118 SADDLE AND CAMP 



be said there is no well-defined Navajo type 

 representative of the tribe as a whole. In gen- 

 eral, however, the Navajo is taller, his features 

 cleaner cut, and he is handsomer than the 

 Hopi. 



This lack of definiteness in type is undoubt- 

 edly due to mixture of race. Anthropologists 

 who have studied their legends and traced their 

 migrations conclude that small, disconnected 

 groups or families, wandering into New Mex- 

 ico and Arizona, formed the nucleus of the 

 tribe. Some of these stocks were Athapascan, 

 but there were also accessions of Tanoan, Yu- 

 man, Shoshonean, Keresan, and Aryan stocks, 

 and finally numerous clans from the Pacific 

 coast, undoubtedly of the Athapascan family, 

 joined them and influenced their language to 

 such an extent that the conglomerate people, 

 now thoroughly welded into one, adopted an 

 Athapascan dialect. This mixture of Indian 

 races naturally resulted in a more or less in- 

 definite type, and though the Navajo, like the 

 Apache, speaks an Athapascan dialect, he bears 

 a much closer resemblance to the Pueblo In- 

 dian than to the Apache. 



Navajo legends tell us that the gods created 

 the first clan, in Arizona, some five hundred 

 years ago. Previous inhabitants of the earth 



