334 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 196 



conflicts and indeed skirmishes with the Zuni both before Fort Sum- 

 ner (1864-68) and in the period immediately after Fort Sumner. 

 After trading stores became well established at Zuni in the early- 

 eighties, the Ramah Navaho went there occasionally to trade. During 

 the period of Navaho troubles with the American military (1848-64), 

 some of the ancestral Ramah families spent considerable time among 

 the Chiricahua and Mescalero, and this associaton was continued at 

 Fort Sumner. Another sort of contact occurred during the expedi- 

 tion against Geronimo, for three Navahos who settled at Ramah in 

 1883-85 had served as American scouts, and two of them took Apache 

 wives. 



Ramah Navaho contacts with other Indian groups, though less 

 frequent and sometimes indirect, are also of long duration. Since 

 one main line of the Ramah Navaho derives from the "enemy Navaho" 

 (Underbill, 1956, pp. 58-59) of the Mount Taylor region, some of the 

 ancestors of the Ramah Navaho had been in at least intermittent 

 contact with Spanish-speaking peoples since about 1750. In this 

 area, steady relationships began after Spanish-Americans settled 

 about 6 miles east of Ramah between 1860 and 1865. The Ramah 

 Navaho have many stories of a fight that occurred with Spanish- 

 Americans in this Tinaja valley shortly before the Fort Sumner 

 captivity. In 1882, Atarque and (somewhat later) two stiU tinier 

 Spanish-American villages were established at the southern end of 

 the Ramah Navaho territory. 



Even before the United States took over New Mexico some of its 

 citizens had been in at least the area of Zuni (TeUing, MS., 1952, p. 14). 

 With the rush to California the route from Albuquerque across the 

 Ramah country and through Zuni was traversed by a sizable number 

 of parties, both private and Governmental (ibid., pp. 15-22). The 

 Ramah Navaho had stories of an encounter with at least one of these 

 prior to Fort Sumner (B^uckhohn, 1956 a). 



Mormon missionaries reached the Ramah Navaho in 1876 (Telling, 

 1953). In 1880 three traders were licensed at Zuni, and Ramah 

 Navahos traded there occasionally as well as at Fort Wingate (TeUing, 

 MS., 1952, p. 148). Ramah village was founded in 1882. A few other 

 non-Mormon Anglos (cattlemen and traders) settled on the borders 

 of the Ramah country or 20 or 30 miles distant, Ramah Navaho 

 accounts tell of a trip now and then to trade south of Gallup, at the 

 Spanish- American town of San Rafael, and at Nutria. There were 

 small stores in the Ramah area itself, but none seems to have had a 

 steady existence until the late 1890's. In the first two decades of the 

 present century more cattle ranchers, traders, and other Anglo- 

 Americans followed the Mormons into the Ramah area. In the early 



