consisting of two poles joined by a frame and drawn by an animal