0805, 1659, 1660, 2169, 2258, 2916 UNITED STATES (Arizona / Utah / New Mexico) - The Navajo

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. 

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.

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.

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").

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.

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.

2612, 2860 UNITED STATES (New Mexico) - Taos Pueblo (UNESCO WHS)

2612 Puebloan woman baking bread at Taos Pueblo

Situated in the valley of Rio Pueblo de Taos, a small tributary of the Rio Grande, at about 1.6km north of the modern city of Taos, Taos Pueblo is an ancient pueblo belonging to a Tiwa-speaking Native American tribe of Puebloan people. It is a member of the Eight Northern Pueblos, and the Taos community is known for being one of the most private, secretive, and conservative pueblos. A reservation of 38,000ha is attached to the pueblo, and about 4,500 people live in this area.

2860 A Puebloan woman

This settlement, consisting of ceremonial buildings and facilities, and multi-storey adobe dwellings built in terraced tiers, exemplifies the living culture of a group of present-day Pueblo Indian people. As one of a series of settlements established in the late 13th and early 14th centuries that have survived, it represents a significant stage in the history of urban, community and cultural life in this region. It has been continuously inhabited and is the largest of these Pueblos that still exist.

2024 UNITED STATES (Utah / Colorado / New Mexico) - Ute people

Utes (Jim Bush and John Tyler) in full gala dress in 1875

Ute people are part of Indigenous Peoples of the Great Basin, and gave their name (which means "Land of the sun") to the state of Utah. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah (3,500 members); Southern Ute in Colorado (1,500 members); and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico (2,000 members). Ute language is related to the Southern Paiute language and belong to the the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family.

1789 UNITED STATES (New Mexico) - New Mexico map

Located between Oklahoma, Texas, Mexico (Chihuahua and Sonora), Arizona, and Colorado, New Mexico is usually considered one of the  Mountain States. As well, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah come together at the Four Corners in the northwestern corner of New Mexico. It is generally incorrectly believed that New Mexico taken its name from the nation of Mexico. Actually it was given its name in 1563, by Spanish explorers who believed the area contained indian cultures similar to those of the  Mexica (Aztec) Empire. Mexico, formerly a part of New Spain, adopted its name just in 1821, after winning independence from Spanish rule.

1742-1743 UNITED STATES (Oklahoma / New Mexico) - The Chiricahua Apache Nation

1742 Chiricahua Apache Nation - Bonito, Chiricahua Chief

Considered being part of the Eastern Apaches (which include also the Mescalero, Jicarilla, Lipan, and Kiowa Apache), Chiricahua were, as other Apaches, a collection of bands which shared a common area, language, customs, and intertwined family relations. At the time they encountered Europeans, they were living in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona in the United States, and in northern Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico, but today there are only two Chiricahua federally recognized tribes in the United States: the Fort Sill Apache Tribe (near Apache, Oklahoma); and the Chiricahua tribe located on the Mescalero Apache reservation (near Ruidoso, New Mexico).

1743 Chiricahua Apache Nation - Hattie Tom

The bands that are grouped under the Chiricahua term today had much history together: they intermarried and lived alongside each other, and they also occasionally fought with each other. They formed short-term as well as longer alliances that have caused scholars to classify them as one people. From the beginning of European American/Apache relations, there was conflict between them, as they competed for land and other resources, and had very different cultures. The "hotest" period of the conflict was between 1863 and 1886, when Chiricahua waged almost constant war against US settlers and the Army. The best-known warrior leader of the renegades, although he was not considered a 'chief', was Geronimo. He and Naiche led together many of the resisters during those last few years of freedom.

1239, 1271 UNITED STATES (New Mexico) - White Sands National Monument (UNESCO WHS - Tentative List)

Posted on 23.09.2014, and 06.10.2014
Located in  the mountain-ringed Tularosa Basin, at about 25 km southwest of Alamogordo, at an elevation of 1,291m, White Sands National Monument comprises the southern part of a 710-km² field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals (the largest gypsum dune field in the world). Gypsum is rarely found in the form of sand because it is water-soluble, and normally rain would dissolve the gypsum and carry it to the sea. The Tularosa Basin is enclosed, so that rain that dissolves gypsum from the surrounding San Andres and Sacramento Mountains is trapped within the basin. Thus water either sinks into the ground or forms shallow pools which subsequently dry out and leave gypsum in a crystalline form, called selenite, on the surface.

During the last ice age, a lake known as Lake Otero covered much of the basin. When it dried out, it left a large flat area of selenite crystals which is now the Alkali Flat. Another lake, Lake Lucero, at the southwest corner of the park, is a dry lake bed, at one of the lowest points of the basin, which occasionally fills with water. The ground is covered with selenite crystals which reach lengths of up to 1m. Weathering and erosion eventually breaks the crystals into sand-size grains that are carried away by the prevailing winds, forming white dunes. The dunes constantly change shape and slowly move downwind. Since gypsum is water-soluble, the sand that composes the dunes may dissolve and cement together after rain, forming a layer of sand that is more solid and could affect wind resistance of dunes. This resistance does not prevent dunes from quickly covering the plants in their path.

0925 UNITED STATES (New Mexico) - A Zuni Governor

The Zuni are a federally recognized Native American tribe, one of the 21 surviving pueblos in the 21st century. The majority of them live in the Pueblo of Zuni on the Zuni River, a tributary of the Little Colorado River, in the McKinley and Cibola counties in the western part of New Mexico, but in addition to the reservation, the tribe owns trust lands in Catron County (New Mexico) and Apache County (Arizona). In 2000, 10,228 people were enrolled as Zuni. They traditionally speak a language isolate that has no known relationship to any other Native American language. It seems that the Zuni have maintained the integrity of their language for at least 7,000 years.