Evening star., 1902-06-07
THE NAVAJO. WOMAN
Her Rule in the Tribe is a
Primitive Survival.
OWNS HER CHILDREN
sURRENDERs NEITHER PROP
ERTY NOR INDEPENDENCE.
Tribal Myths Embodied in Music
Corn Grinding
Song

Written for The Evening STAR
The Navajo woman, who has made her
tribe the most famous of all living Indian
races by means of her great and excellent
invention the Navajo blanket, occupies a
social position of great Independence Her
property rights are carefully respected.
She owns much Of the wealth of the tribe,
and her children belong to her alone. A
woman may have hundreds of sheep when
she marries, and not one becomes the prop
erty of her husband. Descent is traced
through the female line. 1t is a survival
of the primitive matriarchatc.
The Navajo woman has no permanent
home. The progress of the tribe has been
greatly impeded by It's dark superstition
that every death is caused directly by
Chinde, the devil, and that evil spirits lin
ger about the dead body. The house is
never occupied again. The corpse is buried
in the floor and the house pulled down over
it; and a Navajo would freeze before he
would make fire from the logs of one Of
those deserted heaps. So the Navajo 'ho-
gam is a poor temporary affair, a mere
circular hut of logs and stones, with a hole
in the roof for the smoke and a blanket
for the door. In the summer the Navajo
woman loves to move into brush "wicky-
up, made of greaSewood bOugnS. There
she sets up her loom in the shadow of the
rocks and lives in the open air all sum-
mer.
Her Work.
The Navajo woman can make very good
baskets, but she does not care to do 1t Of
ten, preferring to buy them from her Apache
cousin. She makes them herself only when
they are wanted for some sacred purpose;
for medicine, marriage or other ceremonies.
She tans buckskin and makes her own foot
hiph hot
She knits stockings without any toes or
heels. She makes but little pottery, and
that is coarse and poor, and she does very
little of that bead embroidery which seems
the distinguishing art Of all Indian women.
In fact, the Navajo woman has found her
artistic development in the famous blanket,
which seems to be the passion of her life.
She made it first of the "bayeta" cloth,
which she got from the Spaniards. This
she unraveled and twisted two or three
OF its strands into one, making a very
strong fiber. Then she wove it into a fab
ric almost waterproof and pra ctically indie
structible. The bayeta cloth supplied the
distinctive red of the blanket. For the
other colors she dyed her wool with dyes
made by herself from herbs of the country
OF late years the blanket has degenerated
She has put cotton in it; she has used the
common yarn and dyes furnished by the
traders. Furthermore, she is as initiative
as Japanese, and when she first beheld
the famboyant advertisement of Blanks
L
tucket or the tomato blushing upon it's can
she straightway wove them into her blan-
ket with unique and startling effect. But
when she sought to sell these progressive
products to the white man she found he
would not buy, which puzzled her very
much, they being his own patterns.
The Hyde exploring expedition, which Is
conducted in connection with the American
Museum of Natural History In New York,
Is doing a great deal to- restore the blankets
to the old standards. Dr. George H. Pep
per, who is connected with this expedition,
has one blanket for which he would not
take thousand dollars. Every Navajo
man who has ever seen it has uttered gut
tural CALCULATIONS to the effect that the
woman must have been crazy and that if
T. were known who she was she would be
Killed. 1t is one of the greatest pieces Of
sacrilege ever perpetrated Every figure on
1t is sacred, and reveals to an impious
world some secret of the medicine men:
some tale of the inner religion of the tribe
1t is sad commentary on the danger of
intrusting state secrets in certain direc-
items.
Owners of Property.
The women are the sheep owners of the
tribe. They have focks ranging from
twenty-five to $500 in number, and under
stand perfectly well how to drive a sharp
bargain for their wool They get a good
many pounds of wool from a sheep, and it
sells from to - cents.
One would not think that crops could be
raised in this land of drouth, but the Nava-
jo woman plants her garden In the canon
bottoms, at the foot of the mesas. where it
catches all moisture from the table land
above. She does not raise potatoes, al
though this is the original home of the
potato, which grows wild in Navajo land.
But she raises wheat, beans, squashes,
peaches and few apples, a little alfalfa,
and most of a1l-corn. Corn is a part of
the Navajo woman's life. From the cradle
TO the grave 1t has part in every social
and religious ceremony.
She grlnds 1t on metate-a slab of stone
holoWed in the center-crnshng the kernels
by hand with another stone: and she can
make one of the most delicious dishes in the
world of green corn ground in this way.
She cuts the corn from the fresh ears
grinds it into soft, milky mass and throws
it into the boiling water with a little salt
and few pnches of aromatic wild herbs.
Then she stirs it until it is well cooked and
serves up in the food basket dish fit for
an epicure.
Unlike most Indian women she is not
cursed with lazy husband The Navajo
is willing to work at any kind of remunera-
tive labor He works on the farm he mas
great herds of horses and he is almost as
celebrated for his silver work as his wife is
Tor her blankets. He beats out those beau
tiful, barbaric silver disks which the Nav
aJo woman wears upon her belt. A belt of
this kind is worth from $40 to $50, and
serves as a bank account to the family;
being pawned in times of stress and re-
deemed in better days.
Indian music is one of the most interest
ing things in ethnology The Navajos have
thousands of songs, which embody their
tribal myths in a very fascinating way.
But curiously enough. the Navajo woman
never sings. Indian women of other tribes
have their own songs and Sing in the cere-
monial songs with the men. Her Pueblo
women neighbors have many fine songs
notably the corn grinding song of the Zuni
women, which is very wild and musical
But the Navajo woman is quite songless
Her blanket Is her art This SILENT primi-
tive woman. tending her ffocks or sitting
before her loom, on the Vast sun n-baked
mesas or the sad southwest" is quaint
and interesting figure y rs
AS to the ,ASnaS,o