Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1913 — NAVAJOS are Self-Supporting [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NAVAJOS are Self-Supporting

THE Navajo Indian reservation, lying partly in New Mexico and partly in Arizona, overlaps the Continental divide like a gigantic saddle blanket, and may be briefly described further as a great broken plateau of some 25,000 square miles in area, semi-arid in Its climatic features and overgrown quite generally with a hardy growth of vegetation, Including many valuable forage plants unsurpassed for grazing purposes—a resource long since turned to account by its interesting inhabitants, the Navajos, the owners of 2,000,000 sheep, the Income from which renders them practically Independent of the whites and the benevolent paternalism of the federal government. At the time of the American occupa tlon ot New Mexico in 1848, the Navajos had become quite generally a pastoral ' people, subsisting upon their flocks, which -were added to, according to accounts of the times, by others stolen from the Pueblos and the Mexican settlers with whom they were not infrequently at enmity. During the '6o’s 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 oft in captivity to 1 Fort Sumner. Children Belong to Mother. Following their release and return to the reservation, the United States government, In 1869, gave them 30,009 shee/ and 2,000 goats, which by careful husbanding they have Increased to the present extensive dlmensons, becoming the principal possession of each family and Its chief means of support, the flocks of the more thrifty, in many Instances, numbering several thousand head, thus enabling the possessors to live in comparative ease or affluence even. It is, Indeed, the exception rather than the rule to find a family without a herd of sheep. They, in fact, are the royal road to 4 power and influence in the tribe, one’s rank being automatically regulated by the size of his flock, the greater one’s possessipna 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 property owner, the lands, houses, crops and sheep being hers exclusively, ana It Is on her that their care and msnagement largely devolve. The scarcity of water and grass at certain seasons, the difference In altitude of the various sections, the consequent attendant climatic variations and the peculiar character of the plant life on the reservation make It necessary to move the flocks during certain seasons. For these reasons, to which must be coupled the itinerant proclivities of the tribe, the Navajo has no permanent abode, his movements being regulated to a very great extent by the waxing and waning of the pastures, a state of affairs that fits In well with Navajo disposition to wander, Inherited from his forbears, who lived by hunting and plundering, the change from a roving hunter to a nomadic herdsman being an easy and perhaps a natural one. Ranges Divided. In the summer months the family repair with their flocks to the high 4 mountainous areas, where thrive magnificent belts of timber consisting of yellow pine, fir, spruce, scrub oak, pinon, juniper and cedar. Flourishing within these timbered tracts are numerous grassy stretches that furnish excellent pasturage for the herds. Then, too, the climate is more congenial and water more abundant than on the lower semi-arid sections elsewhere. As a rule, whether on the summer or ylnter pasture lands, the family occupy the same locality, in each case, year after year, the range being divided in some manner among the 'various 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 a secluded place remote from springs, war taring sites and trails near a small arable track, the summer hogan is situated, near which are the corrals for the sheep and ponies.

The size of the flocks owned by the individual families vary considerably In some cases. The number possessed by the smallest holders Is rarely less than 250 head. While the more wealthy have as many as 2,000 or more. Soma of the wealthiest hold at their disposal from 6,000 to 10,000 head, but instances of this kind are few and are not known to exist in but ten or twelve eases. Of seventy-seven herds counted near Kearns canyon, Arizona, the average sized flock was found to be very nearly 700 head, which to probably a fair estimate for other sections of the reservation. If there to any difference elsewhere it will exceed these figures rather than fall below them. A herd of this size will easily support an average Navajo family of two adults and three children. The wool sold direct to the traders as it to taken from the sheep should bring 1300. If made into blankets it will exceed this amount by two or three times. Adding to this the returns from the sale of a few lambs or of the matured animals, It toobvioug that the ordinary Navajo family can live easily off the income from their flocks, considering that they are at no cash outlay, except for their clothing, flour, coffee and a few other domestic n* cesslties exclusive of meat, which to supplied from the herd. While no definite figures are obtainable, it seems very probable that the Navajos have on an average 100 sheep per capita for every man, woman and child oq the reservation, which to amply sufficient to solve the bread-and-butter problem for them for generations to come,' granting, of course, that they do not lose their herds from epidemics or from unfavorable range conditions.