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| 0805 An old Navajo woman and his granddaughter |
Posted on 31.08.2013, 12.06.2015
The Navajo are the largest federally recognized tribe of the United States, with more then 300,000 members, and the Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body, which manages the Navajo Indian reservation (in the Four Corners area), which extends into the states of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Diné Bikéyah, or Navajoland, one of the most arid and barren portions of the Great American Desert, is larger than 10 of the 50 states in America. Regarding the name, the Spaniards used the term Apachu de Nabajo for the first time in the 1620s to refer to the people in the Chama Valley region, and since 1640s began to use the term "Navajo" to refer to the Diné (meaning "The People"), as prefer they to call themselves. The Navajo are speakers of a Na-DenéSouthern Athabaskan languages known as Diné bizaad. The importance of their contribution, as code talkers, at the Japanese defeat in the Pacific in WWII is well known.
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| 1659 Navajo Indian (Saltwater clan) Medicine Man (1) |
It seems that the Athabaskan ancestors of the Navajo and Apache entered the Southwest around 1400 CE, and the oral history indicates a long relationship between Navajo and Pueblo people. Initially, the Navajo were hunters and gatherers, but subsequent they adopted crop farming techniques from the Pueblo peoples, and sheep and goats breeding from Spaniards. In addition, the practice of spinning and weaving wool into blankets and clothing became common and eventually developed into a form of highly valued artistic expression. For a long period prior to the acquisition from Mexico of the territory now forming the northern portion of Arizona and New Mexico, the Navajo undertook raids on the New Mexican Indian pueblos and the white settlements along the Rio Grande, for the capture of livestock, although both Indians and Mexicans also were taken and enslaved. Of course, the Mexicans lost no opportunity to retaliate.
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| 1660 Navajo Indian (Saltwater clan) Medicine Man (2) |
In 1846 the Navajo came into official contact with the United States, which shortly established forts on their territory. Relations have been strained from the beginning, raids reaching a peak in 1860-1861 (period known as Naahondzood, "the fearing time"). In 1864, after a series of skirmishes and battles, about 8.500 Navajo men, women and children were forced away from their homelands to the Bosque Redondo, an experimental reservation about 480 km away on the plains of eastern New Mexico. This project was a failure, so a new treaty was made in 1868, one of its provisions being the purchase of 15.000 sheep to replenish the exterminated flocks. Thousands of people died along the way, during the four years spent at the Bosque Redondo, and during the walk home in 1868. In July, 7304 Navaho arrived at Fort Wingate on the way to their old home, where they have since lived in peace, even if the abuses upon them continued.
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