The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1913-04-18

f1E Navajo lHuldu Iesol FoeAoA'
lying partly in New Mexico
and partly in Arizona, over
laps the Continental divide
like a gigantic saddle blanket,
and may be briefly described further
as a great broken plateau OF some
$4,000 square miles in area, semi-arid
In its climatic features and overgrown
quite generally with hardy growth OF
vegetation, including many valuable
forage plants unsurpassed for grazing
purpOses-a resource long since turn
ed to account by it's interesting In
habitants, the Navajos, the owners OF
100000 sheep, the income from which
renders them practically Independent
Of the whites and the benevolent pa
ternalism of the federal government.
At the time of the American occupa~
ton of New Mexico in 1848, the NNava-
JOS had become quite generally a pas
toral people, subsisting upon their
focks, which were added to, accord
ing to accounts of the times, by others
stolen from the Pueblos and the Mex
lean settlers with whom they were not
infrequently at enmity. During the
COS when the tribe was at war with
the United States their herds and
property were ruthlessly killed and
destroyed and the men, women and
children carried off in captivity to
Fort Sumner
Children Belong to Mother.
Following their release and return
to the reservation, the United States
government, in 1869, gave them 3d.
600 sheep and 1000 goats, which by
careful outstanding they have increas-
ed to the present extensive dimen-
sons, becoming the principal posses
sion Of each family and it's chief means
Of support, the docks of the more
thrifty, In many instances, numbering
several thousand head, thus enabling
the possessors to live in comparative
ease or aff1uence even. It is, indeed,
the exception rather than the rule to
find family without herd of sheep.
They, in fact, are the royal road to-
power and influence in the tribe, ones
rank being automatically regulated
by the size of his flock, the greater
ones possessions the more exalted his
position.
AS among other primitive peoples,
woman's standing in the Navajo tribe
Is high. descent and Inheritance being
In her line, the children belonging to
the mother and her clan. By tribal
prerogative she is the principal prop
do
and sheep being hers exclusively. and
1t Is on her that their care and man.
agement largely devolve.
The scarcity of water and grass at
certain seasons, the difference In altt-
tude OF the various sections, the conse-
Quent attendant climatic variations
and the peculiar character of the plant
life on the reservation make it neces-
sary to move the docks during certain
seasons. For these reasons, to which
must be coupled the itinerant pro-
clivities of the tribe, the Navajo has
no permanent abode, his movements
being regulated to very great extent
by the waxing and waning of the mas
lures, state of affairs that fits in well
with Navajo disposition to wander. in.
herited from his forbears, who lived
by hunting and plundering the
change from rowing hunter to
nomadic herdsman being an easy and
perhaps natural one.
Ranges Divided.
In the summer months the family
repair with their focks to the high
mountainous areas, where thrive mag
nificent belts of timber consisting Of
yellow pine. fir. spruce. scrub oak
pinon, juniper and cedar. F1ourishing
within these timbered tracts are mn
merous grassy stretches that furnish
excellent pasturage for the herds
Then, too, the climate is more con.
genial and water more abundant than
on the lower semiarid sections else
where
AS rule, whether on the summer
or winter pasture lands, the family "a.
cupy the same locality, in each case
year after year, the range being d.
vlded In some manner among the va
rious clans that constitute the Navajo
tribe, and again subdivided among the
families. where it is handed down
through some system Of entail from
one generation to another. In se-
cluded place remote from springs. Wa
tering sites and trails near small
arabic tract, the summer hogan Il Sit
uated, near which are the corrals tor
the sheep and ponies.