LAND OF HOFI AND NAVAJO 121 



blanket for which they are celebrated; from 

 this beginning the Navajo became a pastoral 

 people. 



They are true Bedouins in their habits, con- 

 stantly moving from place to place with their 

 flocks, living in hogans and defying civiliza- 

 tion. Some of them, where water is sufficiently 

 plentiful to irrigate small areas of land, raise 

 maize, fruit, and melons, but agriculture is sec- 

 ondary to sheep herding, and once their crops 

 are gathered they move and continue to move 

 until planting time comes again. 



The Navajo is exceedingly fond of personal 

 adornment. He dresses, when he can afford it, 

 in velvet, and bedecks himself in ornaments of 

 turquoise and silver. Some of their silver- 

 smiths, working with the crudest implements, 

 fashion necklaces, bracelets, and other jewelry 

 of real artistic merit. Their pottery, however, 

 is of very indifferent quality, as is also their 

 basketware. 



Like most of our North American Indians, 

 the Navajos are found to be talkative, joviil, 

 and good-natured on acquaintance, though 

 silent and apparently sullen in the presence of 

 strangers. They say that the supremest crea- 

 tion of the Great Spirit was the Navajo Indian; 

 the next lower the Paiute ; then the Hopi ; and, 



