Navajo Tribe Research Paper

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.

There is great respect through the Navajo Culture with regards to their kinship system. They are very traditional towards they religion and

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

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 family is usually a nuclear one that consists of the husband, his wife and their children living in small wooden and mud houses called a Hogan, and live in small communities with other families. Although the mother is the main nurturer and authority figure of the family, the father still plays a large role in helping the mother raise the children and teaching them manners and their legends and chants. It is also the father’s responsibility for punishing and teaching respect to his children. And as his sons’ get older, it is not uncommon for the father to become his sons’ companion.

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.

Because Navajo resistance had been scattered, the tribe had not been brought to Bosque Redondo all at one time, with some Navajo being confined to the reservation gradually upon capture or surrender over the years, and other evading capture entirely. In Navajo oral histories there exist stories of ancestors who escaped the Reservation, one such story by a Navajo states, “My great-grandmother was captured...and taken to Hweeldi as a slave. She was barefooted all the time. There she cooked for the soldiers every day until she got tired of cooking, and decided to run away. Her feet became blistered from running” What can be learned from stories like these are how Navajo understood the position of those who were taken captive an placed on the reservation.

The Navajo people were non-existent at a point in time, many different people from a conglomeration of many different tribes made up the Navajo, or Dine, people. The people came together to form their own distinctive culture less than one hundred years before the Spanish Conquest. In the Navajo culture many aspects of life are important. Some of the most important aspects are the ties to their spiritual beliefs and the way that they tell stories and creations of those beliefs. Many Navajo men and women are tied to their culture by the items they create, these sacred items include rug weaving, silversmithing, and pottery making.

The Navajo (or Dine), which means “The People” are located on the Navajo reservation, spanning more than 27,000 miles, at the four corners of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. The 2010 Census Brief reports

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.

(Bos, 2013) This treaty represented victory to the Navajos. The agreement defined the Navajo Nation a sovereign

This can be a problematic idea to clarify. Maybe it will help to compare the Navajo's overall view of history with that of other Americans. The Navajo believes that his people were made in fictional times through numerous incredible quests, each of which provided increase

Indian organization reflected a no matter how you look at it larger part administer government, yet political structure, including the some portion of women, varied extensively from tribe to tribe. The Indians religious convictions For the most part polytheistic, Indian religion was more moved than their legislative issues.

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

The Navajo Indians emulated the pueblo. The shed their animal skin clothing for cotton and learned quickly how to farm. These people settled in between the Rio Grande and the Grand Canyon. They herded sheep and grew corn in the valleys. They were a peaceful group of people, and were one with their surroundings.