_From Copyright Photograph 1904 by E.S. Curtis_
The Navaho are a pastoral, semi-nomadic people whose activities centre in
their flocks and small farms. Their reservation of more than fourteen
thousand square miles is the desert plateau region of northern Arizona and
New Mexico. Its mesas and low mountains are sparsely covered with pinon
and cedar, and on the higher levels are small but beautiful forests of
pine. Back and forth in all parts of this vast region the Navaho drive
their flocks. At the season when the slight rainfall produces even scant
pasturage on the desert plains the flocks are pastured there; but as the
grass becomes seared by the summer sun and exhausted from pasturing, the
flocks are taken into the mountains, where the shade of the pines lends
grateful coolness. Again, as the deep snows of winter come, the sheep and
goats are driven down to the wooded mesas, where there is little snow and
an abundance of fuel, of which there is none on the plains. And so, year
in, year out, the flocks slowly drift back and forth from plain to mesa
and from mesa to mountain.
While the Navaho leads a wandering life, the zone of his movements is
surprisingly limited; indeed the average Navaho's personal knowledge of
his country is confined to a radius of not more than fifty miles. The
family usually has three homes, the situation of which is determined by
the necessities of life. Near their summer home they cultivate small crops
of corn and vegetables in narrow, sandy washes, where by deep planting
sufficient moisture is insured to mature the crop. In a few sections small
farming is conducted by means of irrigation. In Canon de Chelly, which may
be termed the garden spot of the reservation, there are diminutive farms
and splendid peach orchards irrigated with freshet water. The canon drains
an extensive region, and even a light rain causes the stream which flows
at the base of its lofty walls to become swollen. This water the natives
divert to their miniature cornfields and orchards, one or two freshets
assuring good crops.
[Illustration: Cornfields in Canon Del Muerto - Navaho]