Navajo Culture

The Navajo religion is being Navajo. Religion is something that you live every day (Young, 2001, p. 233).

The traditional Navajo Indians have a very primitive lifestyle. This means that they don’t necessarily have the best living conditions and

The Diné means “The People” and it is what the people that we know presently as the Navajo went by. The Red Nation article “Considering a Navajo Name Change: Self-Identification, Land, and Liberation” by Majerle Lister states that “‘Navajo’ is not a Diné word or concept, despite its use as our [the Diné] official name for more than a hundred and fifty years.” This is a clear example of how settler colonialism has impacted the Navajo Nation. Settler colonialism has had an impact in the Peoplehood matrix of the Navajo from language and sacred history to place/territory and ceremonial cycles, yet it has not stop efforts from the Navajo Community to mend the damage that settler colonialism has had on their culture over the years.

Although, the ritual has been passed on from generation to generation, how the Navajo rituals are ways of communication has been questioned by so many. Many believe that it way for the patient to come into “…harmony…

The Navajo Indian is the largest tribe in North America, how did their culture develop over time and where are they today in regards to modern times?

Every culture has their own way of life, their own religious beliefs, their own marriage beliefs, their own values and feelings on life and the options it has to offer. Each culture has their own way to run things within their own government, and own way to keep their economy up to their standards. Also each culture and society have their own primary mode of subsistence that makes them unique. Among the Navajo culture their primary mode of subsistence are pastoralists.   Pastoralists have an impact on different aspects with in the culture.   The aspects that I will be discussing will be the Navajo’s beliefs and values, economic organization, gender relations and sickness and healing.

The houses Navajo Indians used to live in were called Hogan’s. A Hogan was made of logs, brush, and earth. The Navajo summer houses were also utilized and made of brush with a windbreak. The Navajo Indians are separated within two clans to live together. The two clans were immediate family and extended family.

Navajo is a Southern Athabaskan language of the Na-Dene family; it has similarities and is related to spoken languages across the western areas of North America. The Navajo refer to themselves as the Diné or “People” and their language is known as Diné bizaad or “People’s language”. The earliest recorded history appears to between the years 1581-1583 when the Spanish made their first contact with the Navajos. Nearly 200 years later the Navajo were able to drive the Spanish settles from the Eastern regions off their land. 30 years after that in 1805, Spanish soldiers returned with a vengeance and killed more than 100 Navajo women, children and elders hiding in a cave; this tragedy is known as the Massacre at Canyon de Chelly. Nowadays, the Navajo language is predominately spoken in the Southwestern United States and currently the majority of the language is being used in the Navajo Nation political area. Navajo is one of the most widely spoken Native American languages and according to an article titled, “Navajo (Diné bizaad)” in 2011 it was estimated that there were nearly 170,000 Americans speaking Navajo. Though the number of speakers may seem large, the language has had difficulties keeping a healthy speaker base. This was caused by an aggressive effort made on the part of the public and mission schools on the western reservations, which taught young Native American students English. As referenced in Language, Culture and Society school administrators used such

The navajo tribe are also called the dine tribe. Who had lived in the southern dezert area like Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. The navajo indians were semi-nominate and were called hunter-gathers. The men were in charge of getting food and keeping the camp safe from predators,and the women were in charge of the homes and land. The navajo indians had kelp sheep and goats around and had used there wool for clothes. The navajo tribe is related to the athabascan people by central canada. They had traveled to the southwest before the europeans had showed up. There tribe had consisted of medicine men and shamen.

This nation was built on the foundation that “All Men are Created Equal.” Under the eyes of God, no man is better than another. This has held our nation together and forced us to exist interdependently. We are fortunate to live in a nation that possesses such a wealth of diversity. It makes our nation unique and gives people the opportunity to learn about the beauty of culture. However, history has shown us that not all have embraced diversity. For this reason, civil rights movements have long been a part of our history. Citizens of this country recognize key figures in Civil Rights movements such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez who have promoted

The Navajo, also known as the Diné, are one of the largest Native American Tribes in the world. Their culture is made up of very distinct and unique characteristics that have been passed down from generation to generation. They have been taught to adapt to their surroundings and to the land. Each moral, standard, belief and value are what make the Navajo so unique to the Native Americans. In the following, their primary mode of subsistence, kinship system, beliefs, values, and economic organizations will be briefly examined to gain a better knowledge of the Navajo culture.

The world view of the Navajo who had lived for many centuries on the high Colorado Plateau was one of living in balance with all of nature, as the stewards of their vast homeland which covered parts of four modern states. They had no concept of religion as being something separate from living day to day and prayed to many spirits. It was also a matriarchal society and had no single powerful leader as their pastoral lifestyle living in scattered independent family groups require no such entity. This brought them repeatedly into conflict with Spanish, Mexicans and increasingly by the mid-nineteenth century, Americans as these practices were contrary to their male dominated religiously monolithic societal values. The long standing history

Bright Morning is a young girl who is part of the Navajo tribe. As a Navajo woman, her mother was the owner of a large flock of sheep, since shepherding is part of the Navajo way of life. With her black dog in tow, Bright Morning takes the flock to the High Mesas so they can feed on new grass. Her peers White Deer and running Bird always follow along.

Broadly speaking, “leadership” can be defined as a process in which an individual influences a group of individuals to work towards the achievement of a common goal or vision (Lussier, 1996; Northouse, 2001; Stogdill, 1974). Moreover, Bush and Coleman (2000) note that since most of what has been written about leadership draws upon western cultural models, it should be borne in mind that leadership might well be viewed differently in different cultures.

“The Navaho are the most studied of all Native American groups. For well over a century now, scholars have been attracted to the Navajo culture; it has flourished in the face of the same pressures that have all but erased many other Native American cultures, largely because it has managed to change with the times while remaining strongly rooted in tradition” .