244 



is warmed by rocks heated without. When any one dies in a hogan or 

 near it, it is at once destroyed, being considered a "devil house." Brush 

 corral, windbreaks, lean-tos, and open sheds, serve as dwellings in summer. 



They are quite religious. Their deities are nature gods, animal gods, and 

 local gods. The most reverenced deitj^ is Estsanatlahi (the ever-chaiigiug 

 year), called a woman who changes or uejuvenates herself. 



They have great stores of legendary and mythic lore, innumeral)le songs, 

 and prayer-chants. They are very fond of games and races. Their prin- 

 cipal dance lasts nine nights and parts of ten days. The culminating per- 

 formance in the medicine cultus is the Yavachai ceremonies in which pic- 

 tures of their deities are painted in dry powders on the floor of the med- 

 icine lodge. 



They were quite warlike when we began to learn about them in the 17th 

 century. At that time and until the occupancy of their country by the 

 United States, they kept up an almost continual marauding war against 

 the Pueblos and whites. The United States made treaties with them in 

 1846 and '49 but these were both outrageously broken. "Kit" Carson cor- 

 nered them in 1863 — killed all their sheep, captured practically the whole 

 tribe, and took them to Fort Summer at Bosque Redondo on the Rio Pecos 

 in New Mexico where they were kept till 1867. They were then returned to 

 their own land and given a new supply of sheep. Since then, they have 

 remained at peace. They are now a prosperous people. 



They are jovial and much given to merriment and jest, and are not 

 stoical like the eastern Indian. On the whole, "they are celebrated for their 

 intelligence and good order." They are also great and shrewd traders and 

 are considered "the noblest of the American aborigines." 



Their reserved lands, known as the "Navajo Country," cover 25,725 square 

 miles, or an area of sixty-three square miles larger than the District of 

 Columbia, Delaware, New Jersey, Vermont, the Panama Canal Zone. Guam, 

 our possessions in the Samoan group, Rhode Island, and Porto Rico com- 

 bined — about one thousand square miles larger than Greece. For the pur- 

 pose of administration, this vast area is divided into the following reserva- 

 tions : Pueblo Bonito, Hopi (whose inhabitants are partly Pueblos), San 

 Juan (Shiprock), Western Navajo, Navajo (Fort Defiance), and Navajo 

 Extension. 



They have never been inuler very severe discipline of the govei'nment. 

 They are wanderers in the full sense of that word. Like the Irishman's flea, 

 they are here this moment but where will they be the next sun? Tliough 

 placed on the largest body of reserved land in the United States, they 

 wander off of it at will and many isolated families live beyond the reserva- 

 tion boundaries in all directions. Like the noble Arab, they move about 

 with their flocks of sheep and goats, horses and a few cattle. They" may 

 be in a certain wash or canyon today and miles from there in another to- 

 morrow, as the scarcity of grass and water necessitates. They have but 

 few traps of any sort, so that moving from place to place is an easy and 

 ever round of life. In a few favored places, they may raise a little corn 

 and a few melons, the extent of their agricultural efforts. Also, like the 



