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| 2169 Navajo indians on reservation |
Posted on 31.08.2013, 12.06.2015, 30.12.2015, 01.02.2016, 22.12.2016
The
Navajo are the largest federally recognized tribe of the
United States, with more then 300,000 members, and the
Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body, which manages the
Navajo Indian reservation (in the
Four Corners area), which extends into the states of
Utah,
Arizona and
New Mexico.
Diné Bikéyah, or Navajoland, one of the most arid and barren portions of the
Great American Desert, is larger than 10 of the 50 states in America.
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1659 Navajo Indian (Saltwater clan)
Medicine Man (1) |
Regarding the name, the Spaniards used the term
Apachu de Nabajo for the first time in the 1620s to refer to the people in the
Chama Valley region, and since 1640s began to use the term "Navajo" to refer to the
Diné (meaning "The People"), as prefer they to call themselves. The Navajo are speakers of a
Na-Dené Southern Athabaskan languages known
as
Diné bizaad. The importance of their
contribution, as
code talkers, at the Japanese defeat in the Pacific in
WWII is well known.
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1660 Navajo Indian (Saltwater clan)
Medicine Man (2) |
It seems that the Athabaskan ancestors of the Navajo and
Apache entered the Southwest around 1400 CE, and the oral history indicates a long relationship between Navajo and
Pueblo people. Initially, the Navajo were hunters and gatherers, but subsequent they
adopted crop farming techniques from the Pueblo, and sheep and
goats breeding from Spaniards. In addition, the practice of spinning and
weaving wool into blankets and clothing became common and developed into a form of highly valued artistic expression.
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| 0805 An old Navajo woman and his granddaughter |
For a long period prior to the acquisition from
Mexico
of the territory now forming the northern portion of Arizona and New
Mexico, the Navajo undertook raids on the New Mexican Indian pueblos and
the white settlements along the
Rio Grande,
for the capture of livestock, although both Indians and Mexicans also
were enslaved. The Mexicans lost no opportunity to
retaliate. In 1846 the Navajo came into official
contact with the United States, which shortly established forts on their
territory. Relations have been strained from the beginning, raids
reaching a peak in 1860-1861 (period known as
Naahondzood, "the
fearing time").
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2258 A Navajo baby named
Be-Nah Na-Zuhn (Pretty Eyes) |
In 1864, after a series of skirmishes and battles, about
8.500 Navajo were forced away from their
homelands to the
Bosque Redondo,
an experimental reservation about 480km away on the plains of eastern
New Mexico. This project was a failure, so a new treaty was made in
1868, one of its provisions being the purchase of 15.000 sheep to
replenish the exterminated flocks. Thousands of people died along the
way, during the four years spent at the reservation, and during the
walk home. In July, 7304 Navaho arrived at
Fort Wingate, to their old home, where lived in peace since then, even if the abuses upon them continued.
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| 2916 A Navajo woman with a baby |
Historically, the structure of the Navajo society is largely a matrilineal system, in which women owned livestock and land. Once married, a man would move to live with his bride in her dwelling and among her mother's people and clan. Daughters (or, if necessary, other female relatives) were traditionally
the ones who received the generational property inheritance. The
children are "born to" and belong to the mother's clan, and are "born
for" the father's clan. As adults, men represent their mother's clan in
tribal politics. People must date and marry partners outside their own clans.
