The great Shoshonean and Athapascan stocks extended from the Northwest
down into the Southwest. The States of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New
Mexico, southwestern Colorado, western Texas and southern California
prior to 1860 were known as the “Great American Desert.” The Yuman,
Piman and Athapascan, together with a few lesser stocks, inhabited this
great region. Chief of the desert tribes is the Navaho. Doctor
Washington Matthews has presented considerable literature in the
American Anthropologist and elsewhere on this interesting folk; Oscar H.
Lipps published a history of the Navaho in 1909; George Wharton James,
Esq., refers to them at considerable length in his publications. The
Franciscan Fathers, having a mission at St. Michaels, Arizona, published
in 1910 a complete ethnologic dictionary of the Navaho customs, legends,
and gave large numbers of sentences. This also contained a bibliography
of some length. Doctor George W. Pepper of the University of
Pennsylvania Museum published a very interesting article on “The Making
of a Navaho Blanket” in _Everybody’s Magazine_, January, 1902. A volume
giving details of blanket and wool industry among the Navaho has just
been written by George Wharton James, Esq., entitled “Indian Blankets
and Their Makers”. This volume of 213 large pages contains many colored
plates and is the most comprehensive treatment of the Navaho
blanket-weaving industry ever published.
The Navaho are the only really unspoiled Indians left in America, and I
trust that readers will pardon repetition, when I again urge that they
be let alone to work out their own salvation. That is, while certain
safeguards are necessary, we should realize our incompetency and
ignorance—not to use a stronger term—in handling the natives of
Oklahoma, Minnesota and California, and not repeat our blunders in the
“benevolent assimilation” of these intelligent, industrious, and moral
people. Here is one splendid racial stock that has thus far escaped the
blight of our bureaucracy. The Navaho still stands, frightened, gazing
in at the threshold of our civilization. He sees the greed of the white
settler for his possessions.
There have been a number of reports on the Navaho, in addition to the
ethnological and popular works cited. Any one of these will give readers
a fair conception of conditions among these Indians.
Rev. Anselm Weber of the Franciscan Mission published a pamphlet on July
25, 1914. The Indian Rights Association has also taken up officially
these Indians in its annual reports, the past two or three years.
Honorable F. H. Abbott, Secretary of the Board of Indian Commissioners,
visited the Navaho and made specific recommendations as to allotment and
irrigation plans. In December-January, 1913–14, Rev. Samuel A. Eliot and
Rev. William H. Ketcham, members of the Board of Indian Commissioners,
officially visited the Navaho and made a report to the Secretary of the
Interior. Rev. W. R. Johnson, missionary located at Indian Wells,
Arizona, has repeatedly urged in public addresses at Lake Mohonk and
elsewhere the need of proper protection of this, the finest body of
aboriginal men and women remaining in North America.
It is not necessary to go back to 1850, to state that these Indians were
in a satisfactory condition. They _are_ in a satisfactory condition
today, and are the only band of Indians so situated in this country. The
number of them is said by Father Weber to be about 25,000. Rev. Johnson,
who traveled extensively over the reservation, claims there are 28,000.
Taking into consideration several thousand that live off the reservation
on the public domain, there are at least 30,000 Navaho today. The number
of sheep they possess has been variously estimated from one million to
two million head. The number of blankets the women wove last year, no
man may know, but the value of the blanket industry is upwards of a
million dollars per annum. A few years ago, Commissioner Valentine
stated that the Navaho sold $800,000 worth of blankets. It must be
remembered that many of their blankets are sold north of the San Juan
river and elsewhere off the reservation, and that traveling traders and
buyers continually penetrate beyond the borders of the reserve. The
totals obtained by superintendents, teachers and white employees, is
doubtless far below the actual volume of business.
As everyone knows, the reservation is a part of our famous “painted
desert”. It is exceedingly diversified in character, the landscape
varying from high mesas to deep canons; from towering mountains to
stretches of desert. Fortunately, no mineral deposits aside from coal
have been discovered. On three separate occasions, in the ’60’s, ’70’s
and ’80’s, prospectors, in defiance of law, entered the Navaho
reservation in search of gold, silver or copper. When I was conducting
the cliff-dweller expeditions along the San Juan in 1892 and again in
1897, several of the “oldtimers” informed me that these prospectors were
never heard of afterward. Accompanying the last expedition, there were
several men from north of Durango, Colorado, and their friends
threatened reprisals on the Navaho, alleging that the Indians had killed
these prospectors. However, aside from talk, nothing was done, the men
never returned, and the Indians remained in peaceful possession of their
estate. It was considered, in the ’70’s and ’80’s “bad medicine” for
white men to depart from certain Navaho trails!
The Navaho reservation embraces 11,887,793 acres, of which approximately
719,360 acres belong to the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Company, and
approximately 55,400 acres to the State of Arizona, leaving 11,113,033
acres. Consequently, if you take the very conservative figure of 25,000
Navahos and 11,113,033 acres belonging to them, you would have 444 acres
to the person. But as four-fifths is high, dry mesa or absolute desert,
the statement often made that each Indian might have 444 acres is
misleading. Each Indian could not have (average) more than twelve or
fifteen acres of pasture land.
The Navaho are the only large body of Indians in the United States who
keep up ancient customs, arts and ceremonies. They not only enjoy a
great variety of games and sports, but they are probably the best and
strongest long-distance runners in America. Mr. Lipps has given a very
entertaining account of their games, etc., in his book, to which I have
referred on a previous page.
They are exceedingly adverse to burying their dead and are quite willing
that white people should perform this service for them. Of all the
remaining Indian tribes, they furnish the best field for investigation
at the present time. Much has been written concerning them, but it will
require additional researches in order to complete a satisfactory study
of their ethnology.
On the death of the head of the family, his property “descends to his
brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts to the exclusion of his wife and
children, a custom which is often very harmful in its effects, since if
the wife should happen not to be possessed of some property in her own
right she and her children are made to suffer penury and want.”[47]
In past years a number of the older men possessed two or three wives.
Polygamy was to be expected, for the Mormons settled north of the San
Juan, (Utah), long before white settlers came from the East. Although
the Navaho probably believed in polygamy long ago, only those who were
well-to-do had more than one wife, and the increase in polygamous
marriages was undoubtedly due to the example set by the Mormons.
The Government has taken steps to wipe out this practice and no more
plural marriages are permitted. Men having more than one wife have been
encouraged to give up their plural wives, and this has been done in some
cases, mainly where there are no children by the marriage.
[Illustration:
NAVAHO SILVERSMITH AND HIS OUTFIT
]
The Navaho are invariably kind and considerate to each other, and their
family life is of higher plane than among most Indians. The children are
seldom punished, for the good reason that they do not merit punishment.
In the case of very old persons, it is sometimes observed that the
children do not love and protect them as completely as might be
expected.
The chief taboo of the Navaho is the fish. Under no circumstances will a
Navaho eat fish. He believes that upon the death of a very evil person,
the spirit enters the body of a fish, hence his utter horror and hatred
of the finny tribe. An Indian student entered Phillips Academy, Andover,
some years ago. He was employed in the dining hall and thus earned his
tuition. He informed me that his most disagreeable duty, and that which
he loathed, was the preparation of fish for the weekly Friday dinner.
When we were in camp at Chaco canon in 1897, the Navaho came to us in
large numbers at meal time. Our larder rapidly diminished. Something
must be done. The cook found that one of the packing boxes had a large
blue codfish stamped on the side. He placed this box out in plain view
and the Indians who had assembled to eat supper with us withdrew to
their own camps.
The Navaho had carried on raids against the Mexicans and the frontier of
Texas for many years. In 1863 a party of men led by the famous scout,
Kit Karson, invaded their territory and killed a large number of
Indians. All of the Navaho that could be captured were taken East to the
Rio Pecos. Here they were kept until 1867 under military guard, when
they were restored to their country and given a large flock of sheep. In
1869 the Government assembled all these Indians and having difficulty to
enumerate them because of their nomadic habits, resorted to a novel
stratagem. The people were crowded in an enormous corral, and counted as
they entered. The Handbook of American Indians states that there were
some fewer than 9,000. I cannot believe that this estimate was accurate,
for it would be impossible for troops to round up all the Navaho.
Doubtless, many fled north of the San Juan, or west to the Colorado, on
the appearance of the troops.
They are very highly religious people and possess thousands of
significant songs and prayers. The Handbook states that some of the
ceremonies continue for nine nights, and that it is necessary for the
shamans to spend years of study in order to become perfectly familiar
with the complicated ritual.
The Indians were much crowded before permitted to settle upon public
lands. To meet this need, Commissioner Leupp in 1908 extended the
reservation. Father Weber covers all the details in his excellent
pamphlet. The white cattlemen and their friends set up a great
uproar, indignation meetings were held, and Congress was importuned
to prevent the Indians from living on the public domain. In fact,
all sorts of pressure was brought to bear to reduce the size of the
reservation—although it was manifestly too small. None of the
Mexicans and Americans, for whom the business men and politicians of
the southwest were so concerned, were living on the tracts they
sought to control. On the contrary they lived in towns or
settlements removed from the Indian country, and simply ranged their
sheep and cattle over these tracts in charge of herders and cowboys.
The Indians, the Navaho, against whom this hue and cry was raised,
actually had their homes upon the tracts, and were dependent upon
them for their living. Many of them lived in the same place for two
or three generations. During all the disputes, no one was shot, and
no violence occurred. Yet all that was possible was done to mislead
Congress, as the following speech attests.
[Illustration:
RED GOAT AND HIS MOTHER, NAVAHO, 1902
Photograph by E. R. Forrest.
]
“I want to say to the Senator (Bristow) that possibly he does not
understand the conditions as they exist in our country. Possibly he is
not aware of the fact that every year, two or three times a year, these
Indians are allowed to go from their immensely rich reserves to
interfere with white men, American citizens, on the public domain,
causing the killing of anywhere from one to a dozen people. This is an
unfortunate condition of affairs. I can say to the Senator that we
people down in our section of the country can deal with these conditions
if we are compelled to; but this sometimes becomes a question of all a
man has—of his property rights, of protection to his family and his
children. Any white man, any American citizen, will then use such force
as is necessary in protecting his family. All that we seek to do is to
restrict the further location of these Indians upon the public domain
until Congress can act again. The committee is being appointed, and I
presume this matter will be investigated. It has been investigated
before, and reports made, and no action taken. But this must cease; it
must stop; and I tell the Senator from Kansas that it will
stop.”—(_Congressional Record_, June 17, 1913, page 2320).
Father Weber’s comment on it is very apropos:—
“I regret that a Senator made this statement. I have been among the
Navaho for sixteen years, and I know of not one single instance where a
white man was killed on account of Navahos leaving the reservation, or
on account of any grazing or land disputes. If every year the killing of
from one to a dozen is occasioned by Navaho leaving their reserve, how
is it that no one knows anything about it?”[48]
In past years I have traveled a good deal over the Navaho reservation.
Recently one of my friends, J. Weston Allen, Esq., of Boston, on behalf
of the Boston Indian Citizenship Committee, of which he is
vice-chairman, made a tour of investigation through the Navaho country,
and the conditions as he found them were incorporated in an able report
to the Secretary of the Interior. Major William T. Shelton, the
Superintendent at Shiprock, who has long lived with these Indians, while
differing in some details from the views of Mr. Sniffen, Rev. Johnson
and Honorable F. H. Abbott, yet agrees with them in the main issue that
the Navaho should not be too much superintended. All he needs is
protection—not charity, suggestion, nor interference with his industry.
Doctor W. W. Wallace, who has been a trader among the Navaho since 1890,
writes me that the Indians have steadily progressed, that they ask no
favors, and all they desire is to be permitted to continue on their
successful way. My own observation leads me to believe that the
reservation should not be reduced; allotments must not be made in any
event until irrigation has disclosed the land values; more schools
should be established, and above all dams should be erected to store
water during the spring floods so that more acres may be brought under
cultivation. There are vast possibilities for irrigation in the Navaho
country, as Mr. Abbott has pointed out. The last investigation by two
members of our Board (Ketcham and Eliot) was important, and I present
two of the seven recommendations they strongly urged.
“_Allotment._ We are thoroughly convinced that the time has not yet come
for the allotment of the Indians on the reservation. The Navaho is
proceeding along the way of civilization as fast as he can safely
travel. He is independent and self-supporting. He is steadily improving
his dwelling, his stock and his method of farming. He is learning
English, sending his children to school, and increasingly following the
advice of the white physicians. He is developing his own water
resources, forming good industrial habits and gradually adopting white
standards of domestic life. Following their own customs, the Indians
divide their common resources with remarkable fairness and live
peaceably with one another and with the Whites. They must be permitted
slowly to come into an understanding of our customs of private land
ownership and inheritance. There is nothing to be gained by hurrying
that process. Allotment on the reservation should not be thought of for
a good many years to come.
“We are impressed with the exceptional opportunity of the Navaho
reservation for the work of field matrons and recommend that an
additional force be provided for. The field matrons should work in close
cooperation with superintendents, teachers and physicians.
“In general we believe that the condition of the Navaho is promising.
The people are virile, industrious and independent. With the exercise of
ordinary good judgment, patience and tact, there need never be any
serious problem in connection with their development.”
Doctor Joseph K. Dixon, representing the Wanamaker Expedition, visited
the “painted desert”. He took some remarkable motion pictures of Navaho
herders driving thousands of sheep down to the waterholes. As I observed
these pictures, portraying the peaceful, industrious life of these red
nomads of the desert, I wished fondly that all men and women unable to
observe Indian life as it is in the Southwest, might see them. They
recalled many interesting days spent among these sturdy folk. The
natives living as do the Navaho, present an object lesson to all
“reformers”, and it is to be devoutly hoped that we will heed the lesson
and “let well enough alone.” To do otherwise will destroy the initiative
of a self-supporting and upright people, and deprive the world of a
primitive stock of exceptional physical stamina and mental ability.
Mr. Allen’s report to the Secretary of the Interior and the Boston
Indian Citizenship Committee cannot be reproduced at length, much to my
regret, but I herewith append certain sections, as it is a splendid
presentation of the Navaho situation and includes valuable
recommendations to meet the needs of these Indians.
“Three obvious difficulties immediately present themselves when any plan
of Navaho settlement is considered—(1) the great inequality of the land
for grazing purposes; (2) the scarcity of water, and the fact that much
of the land is far distant from the nearest water supply; (3) the
existence of summer and winter ranges and the removal of the sheep from
place to place under the changing conditions of different seasons of the
year.
“Of the inequality of the land for grazing purposes, it is sufficient to
say that there are vast areas of rock and sand where an allotment of 160
acres would not support a single sheep. Of the inaccessibility of water,
it may be similarly stated that there are sections of land within the
reservation which are so far from water during the dry season that sheep
would die from exhaustion before they could reach it. Of the necessity
of moving the sheep from one part of the reservation to another, it is
perhaps sufficient to point out that in the winter the sheep must have
the protection of the sheltered valleys and in the summer they are
driven by the heat and the scarcity of water into the mountains.
“A matter of far greater importance in the consideration of any
equitable allotment is the determination of the location and extent of
the land within the limitations of the reservation which can be claimed
by irrigation.”
Mr. Allen points out the difficulties in allotting a nomadic people
permanent homes. He is opposed to any allotment under existing
conditions. It may have to come in time, doubtless prematurely as in the
case of other reservations, but on the Navaho reservation there are
difficulties which have not been encountered in our experience with
other tribes.
Mr. Allen’s report may be summed up as follows:—There should be a
commission appointed composed of engineers and stockmen to thoroughly
investigate the possibilities of the reservation, both through means of
storage dams to conserve the mountain freshets in the springtime, and
also to divert the water from the rivers as is being done along the San
Juan river to the north. This stream carries a large volume of water,
and although there are many white persons living north of the river in
Utah and New Mexico and much water is used, the river is very high from
May 1st to July 1st. It therefore affords great possibilities in the way
of water storage.
He recommends a detailed study of the coalbeds and timber tracts on the
reservation, and the improvement of the Navaho sheep, by the
introduction of better stock.
[Illustration:
NAVAHO WINTER HOGAN
Photographed by E. R. Forrest; 1902
]
While tuberculosis is found in about 10% of the Navaho, trachoma is much
more prevalent, and he records the usual story of afflicted Indian
children, men and women. The hospital facilities are totally inadequate.
There is a hospital at Indian Wells, Arizona, maintained by the National
Indian Association, an Episcopal hospital near Fort Defiance, while
another is maintained by the Presbyterians at Ganado. The only large
hospital with adequate equipment is at the Government school at Fort
Defiance. Doctor Wigglesworth, physician in charge, who has won the
confidence of these Indians by long years of constant labor among them,
does all in his power to alleviate distress, but the field is entirely
too extensive to be covered by one man. Mrs. Mary L. Eldridge, for many
years in charge of a mission near Farmington, N. M., does medical work
among the Indians. There is a small Government hospital at Shiprock.
The medicine men cause the Government officials and missionaries a great
deal of trouble. Mr. Allen presents a number of incidents in his reports
explaining their activities. Many Indians will not take treatment in the
hospitals through fear of the shamans, and in more than one instance a
sick Indian has been removed by his friends from the mission hospital
during the night, and carried off to the village where he might be
treated by the shaman.
[Illustration:
MODERN INDIAN HOUSE, SYLVIAN, OKLAHOMA
This type is inferior in construction to the houses built in
pre-statehood days.
]
Educational facilities are inadequate to care for half the children of
school age. In many of the schools, trachoma has afflicted numbers of
the children. When tuberculosis develops among the school children they
are sent home from the school to die without medical attendance. Mr.
Allen suggests that more physicians, qualified to treat trachoma and
tuberculosis, be appointed to service among the Navaho, and that each
one be assigned a territory fifty miles square, with a field sanitarium
located near the center of the territory. He also suggests that young
Navaho women, selected from the larger boarding schools, be trained as
nurses, since many of these Indians do not take kindly to treatment by
white persons, and it is difficult to secure competent nurses who are
willing to remain long in the small frontier hospitals of the Navaho
desert.
At Shiprock, Superintendent Shelton has developed a large school with
extensive farms and industrial buildings. The settlement at Shiprock is
justly considered one of the show places in the Indian Service. Here the
desert is made to blossom as the rose. Mr. Shelton admits few small
children in his school and keeps his scholars until they reach adult
age. He is thus able to make a better showing in his farms and gardens
than do those who receive the children at an earlier age, and return
them to their homes after four or five years of training. Mr. Shelton’s
work at Shiprock could now be carried on by some one else, and his
recognized ability used in a new field to develop another section of the
reservation further west. By creating another Shiprock, he could do more
to raise the standard of living among his people.
Superintendent Paquette at Fort Defiance is extending education work
throughout his reservation, and reaches a larger percentage of children
of school age than are being reached elsewhere in the Navaho country.
In concluding his report, Mr. Allen points out the failure of the
returned student to make good and the reasons for it.
“The problem of the returned student is a serious one among the Navaho.
The boys and girls who have been for years in school come back to their
people without a training for taking care of the flocks, and are outdone
by those who remain at home. They are for this reason more or less
looked down upon, with the result that they have no inclination to
continue the habits of study and cleanliness which they have acquired at
school and which are not appreciated in the home. The effort of the old
men of the tribe is to keep the children who return from school from
seeking any higher place than is enjoyed by other members of the family.
If the young men and the young women of the tribe, who have received an
education and who have acquired an appreciation of what they learned in
school, intermarried, the benefits of their education would be more
permanent, but many of the girls upon their return from school are given
in marriage by their parents to old men of the tribe, and many of the
boys return only to find that they are required to marry old women, or
at best, ‘camp girls’ as they are called—the uneducated girls of the
hogan. The inevitable result is that they go back to the old life.”
-----
Footnote 47:
“A Little History of the Navahos.” Oscar H. Lipps, page 49.
Footnote 48:
“The Navaho Indians. A Statement of Facts.” Rev. Anselm Weber, O. F.
M., page 5.