The habits of a people, which are to a certain extent the product of the
country in which they live, in turn have a pronounced effect on their
habitations. New Mexico and Arizona came into the possession of the
United States in 1846, and prior to that time the Navaho lived chiefly
by war and plunder. The Mexican settlers along the Rio Grande and the
Pueblo Indians of the same region were the principal contributors to
their welfare, and the thousands of sheep and horses which were stolen
from these people formed the nucleus or starting point of the large
flocks and herds which constitute the wealth of the Navaho today.
The Navajo reservation is better suited for the raising of sheep than
for anything else, and the step from the life of a warrior and hunter to
that of a shepherd is not a long one, nor a hard one to take. Under the
stress of necessity the Navajo became a peaceable pastoral tribe, living
by their flocks and herds, and practicing horticulture only in an
extremely limited and precarious way. Under modern conditions they
are slowly developing into an agricultural tribe, and this development
has already progressed far enough to materially affect their house
structures; but in a general way it may be said that they are a pastoral
people, and their habits have been dictated largely by that mode of
life.
Every family is possessed of a flock of sheep and goats, sometimes
numbering many thousands, and a band of horses, generally several
hundreds, in a few instances several thousands. In recent times many
possess small herds of cattle, the progeny of those which strayed into
the reservation from the numerous large herds in its vicinity, or were
picked up about the borders by some Navaho whose thrift was more highly
developed than his honesty. The condition of the tribe, as a whole, is
not only far removed from hardship, but may even be said to be one of
comparative affluence.
Owing to the scarcity of grass over most of the country, and the
difficulty of procuring a sufficient supply of water, the flocks must be
moved from place to place at quite frequent intervals. This condition
more than any other has worked against the erection of permanent houses.
Yet the Navaho are by no means nomads, and the region within which a
given family moves back and forth is extremely circumscribed.
In a general way the movements of a family are regulated by the
condition of the grass and the supply of water. In a dry season many
of the small springs cease to flow at an early date in the summer.
Moreover, if a flock is kept too long in one locality, the grass is
almost destroyed by close cropping, forcing the abandonment of that
particular place for two or three years. When this occurs, the place
will recover and the grass become good again if left entirely
undisturbed for several years.
The usual practice is to take the flocks up into the mountains or on
the high plateaus during the summer, quartering them near some spring or
small stream, and when the snow comes they are moved down to the lower
foothills or out into the valleys. In the winter both shepherds and
sheep depend on the snow for their water supply, and by this means an
immense tract of country, which otherwise would be a perfect waste,
is utilized. As the snow disappears from the valleys the flocks are
gradually driven back again into the mountains.
The heavy fall of snow in the mountains and its slow melting in spring
makes that region far more fertile and grassy than the valleys, and were
it possible to remain there throughout the year doubtless many families
would do so. As it is, however, the feed is covered too deeply for the
sheep to reach it, and during several months heavy snowdrifts make
communication very difficult and at times impossible. In a few favored
localities--usually small, well-sheltered valleys here and there in the
mountains--some families may remain throughout the winter, but as a
rule, at the first approach of the cold season and before the first snow
flies there is a general exodus to the low-lying valleys and the low
mesa regions, and the mountains are practically abandoned for a time.
During the rainy season pools and little lakes of water are formed all
over the flat country, lasting sometimes several weeks. Advantage is
taken of the opportunity thus afforded and the flocks are driven out on
the plains and grazed in the vicinity of the water so long as the supply
holds out, but as this is seldom prolonged more than a few weeks it is
not surprising that the house erected by the head of the family should
be of a very temporary nature. In fact the most finished house
structures of these people must be temporary rather than permanent so
long as the conditions sketched above prevail; in other words, so long
as they depend principally on their sheep.
Another result of these conditions is that each family lives by itself
and, as it were, on its own ground. Large communities are impossible,
and while there are instances where eight or ten families occupy some
place of exceptionally favorable location, these are rare. In fact to
see even three or four hogáns together is remarkable. There are perhaps
more hogáns in Canyon Chelly than in any other one locality, but the
people who live here are regarded by the other Navaho as poor, because
they own but few sheep and horses and depend principally on horticulture
for their subsistence. Incidentally it may be stated that horses are
well esteemed by the Navaho as an article of food, and that the large
herds which some of them own are not so wholly useless as they appear
to the casual traveler.
Canyon Chelly, which the Navaho call Tségi, contains several small
streams and numerous patches of arable land on the bottoms. The
conditions here are exceptionally favorable for horticulture; indeed,
the numerous remains of cliff dwellings which are found in the canyon
would show this if other evidence were lacking. It has long been famous
among the Navaho as the horticultural center of the tribe, and for its
peach crops, derived from thousands of trees planted in sheltered nooks.
In the summer scattered members of the various families or clans gather
there by hundreds from every part of the reservation to feast together
for a week or two on green corn, melons, and peaches.
As a rule, however, each hogán stands by itself, and it is usually
hidden away so effectually that the traveler who is not familiar with
the customs of the people might journey for days and not see half a
dozen of them. The spot chosen for a dwelling place is either some
sheltered nook in a mesa or a southward slope on the edge of a piñon
grove near a good fuel supply and not too far from water. A house is
very seldom built close to a spring--perhaps a survival of the habit
which prevailed when the people were a hunting tribe and kept away from
the water holes in order not to disturb the game which frequented them.
So prevalent is this custom of placing the houses in out-of-the-way
places that the casual traveler receives the impression that the region
over which he has passed is practically uninhabited. He may, perhaps,
meet half a dozen Indians in a day, or he may meet none, and at sunset
when he camps he will probably hear the bark of a dog in the distance,
or he may notice on the mountain side a pillar of smoke like that
arising from his own camp fire. This is all that he will see to indicate
the existence of other life than his own, yet the tribe numbers over
12,000 souls, and it is probable that there was no time during the day
when there were not several pairs of eyes looking at him, and were he
to fire his gun the report would probably be heard by several hundred
persons. Probably this custom of half-concealed habitations is a
survival from the time when the Navaho were warriors and plunderers,
and lived in momentary expectation of reprisals on the part of their
victims.
Although the average Navaho family may be said to be in almost constant
movement, they are not at all nomads, yet the term has frequently been
applied to them. Each family moves back and forth within a certain
circumscribed area, and the smallness of this area is one of the most
remarkable things in Navaho life.
Ninety per cent of the Navaho one meets on the reservation are mounted
and usually riding at a gallop, apparently bent on some important
business at a far-distant point. But a closer acquaintance will develop
the fact that there are many grown men in the tribe who are entirely
ignorant of the country 30 or 40 miles from where they were born. It
is an exceptional Navaho who knows the country well 60 miles about his
birthplace, or the place where he may be living, usually the same thing.
It is doubtful whether there are more than a few dozens of Navaho living
west of the mountains who know anything of the country to the east, and
vice versa. This ignorance of what we may term the immediate vicinity of
a place is experienced by every traveler who has occasion to make a
long journey over the reservation and employs a guide. But he discovers
it only by personal experience, for the guide will seldom admit his
ignorance and travels on, depending on meeting other Indians living
in that vicinity who will give him the required local knowledge. This
peculiar trait illustrates the extremely restricted area within which
each “nomad” family lives.
Now and then one may meet a family moving, for such movements are quite
common. Usually each family has at least two locations--not definite
places, but regions--and they move from one to the other as the
necessity arises. In such cases they take everything with them,
including flocks of sheep and goats and herds of ponies and cattle, if
they possess any. The _qasçíŋ_, as the head of the family is called,
drives the ponies and cattle, the former a degenerate lot of little
beasts not much larger than an ass, but capable of carrying a man in
an emergency 100 miles in a day. He carries his arms, for the coyotes
trouble the sheep at night, two or three blankets, and a buckskin on
his saddle, but nothing more. It is his special duty to keep the ponies
moving and in the trail. Following him comes a flock of sheep and goats,
bleating and nibbling at the bushes and grass as they slowly trot along,
urged by the dust-begrimed squaw and her children. Several of the more
tractable ponies carry packs of household effects stuffed into buckskin
and cotton bags or wrapped in blankets, a little corn for food, the rude
blanket loom of the woman, baskets, and wicker bottles, and perhaps a
scion of the house, too young to walk, perched on top of all. Such a
caravan is always accompanied by several dogs--curs of unknown breed,
but invaluable aids to the women and children in herding the flocks.
Under the Navaho system descent is in the female line. The children
belong to the mother, and likewise practically all property except
horses and cattle. Sheep and goats belong exclusively to her, and the
head of the family can not sell a sheep to a passing traveler without
first obtaining the consent and approval of his wife. Hence in such a
movement as that sketched above the flocks are looked after by the
women, while under normal circumstances, when the family has settled
down and is at home, the care of the flocks devolves almost entirely on
the little children, so young sometimes that they can just toddle about.
The waters are usually regarded by the Navaho as the common property
of the tribe, but the cultivable lands in the vicinity are held by the
individuals and families as exclusively their own. Their flocks occupy
all the surrounding pasture, so that virtually many of the springs come
to be regarded as the property of the people who plant nearest to them.
In early times, when the organization of the people into clans was more
clearly defined, a section of territory was parceled out and held as a
clan ground, and some of the existing clans took their names from such
localities. Legends are still current among the old men of these early
days before the introduction of sheep and goats and horses by the
Spaniards, when the people lived by the chase and on wild fruits, grass
seeds, and piñon nuts, and such supplies as they could plunder from
their neighbors. Indian corn or maize was apparently known from the
earliest time, but so long as plunder and the supply of game continued
sufficient, little effort was made to grow it. Later as the tribe
increased and game became scarcer, the cultivation of corn increased,
but until ten years ago more grain was obtained in trade from the
Pueblos than was grown in the Navaho country. There are now no defined
boundaries to the ancient clan lands, but they are still recognized
in a general way and such a tract is spoken of as “my mother’s land.”
Families cling to certain localities and sections not far apart, and
when compelled, by reason of failure of springs or too close cropping
of the grass, to go to other neighborhoods, they do not move to the new
place as a matter of right, but of courtesy; and the movement is never
undertaken until satisfactory arrangements have been concluded with the
families already living there.
Some of the Pueblo tribes, the Hopi or Moki, for example, have been
subjected to much the same conditions as the Navaho; but in this case
similarity of conditions has produced very dissimilar results, that is,
as regards house structures. The reasons, however, are obvious, and
lie principally in two distinct causes--antecedent habits and personal
character. The Navaho are a fine, athletic race of men, living a free
and independent life. They are without chiefs, in the ordinary meaning
of the term, although there are men in the tribe who occupy prominent
positions and exercise a kind of semiauthority--chiefs by courtesy, as
it were. Ever since we have known them, now some three hundred years,
they have been hunters, warriors, and robbers. When hunting, war,
and robbery ceased to supply them with the necessaries of life they
naturally became a pastoral people, for the flocks and the pasture lands
were already at hand. It is only within the last few years that they
have shown indication of developing into an agricultural people. With
their previous habits only temporary habitations were possible, and when
they became a pastoral people the same habitations served their purpose
better than any other. The hogáns of ten or fifteen years ago, and
to a certain extent the hogáns of today, are practically the same as
they were three hundred years ago. There has been no reason for a change
and consequently no change has been made.
On the other hand, the Hopi came into the country with a comparatively
elaborate system of house structures, previously developed elsewhere.
They are an undersized, puny race, content with what they have and
asking only to be left alone. They are in no sense warriors, although
there is no doubt that they have fought bitterly among themselves within
historic times. Following the Spanish invasion they also received sheep
and goats, but their previous habits prevented them from becoming a
pastoral people like the Navaho, and their main reliance for food is,
and always was, on horticultural products. Living, as they did, in fixed
habitations and in communities, the pastoral life was impossible to
them, and their marked timidity would prevent the abandonment of their
communal villages.
Under modern conditions these two methods of life, strongly opposed to
each other, although practiced in the same region and under the same
physical conditions, are drawing a little closer together. Under the
strong protecting arm of the Government the Hopi are losing a little
of their timidity and are gradually abandoning their villages on the
mesa summits and building individual houses in the valleys below.
Incidentally they are increasing their flocks and herds. On the other
hand, under the stress of modern conditions, the Navaho are surely,
although very slowly, turning to agriculture, and apparently show some
disposition to form small communities. Their flocks of sheep and goats
have decreased materially in the last few years, a decrease due largely
to the removal of the duty on wool and the consequent low price they
obtained from the traders for this staple article of their trade.
In both cases the result, so far as the house structures are concerned,
is the same. The houses of the people, the homes “we have always had,”
as they put it, are rapidly disappearing, and the examples left today
are more or less influenced by ideas derived from the whites. Among the
Navaho such contact has been very slight, but it has been sufficient to
introduce new methods of construction and in fact new structures, and it
is doubtful whether the process and the ritual later described could be
found in their entirety today. Many of the modern houses of the Navaho
in the mountainous and timbered regions are built of logs, sometimes
hewn. These houses are nearly always rectangular in shape, as also are
all of those built of stone masonry in the valley regions.
There is a peculiar custom of the Navaho which should be mentioned, as
it has had an important influence on the house-building practices of the
tribe, and has done much to prevent the erection of permanent abodes.
This is the idea of the _tcĭ´ndi_ hogán. When a person dies within a
house the rafters are pulled down over the remains and the place is
usually set on fire. After that nothing would induce a Navaho to touch a
piece of the wood or even approach the immediate vicinity of the place;
even years afterward such places are recognized and avoided. The place
and all about it are the especial locale of the _tcĭ´ndi_, the shade or
“spirit” of the departed. These shades are not necessarily malevolent,
but they are regarded as inclined to resent any intrusion or the taking
of any liberties with them or their belongings. If one little stick of
wood from a _tcĭ´ndi_ hogán is used about a camp fire, as is sometimes
done by irreverent whites, not an Indian will approach the fire; and not
even under the greatest necessity would they partake of the food
prepared by its aid.
This custom has had much to do with the temporary character of the
Navaho houses, for men are born to die, and they must die somewhere.
There are thousands of these _tcĭ´ndi_ hogáns scattered over the
reservation, not always recognizable as such by whites, but the Navaho
is unerring in identifying them. He was not inclined to build a fine
house when he might have to abandon it at any time, although in the
modern houses alluded to above he has overcome this difficulty in a very
simple and direct way. When a person is about to die in one of the stone
or log houses referred to he is carried outside and allowed to die in
the open air. The house is thus preserved.