Navajo

History

The earliest identifiable traces of the Navajo are the 500-year-old remains of hogans, rounded houses of poles and brush covered with earth that were, and still are in contemporary times, distinctively Navajo. Current thinking of archaeologists proposes that the Navajo and other Athapaskan (or Athabascan) people migrated from Canada as hunters and gatherers into what is now the U.S. Southwest by 1100 AD.

The Diné themselves describe their history as a series of worlds surviving surging floodwaters to form sacred mountains with holy people. The Navajo world is closely tied to the land, as each event of creation is linked to specific locations revered to this day.

When the Spanish entered New Mexico in 1540, the area north of the Pueblos was occupied by bands speaking an Athabascan language; they came to be called “Apaches.” For 200 years, relations with the Pueblos varied from being hostile to more of a host-guest relationship. The Navajo emerged as more strongly influenced by the Pueblos, whereas the Athabascan-speaking Kiowa-Apache experienced a greater Plains influence. The Pueblo influence is seen in the Navajo's agricultural system, their matrilineal (mother-based) system of descent, and the practices of weaving and sand paintings.

Encounters between the Navajo and the United States began with the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, with the consequence that the Navajo people as of 1848 resided in U.S. territory. Early agreements with the first military expeditions led to misunderstandings, raids, retaliations, and still more treaties. These early treaties were virtually useless, since the Navajo hold no centralized authority and the federal government never grasped the autonomous nature of Navajo bands. Hostile engagements were numerous, in part because the Navajos raided Anglo settlements to find and free thousands of their people who had been enslaved.

Beginning in 1862, Colonel Kit Carson was charged with controlling the Navajos. His troops [Page 971]methodically destroyed fields and killed tribal people who resisted. Thousands were forced out by the threat of starvation and made to take the “Long Walk,” over a 20-day period in 1863, of 300 miles across New Mexico to Fort Sumner in the eastern part of the state. The imprisoned Navajos were vulnerable to disease, especially to smallpox; those who survived were taught new farming techniques, the principles of Christianity, and the building of adobe houses. With the end of the Civil War, and of the perceived need to closely control the Navajos, a relaxation of government policy took place. The Navajos returned in 1868 to their former territory, straddling the Arizona-New Mexico state line, and returned to their accustomed practices of farming and raising small livestock, such as sheep and goats.

Three Navajo women weaving (1914). The early Navajos were nomadic hunters and gatherers, and Navajo weaving tells a story of their encounters and adaptations with neighboring cultures over 300 years. Weaving continues to be an exciting expression of Navajo culture.

Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsc-00135.

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