[Illustration: Scenes of the Navajos in their place of exile at Fort
Sumner on the Pecos River. The top view shows them lined up to
receive their issue of food and clothing.
National Archives
Museum of New Mexico
National Archives]
Not all the Navajos surrendered. Many tribesmen remained free and
continued to raid settlements. On April 9, 1864, the very day that the
Governor of New Mexico had set aside to celebrate the end of the Navajo
war, a band of Navajos stole 40 head of cattle from Laguna Pueblo, 140
miles southwest of Canyon de Chelly. Those who surrendered endured
extreme hardship at Fort Sumner from disease, crop failure, famine, and
their sense of exile from their homeland. After 4 years, the several
thousand reservation Navajos were broken in body and spirit, while their
still-free tribesmen continued their troublesome guerrilla activities.
Carleton’s experiment was judged a complete failure.
The Government then decided that the Navajos should return to a part of
their old homeland. A new treaty signed on June 1, 1868, stated that the
tribe and the United States were at peace, and in it the Navajos pledged
to stop their raiding. In return, the Government promised the tribe
school facilities and a reservation that included Canyon de Chelly in
its total area of 3,500,000 acres. The Navajos were to stay within this
reservation.
Twenty-nine Navajo chiefs and council members signed the treaty, and the
Navajos began leaving Fort Sumner almost immediately, slipping away
family by family. Those without horses or who had old or sick persons in
their family awaited Government transportation. On June 15, a wagon
train with a military escort carried the last Navajos from Fort Sumner
to Fort Wingate. There the tribe waited while final arrangements were
worked out.
By November the new reservation boundaries had been surveyed and shown
to the tribe’s head men, and a headquarters for the Indian agent had
been prepared at Fort Defiance. At long last the Navajos were allowed to
go home. They were now united into a single tribe with leaders,
appointed by the Indian agents, to represent them in their dealings with
the whites. But their troubles were not over.
Only a fraction of the Navajos’ sheep had survived Carson’s slaughter
and the years of famine at Fort Sumner. The treaty had promised sheep
and goats to replenish the herds, but more than a year passed before any
were received. Meantime, hunger pursued the Navajos, and they had to
exist on army issue rations of beef, coffee, and flour.
The treaty also promised that during the first 10 years—called the
Treaty Years—each family head who took up farming would receive $25
worth of agricultural tools and supplies every 2 years to help him in
his new pursuit. It was 14 years before this promise was fulfilled, and
the tribe was badly hampered in their efforts to fill out their slender
larder through agriculture.
During these years the Navajos eked out a living through their
traditional crafts of weaving and silver working. Blankets and wool were
beginning to find a market in the expanding settlements of the Rio
Grande Valley, at army posts, and in the Mormon settlements of Utah. In
1869, the first trading post was established on the reservation, and it
provided the tribe with a source of supplies and an outlet for their
wares. As Navajo blankets, wool, and silverwork became more important,
other traders entered the Navajo country.
Still there was little substantial change in either the Navajo’s mode of
life or their economy by the end of the Treaty Years in 1878. True, the
tribe and their flocks had increased in numbers especially after 1872,
when the U.S. Government distributed 10,000 sheep among them. The coming
of the railroad in 1881-82, however, accelerated change and growth in
the Navajos more than any other event. New techniques for making a
living, learned from working with construction crews, and new
possessions brought by the railroad, started the people toward the
modern world.
One vexing problem that has confronted the Navajos since their days at
Fort Sumner is the lack of adequate grazing land to support an expanding
population. The reservation boundaries have been enlarged many times
over the years, but now there is no space for further expansion. Today
the tribe numbers over 120,000 members, and tribal lands cannot support
that large a population nor the uncontrolled grazing that it causes.
The old way of life is gradually being replaced. In 1924, Congress
granted citizenship rights to all Indians in recognition of their
service during World War I when their men enlisted by the hundreds, even
though exempt from the draft. After 1923 Navajo tribal business became
less of a haphazard affair. A tribal council, made up of elected
delegates, began to handle contacts with the world beyond the
reservation. Little or no work was done to remedy undesirable conditions
on the reservation until the public works program of the 1930’s, when a
good many schools and hospitals were built. During World War II,
hundreds of young Navajo men enlisted in the armed forces and other
thousands went into war work. These involvements in American society
demonstrated that an education was essential if Indians were to compete
successfully in the outer world, and so the tribal council passed a
compulsory schooling law in 1947. Many schools and hospitals were built
in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
[Illustration: A Navajo weaver, 1873. Their looms have changed
little in the years since then.]
Little by little the Navajos became acquainted with the world outside
the reservation and learned its ways and advantages. Today their
prospects for a better life are brighter. Oil, gas, coal, timber, and
uranium deposits on their lands are being developed for the benefit of
all the Navajos. Children are more eager to attend school, and many
Navajos are now leaving the reservation to put their education to work
at jobs in the larger community. The Navajo people are beginning to find
a place within the Nation.
Despite these changes and prospects, many Navajo families are still
seminomadic camp dwellers, following old traditions. Each family’s
grazing land covers about 10 to 15 square miles. Within this area they
have two or more hogans and corrals, built near suitable grass, water,
and wood.
In winter the family moves to the foothills or mesa tops to be near a
plentiful wood supply, for winters in the Navajo country are severe. The
winter hogans, or houses, are constructed with considerable care by the
men. Brush shelters are used for cooking and camping in summer.
[Illustration: Navajo headmen inside a summer brush shelter, 1898.]
[Illustration: A Navajo cribbed (log-cabin) style hogan in the high
pine forest in 1908.]
[Illustration: A modern hogan built of stone and mud-plaster with a
pane glass window, at Standing Cow Ruin.]
Several types of hogans can be seen on the reservation today. Some
recent ones attempt to copy houses in off-reservation towns, but most
follow traditional styles. The earliest type of hogan known is the
so-called “forked-stick” hogan. This is a tipi-shaped structure made of
three poles with forked ends that interlock at the top. Spaces between
this framework are filled with smaller poles; the whole is plastered
with mud. Another style of hogan is made of cribbed logs and usually has
six or eight sides, a design made necessary by the shortness of the logs
available. Circular hogans of stone, adapted from Pueblo Indian masonry
construction, are sometimes built. The roofs on both types of hogans are
constructed of cribbed logs and appear domed rather than flat. A feature
common to every hogan is its door facing east, toward the sunrise.
[Illustration: A Navajo forked-pole hogan, traditionally the
earliest form used by the tribe. Shaped like a tipi, it is built of
heavy logs covered with soil.
National Archives]
Furnishings of hogans were simple and limited, but today tables, chairs,
cabinets, and beds are commonly used. Food was once cooked in a firepit
in the center of the floor, below a hole in the roof which allowed the
smoke to escape, but today it is prepared on stoves which increasingly
are butane gas or electric models. In good weather, cooking is done
outside. Iron and aluminum pots and pans have replaced homemade pottery
and baskets as kitchen utensils.
Water is scarce over much of the reservation and must be hauled in
wagons or pickup trucks from as far away as 10 miles. Water is used
sparingly.
The Navajos are fond of goat meat and mutton, which have almost entirely
replaced the wild game of the old diet. Canned goods from the traders’
shelves have supplanted the wild plants that used to be gathered and, in
some homes, have eliminated garden plots of corn and squash. At Fort
Sumner the Navajos learned to roast and brew coffee and to use wheat
flour. Now coffee and wheat bread are important items in their diet.
In aboriginal times Navajo clothing was meager. Women wore an apron and
men a breechclout of buckskin. Footwear probably consisted of yucca
fiber sandals, although moccasins of animal skins were also common.
During winter, blankets of animal skins or yucca were added for warmth.
After the Spaniards arrived in the Rio Grande Valley, the Navajos copied
Spanish costumes. This style, which prevailed until after the return
from Bosque Redondo in 1868, consisted of tightly buttoned knee-length
breeches of buckskin, worn with knitted blue stockings copied from those
of Pueblo men. A V-neck shirt was made from a small blanket or piece of
flannel and was worn outside the trousers. The shirt was held by a
leather belt heavily ornamented with silver. Moccasins and leggings of
dyed buckskin completed the men’s dress. When Navajo women began loom
weaving, they copied the Pueblo woman’s woven cotton dress in wool and
wore it with a woven belt. Dyed buckskin moccasins with wrap-around
leggings were their footwear.
[Illustration: Navajo clothing of the 19th century, a pair of
moccasins and a shirt.]
[Illustration: Shirt.]
After Bosque Redondo, cotton clothing in Anglo-American and Mexican
styles became popular. Today Navajo men wear typical western ranch and
farm clothing: blue jeans, shirts, and broad-brimmed felt or straw hats.
The women still prefer the bright calico skirts and velveteen blouses
which they copied from the styles worn by American women in the mid-19th
century. The skirt is ankle length and voluminous, containing from 12 to
15 yards of material. Moccasins of dyed buckskin are still popular with
the women at home, but modish shoes and stockings have been adopted for
town wear. In winter, both men and women use commercially made blankets
draped over their shoulders for protection against the cold.
Today many Navajo men take off-reservation jobs with railroads, in
lumber camps, or as migratory workers following crop harvests. Sheep
still play a major role in the family economy, and annual income is
supplemented by the sale of rugs and, sometimes, silverwork and jewelry.
The Navajos have worn silver ornaments for many years. A 1795 Spanish
reference mentions that the Navajo captains were rarely seen without
their silver ornaments, but there is no evidence that they made them at
that time. They got most of their silver pieces by trading, and picked
up others on raids against Ute and Commanche Indians, who in turn had
obtained them from eastern Indians who were in contact with
Anglo-American or French traders. A great many silver ornaments probably
came from the Spaniards.
Present evidence indicates that the Navajos learned silversmithing
sometime after 1850. Old silversmiths in the tribe have claimed that
Mexicans taught them the craft during the Bosque Redondo captivity,
citing their first smith, Atsidi Sani or “Old Smith,” who was taught by
a Mexican blacksmith.
[Illustration: An early Navajo silversmith named
Slim-Maker-of-Silver.
Museum of New Mexico]
[Illustration: Ring.]
[Illustration: Navajo silver bracelets and ring from the period
1880-1900.
Smithsonian Institution]
[Illustration: Recent Navajo bracelets.]
[Illustration: A Navajo vegetal-dye rug, hand woven from hand-spun,
home-grown wool. It is representative of the Chinle style.]
[Illustration: A Navajo wife weaving a rug in her front yard at
their home near Standing Cow Ruin.]
[Illustration: A Navajo girl and her dogs guard the family sheep
near Big Cave.]
By 1881 they had completely mastered the art, and began to use turquoise
in their jewelry. Commercialization of their silver-work began in 1899,
when the Fred Harvey Company first placed large orders for pieces to
sell to tourists.
Perhaps more than anything else, the colorful rugs and silver and
turquoise jewelry produced by these people have made the name “Navajo” a
household word. The two crafts did not develop simultaneously, for
weaving is almost two centuries older than silversmithing. The Navajo
mastery of both skills is exceptional, however, and both lend themselves
readily to Navajo designs.
The loom used in Navajo weaving is a native American device, similar to
that of the ancient Pueblo people. It has changed little over the
centuries. Men usually construct the loom and women do the weaving.
In spite of three centuries of work by Christian missionaries, the
Navajos have clung to their native religion. Their religious leaders are
medicine men, or healers, and their rites are intended primarily to
secure and maintain good health.
The ceremonies, called chants, sometimes last as long as 9 days. They
consist of songs, dances, the construction of sand paintings, and the
administration of herbal medicines and sweat baths.
The Navajos, a unique people in many ways, are far from being
“vanishing” Americans. Vigorous and growing in numbers, they have only
recently begun to understand their potential. While they are making
rapid strides to join the world around them, they are keenly aware of
their own heritage and what it can contribute to the larger culture of
America.