Navajo Indians

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.

Navajo culture distinctively took hold in the four corners area of the Colorado Plateau around 100 A.D., although they are believed to have been around for centuries before then. Disliking the term “Navajo Indians”, they refer to themselves as the “Diné” which means “The People” or “Children of the Holy People”.

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.

Myths are of great importance in the Navajo community because it is believed that it was a way to connect to the Holy People. The myth helps recognize symbolized supernatural in chants, translates the meaning of songs, and explains the importance of the ritual objects (Lamphere 1969). For example, there is myth of the two heroes who had gone through some misfortunes but thanks to the supernatural’s aid, the two heroes created a

The lifestyle was fairly lax yet at the same time they knew when they needed to prepare for war or a new move. Some of the customs the Cheyenne had included the smoking of a peace pipe and the prayer made before each smoke. Another tradition was their story telling. Skilled story-telling Indians performed all stories told and these stories were about true-life situations. The Cheyenne tribe actually passed on these stories as well as their customs, religious ceremonies, and traditions orally from generation to generation. This could be the reason on why the Cheyenne were not actually discovered until the 1600s. One of the largest beliefs of the Cheyenne had to do with religion, though. They believed in two deities: the Wise One Above and a God who lived beneath the ground. Also, there were four spirits that lived at the points of the compass that they followed everywhere (Lewis). Because the culture of many Indian tribes differed greatly from the United States, there were conflicts between whites and Indians.

To complete the paper I will be researching and presenting, secondary data will be reviewed initially through the university library using a range of information sources such as the JSTOR system, ProQuest, academic and commercial abstracts, bibliographic databases, and Internet search engines. The website GratonRancheria.com will be used as primary data for the analyzation of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

The Navajo are the largest federally recognized Native American Indian tribe in the United States. The Diné Bikéyah or “Navajoland" encompasses 27,000 square miles residing within Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico and contains a population of over 220,000 natives. The

Numbering roughly 250,000, the Navajo reservation covers approximately 25,000 square miles. Window Rock located in the North Eastern part of Arizona is the capital of the Navajo Nation. As one of the poorest regions in the country, isolation, culture, traditions, as well as economic status affect the Navajo communities’ wellbeing and healthcare. While the elderly Navajo population grows about three percent a year, life expectancy is “73.7 years compared to 76 years for the general population” (Mercer, 1996, p 184). Elderly Navajo members are revered due to their wisdom and life experience. Other things that negatively affect the healthcare of the Navajo are little running water or electricity, no phones, rough rugged terrain and most must drive more than one hour to a facility that provides health care. The Navajo home or hogan entrance must face east to welcome the sun for daily blessings. Made of tree bark, mud and wooden poles, the hogan is windowless. The majority of the Navajo population has no indoor plumbing. Merely 38% of Navajo people actually have electricity, heat and plumbing (McCauley, 2004, p. 47).

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.

When first considering the Navajo-Hopi land dispute as a topic of research, I anticipated a relatively light research paper discussing the local skirmishes between the two tribes. However, my research has yielded innumerable volumes of facts, figures and varying viewpoints on a struggle that has dominated the two tribes for over 100 years. The story is an ever-changing one, evolving from local conflict to forcible relocation to big business interests. The incredible breadth of the dispute's history makes it impossible to objectively cover the entire progression from all viewpoints. I will therefore focus on current issues - and their historical causes - facing the two tribes as they mutually approach

The Hopi tribe were villagers and farmers. Their villages were located in the lofty plateaus of northern Arizona. The Hopi tribe have kept their culture intact due to living

The Navajo Indians of the Southwestern United states have a distinct social organization, kinship, and a both traditional and biomedical way that they approach sickness and healing. Their social organization revolves around their community and the Earth. Kinship for the Navajo is matriarchal and they are a pastoral society. The traditional Navajo have medicine men that the tribe goes to for any sickness and healing that needs to be done. The modern Navajo has established the Indian Health Service as their standard medical facility and agency. I will go into more detail on all three areas of the tribe’s society of the Navajo people throughout this paper.

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.

Residing in the Southwest United States, the Navajo Indian tribe is one of the largest tribes in America today. In their own language, they refer to themselves as Diné which means “the people”. They are an old tribe with descendants tracing their roots back to the thirteenth century. The first contact that the Navajos had with white settlers was during the Mexican American War in 1846. The United States conducted peaceful relations with the Navajo for over fifteen years. Forts were built to help protect the Navajo from Spanish/Mexican raids on the Navajo’s cattle. Eventually, a new military commander, James H. Carleton, was named in New Mexico and he began to raid Navajo lands with a vengeance. He ordered the Navajo to surrender. When

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