Navajo people

“ When he got within sight of his house his people made him stop and told him not to approach nearer until they had summoned a Navajo shaman. When the latter, whose name was Red Queue, came, ceremonies were performed over the returned wanderer, and he was washed from head to foot and dried with corn meal; for thus do the Navajo treat all who return to their homes from captivity with another tribe, in order that all alien substances and influences may be removed from them. ”

“ Soon they will acquire new habits, new ideas new modes of life: the old Indians will die off and carry with them all latent longings for murdering and robbing: the young ones will take their places without these longings: and thus, little by little, they will become a happy and contented people, and Navajoe Wars will be remembered only as something that belongs entirely to the Past. Even until they can raise enough to be self-sustaining— you can feed them cheaper than you can fight them. ”

“ If the Navajo woman is more industrious and skilled than the Apache, she is also much more loose and wanton. A very marked characteristic of the latter people is their strict chastity, while the Navajoes are quite as much noted for their utter want of virtue. ”

“ This peaceably minded people, as has already been stated, are by no means to be confounded with the roving New Mexican aborigines, with the untamed Navajo scouring the plains on the bare back of his steed, or the fierce Apache, murderous and cruel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Affairs of this sort taught me that the desert Navajo are a good-natured and interesting people, in many ways like our own country folk at quilting-bees and huskings. They have their renegades and black sheep, with which the white race is as fully endowed; and my ugly experiences of later days could not be charged to the tribe.
When a Navajo is ailing, they manage to combine exorcism of the evil spirits with the amusing dance, and whether or not old Beck-a-shay Thlani was improved physically, the girls had a good time. It often helps them to find a husband ”

“ The four weasel men showed him how to make the glòï-bikeçan, or sacrificial sticks of the glòï. What name the Navajo bore before this time the ancient tale does not tell us; but from the moment he said these words he was called among the gods Dsilyi‘ Neyáni, and was afterwards known by this name among his people.
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42. After this adventure he continued on his way to Tsenástci. He had not journeyed far when he met the wind god, who said to him: “Those whom you will meet at Tsenástci are evil ones; therefore I will be with you and will walk before you.” ”

“ I immediately informed the chiefs that I wished them to talk the matter over among themselves and meet Captain Hamblin and myself in a council at the agency in four days. This was done and we, today, have had a long talk. The best of feeling existed. And the chiefs and good men of the Navajo Indians pledge themselves that no more Navajos will be allowed to go into Utah; and that they will not, under any circumstances, allow any more depredations to be committed by their people. ”

“ Before departing the sun asked them what they wished; they said, “We want bows and arrows, knives, and good leggings. There are people around the world eating our people (the Navajo) . Some of these people are great giants and some are as small as flies; we wish to kill them with lightning.” ”

“ With a better and more dependable food supply population increased, people began to be more sedentary, crafts improved, and more permanent homes were built. By A. D. 1100 large villages of several hundred people each had been developed, as well as many smaller communities.
As time passed, three cultural centers—really prehistoric tribes—had differentiated from each other: the Chaco Canyon group, in northwestern New Mexico; the Mesa Verde, in southwestern Colorado; and the Kayenta, in northeastern Arizona.
The three cliff dwellings of Navajo National Monument represent this third group. ”

“ It was as if every blade of grass, every leaf of sage, every twig of cedar, the flowers, the trees, the rocks came to life at sight of the sun. The red disk rose, and a golden fire burned over the glowing face of that lonely waste.
The Navajo, dark, stately, inscrutable, faced the sun—his god. This was his Great Spirit. The desert was his mother, but the sun was his life. To the keeper of the winds and rains, to the master of light, to the maker of fire, to the giver of life the Navajo sent up his prayer:
Of all the good things of the Earth let me always have plenty. ”

“ Glen Naspa is gone."
"Gone! Where? Nas Ta Bega, remember I lost my own faith, and I have not yet learned yours."
"The Navajo has one mother—the earth. Her body has gone to the earth and it will become dust. But her spirit is in the air. It shall whisper to me from the wind. I shall hear it on running waters. It will hide in the morning music of a mocking-bird and in the lonely night cry of the canyon hawk. Her blood will go to make the red of the Indian flowers and her soul will rest at midnight in the lily that opens only to the moon. ”

“ I have heard it said by old-timers, and they could very nearly prove their suspicions through comparison of customs and the dragging in of the Bible, that the Navajo are the Jews of the Desert, a lost tribe of Israel. And suffice it to say that the true son of David has never been able to prosper in their country. The closest approach of these wanderers to the Navajo has been an invasion by marriage of a certain part of the Pueblo Indian country in New Mexico. Those who once made the effort to penetrate the Hopi-Navajo area of the Enchanted Empire have withdrawn, defeated and outwitted. ”

“ They have always been the enemies of the Pueblo Indians, who are descendants of the Toltec and Aztec races. Unlike the Pueblo Indians, who live in villages and maintain themselves with agricultural pursuits, the Navajos are nomads and born herdsmen.
The Navajo tribe is quite wealthy now, as they possess many thousands of sheep and goats, and they are famed for their quaint and beautiful blankets and homespun, which they weave on their hand looms from the wool of their sheep. ”

“ There is the legend of "the spider maid" teaching the Navajos to weave their wonderful blankets, though the Hopi deny this and assert that their women captured in war were the ones who taught the Navajos the art of weaving. There is the picture of the Navajo transmigration of souls up the twelve degrees of a huge corn stalk, for all the world like the Hindoo legend of a soul's travail up to life. You must not forget how similar many of the Indian [Pg 113] drawings are to Oriental work. ”

“ Only fifteen years ago the Navajos came down into the valley through the canyon which the Denver and Rio Grande line now traverses, but the Mormons were better prepared than the Spanish missionaries, and hunted the Navajo soul out of the Indians, so that Spanish Fork is now the second largest settlement in the valley, and the Indians come there begging. They are all of the "tickaboo" and "good Injun" sort, the "how-how" mendicants of the period. All the inhabitants are as good an illustration of the advantages of co-operation in stores, farm-work, mills—everything—as can well be adduced. ”

“ The Navajo had strange customs. Among them the women owned the sheep, the goats, the hogan and the children. The men owned the horses, and the hunting weapons, along with the turquoise jewelry they wore. Horses to a Navajo were the same as gold to a26 white man, they were his measure of wealth and standing. So the Navajo men stalked the wild bands, capturing colts and mares to add to their wealth.
The Navajos knew every water hole in the desert. Like the tawny cougar and the savage lobo, they knew the wild bands must drink, that sooner or later they must slip down to the water hole. ”

“ It may be safely stated that with no native tribe in America, north of the Mexican boundary, has the art of weaving been carried to greater perfection than among the Navajos, while with none in the entire continent is it less Europeanized. As in language, habits, and opinions, so in arts, the Navajos have been less influenced than their sedentary neighbors of the pueblos by the civilization of the Old World. ”

“ The Navajos used to fight with other tribes, and then they were stronger men than they are to-day.
"But leaving religion, greed, and war out of the question, contact with the white man would alone have ruined the Indian. ”

“ Singing, rattling, and cries of “Thòhay!” were heard. In a few minutes the circle opened and the hewn plank, standing upright on a small Navajo blanket, without any apparent prop or support, was disclosed to view. At the base of the plank was the basket holding the figure of the sun. Singing was continued and so were the uproarious cries of “Thòhay”—cries anxious, cries appealing, cries commanding—while the bearer of the rattle stood facing the pole and rattling vigorously at it. ”

“ The Indian and the white man cannot mix. The Indian brave learns the habits of the white man, acquires his diseases, and has not the mind or body to withstand them. The Indian girl learns to love the white man—and that is death of her Indian soul, if not of life.
"So the red man is passing. Tribes once powerful have died in the life of Nas Ta Bega. The curse of the white man is already heavy upon my race in the south. Here in the north, in the wildest corner of the desert, chased here by the great soldier, Carson, the Navajo has made his last stand. ”

“ The Navajo fastened his legends to that highest desert elevation, Navajo Mountain, and it is not likely the Hopi ventured there. But his Rain gods, those powerful to relieve the aridity of his country and ensure against famine, dwelt in mountains somewhere, and therefore, trembling perhaps, muttering incantations, he went to them.
Anything that is strange, and possibly potent, has been absorbed into their embroidered religion. The clans like to procure colored glass. They make much of tortoise shells, and other things speaking of the sea. ”

“ Soon the voices of the pursuing Ute were again heard around the rock and at the mouth of the den, and the Navajo sat a long time 401 in silence listening to them. After a while the rat woman said to him, “You seem to be tired and hungry. Will you have something to eat?” ”

“ On the fifth day it was proposed they should send out the akáninili (meal sprinkler) or courier to invite their neighbors to the great dance. There were two couriers to be sent: one was to go to the north, to a place called Çògojilá‘ (Much Grease Wood) , to invite some friendly bands of Ute, some distant bands of Navajo, and some Jicarilla who dwelt there; the other was to go to the south, to Tse‘lakàī-silà (Where Two White Rocks Lie) , to ask the Southern Apache, the White Mountain Apache, the Cohonino, and a tribe called ¢ildjèhe, to attend. ”

“ You are always visiting where you are not welcome.” The gods replied: “Be not angry with us. This is a Navajo who was a captive among the Ute, but he has escaped and has suffered much. I‘¢nì‘ (the Lightning) has bidden us to take him to the homes of all the ¢igìni (holy ones, supernatural beings) ; therefore we have brought him here.” “It is well,” said the squirrels; “but he is hungry and must have some food.” They brought him piñon nuts, pine nuts, spruce nuts, and service berries ”

“ The Navajos, as a rule, are not a tall race, although there is one living about two miles from town who is over six feet. His white friends call him "Lengthy." The squaw who went to the World's Fair as being the best Navajo blanket-maker of the tribe has two photographs, one of herself and another squaw, and one of the Government Building which was at the Fair, which she delights in showing to every one that goes to her hut. ”

“ As soon as the snows of winter admonish them of the suffering to which their families will be exposed—I have great hopes of getting most of the tribe. The knowledge of the perfidy of these Navajoes, gained after two centuries of experience, is such as to lead us to put no faith in their promises. ”

“ The area's cultural importance to Native American tribes continues to this day. As they have for generations, these tribes and their members come here for ceremonies and to visit sacred sites. Throughout the region, many landscape features, such as Comb Ridge, the San Juan River, and Cedar Mesa, are closely tied to native stories of creation, danger, protection, and healing. The towering spires in the Valley of the Gods are sacred to the Navajo, representing ancient Navajo warriors frozen in stone. ”

“ Once they met a man on horseback who was dressed like a Mexican but looked darker. A Navajo? Probably. Later they saw a flock of sheep, and Gwendolyn’s ecstatic cry called their eyes to the distant figure, herding them. Yes, it was a Navajo woman in full skirt. They passed a collection of brown buildings with huts like bee-hives scattered around them, and flaunting signs announcing that this was a Navajo trading-post where one could buy real genuine Navajo blankets and silver rings made right there on the premises. At this place they all sniffed, and Teddy stepped on the gas. ”

“ The Navajos of New Mexico and Arizona, a tribe living a considerable distance from the Chickasaws, follow somewhat similar customs, as related by Dr. John Menard, formerly a physician to their agency:
The Navajo custom is to leave the body where it dies, closing up the house or hogan or covering the body with stones or brush. In case the body is removed, it is taken to a cleft in the rocks and thrown in, and stones piled over. The person touching or carrying the body first takes off all his clothes and afterwards washes his body with water before putting them on or mingling with the living. ”