336 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 196 



this agency. The agent there visited Ramah more than once, and 

 Navaho delegations went to Crownpoint from time to time — primarily 

 to seek protection against land encroachment on the part of Anglos. 

 But this was a full day's journey by automobile in those days and 2 

 days by horse, so that the effective relationship was minimal. In 

 1934 the six separate Navaho agencies were merged into one "Navajo 

 Service" with headquarters at Window Rock, Ariz. The Ramah 

 Navaho felt neglected (as indeed they were) by this central organiza- 

 tion, and in 1942, on their own petition, they were transferred to the 

 United Pueblos Agency at Albuquerque but with a nearby subagency 

 at Black Rock. (Landgraf, 1954.) 



ACCULTURATION 



A properly weighted account of the degree of acculturation of the 

 Ramah Navaho is difficult to achieve. It is all too easy to overempha- 

 size one side or the other. By selecting certain data,^ one could 

 convincingly depict Ramah Navahos over the age of 20 (with a 

 handful of exceptions) as essentially "aboriginal" apart from food 

 patterns, technology, and economy. Selecting other equally veri- 

 fiable data one could pictm-e the group as hardly Navaho at aU save 

 for language, women's costume, ceremonial practices, and a few other 

 particulars. The truth, of course, resides at a very compficated, 

 mixed, hard-to-specify area between these two extremes. There is 

 no doubt that the Ramah Navaho have had long-continued and, in 

 some respects, intensive contacts with non-Navaho cultures. AU 

 Navaho subcultures — ^to varying extent and in varying particulars — 

 exhibit the results of direct or indirect Puebloan influence. Ramah 

 is no exception. An intensive study indicates that two traits of 

 material culture have been borrowed from Zuni during the post-Fort 

 Sumner period. There are presumptive grounds for postulating 

 Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache influence at Ramah but it has 

 not been possible to identify any elements with certainty. 



As far as change deriving ultimately from European cultures is 

 concerned, one can of course point immediately to domestic animals, 

 certain cultivated plants, work in silver, and many features of diet 

 and material culture. Dependence upon the American Government 

 and the larger American economy have had their consequences. 



3 For example, students of the Navaho are agreed that the wearing of the hair knot by men (and especially 

 yoimger men) is a good index of conservatism. At Ramah, in the 1940-50 decade, not only six old men but 

 three boys under 20 held to this hairdress. This is a high proportion for this date. Another evidence of 

 Ramah conservatism is that this is one of the two or three areas where pottery (both painted and coolcing) 

 was made (as late as 1938; cf. Tschopik, 1941) and one of a very few areas where Navaho basketry is still 

 made. Finally, one could note that polygyny remains more common at Ramah than in aU save two or 

 three remote and inaccessible Navaho local groups. 



