Navajo Culture Research Paper

In Native American witchcraft, amulets and charms play the central role. Practitioners of one region dress similarly as well as use same kind of totems to have a sense of unity with each other. For them land is considered as deity that provides them with objects necessary for witchcraft and magic. These objects come in many shapes and forms. These may include herbs, stones, feathers, bones etc (world of Wicca, 2014).

The Navajo society is a culture rich in tradition. They value the close knit relationship with their family and have a great appreciation for the land. They fought to preserve their way of life, resulting in high values in; kinship, lifestyle, religious beliefs, and their rites of passage.

Some of the creek indian art was made of wood (wood carvings). Clay was another natural resource that they used (pottery). When english (Britains) started taking land they migrated and had to use beads. They also weaved baskets and put art on these baskets.

The Navajos are traditionally a matriarchal society. Descent and Inheritance were determined through the mother. In marital separation, woman kept the property and children. If the mother died, the children were sent to live with their mother’s family. Navajo women were at the core of social and economic control. They were the potters and weavers and owned the land and livestock, which was passed on to their daughters, who were trained to manage them.

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.

According to the history of the Navajo Tribe, the Holy People lived in the underworld and helped by guiding the First Man and First Woman to earth (McCoy 1988). The Holy People are said to be attracted to songs, dances, and chants during the ceremony along with the creation of Sandpainting. The Sandpainting is used in the healing process of the ceremony to draw a picture that tells a story of the Holy People. The Navajo culture have amazed so many people to how beautifully constructed the rituals are performed.

In American Indian life, they believe their life is interconnected with the world, nature, and other people. The idea of a peoplehood matrix runs deep in Indian culture, in this essay the Cherokee, which is the holistic view of sacred history, language, ceremony, and homeland together. This holistic model shapes the life of the American Indians and how their sense of being and relationship to their history is strong and extremely valuable to them. This essay will try to explain how each aspect of the peoplehood matrix is important and interconnected to each other and the life of the Native Americans.

By erecting alters in homes and placing shrines in fields and along trails, they try to drive away the evil spirits that infect their people. If a treatment from a Shaman does not work, the people do not blame the shaman. Instead, they see that the evil spirits could not be driven from the person’s body. Symbols and patterns were decorating on the clothing that the Hmong women made from hemp. These patterns and symbols were created from dyes that came from vegetables and were used to drive away evil spirits and attract friendly ones.

The Chippewa men wore headdresses made of stiff porcupine hair. These headdresses closely relate the Chippewa to the Mohawk and Mohicans. Women kept their hair long in length and braided it, with pieces of cloth and shells intermingled in them. Jewelry was something very important in the Chippewa culture. They wore copper bracelets and beaded necklaces. Also important in the Chippewa society were tribal tattoos and face paint. These distinct markings were used in times of war to differentiate between tribes.

They did many different kinds of artwork including, beadwork, quill embroidery, and carving art’s. The Beadwork can be grouped together by beaded leather and beaded strands. The beads in the beadwork were originally made out of natural materials like shells, stones, etc… They made Bags, Belt Buckles, And Earrings.Some of crow indian artwork is displayed at the American museum of natural history, and more artwork is in private collections and in other museums. Some of their beadwork they made they wore.

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 Navajo traditionalists view their land as representing the essence of their being," says Jennie Joe of the Native American Research and Training Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who conducted a study

The Navajo believe there are two classes of beings, The Holy people and the Earth people. The Earth people of the Navajo must do everything they can to maintain the peace and harmony of Mother Earth since they are an integral part of the universe. According to Discover Navajo, “it is believed that centuries ago the Holy People taught the Navajo how to live the right way and to conduct their many acts of everyday life“ (Navajo culture, 2008). The Navajo people were taught to live one with animals, insects, man, and plants. Mt. Blanca to the east, Mt. Taylor to the south, San Francisco Peak to the west and Mr. Hesperus to the North near Durango, Colorado, were put in place by the holy people in the four different directions. Jet Black, Turquoise, White Shell, and Yellow Abalone represent the four directions. The Navajo culture uses the number four to symbolize many other different things. For example, there are four seasons and four distinct directions.

Ojibway Indian men usually wore breechcloths and leggings. The women wore dresses and kept their hair in neat braids. Their shoes were called moccasins. They were made out of deer or moose hide. Customarily, they wore leather headbands with feathers in the back. The Ojibway Indians made pictures, belts, purses, and other objects out of beads. They loved to use wampum beads in their artwork. Wampum beads are purple and white beads made from shells. The Ojibway Indians make beadart by sewing the beads onto leather so they can be placed individually or sewn into strips. They make the strips by stitching the beads into a string. This is usually done by hand or sometimes with a bowloom. Beadart takes years to master and is very time consuming for the Ojibway Indians. The Ojibway also made dream catchers out of sticks and feathers. They believed that the dream catchers would protect them from bad dreams.

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