338 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [B0LL. 196 



20 or more adults (primarily women) who were staunchly or weakly 

 committed to a Fundamentalist Christian faith. No Ramah Navaho 

 has ever been a Roman Catholic, although in the early days at Tinaja 

 the Spanish- Americans made some ejfforts at conversion, giving 

 Christian names, serving as godparents, and the like. 



All in all, in 1950 the customs, thought ways, and values of the 

 Ramah Navaho were dominantly Navaho. Not more than 20 indi- 

 viduals, all of them under 40 years of age, would have to be excepted 

 from this generahzation. Many more, to be sure, had absorbed to 

 some degree European ideas and values as is reflected in the intricately 

 mingled responses to the value-orientations questionnaire (Kluckhohn 

 and Romney, 1964). There were, and are, local differences. In 

 general, Navahos residing habitually within 5 or 10 miles of Ramah 

 village are appreciably more acculturated than those living in the 

 less accessible areas farther south and southeast. World War II did 

 initiate a period of accelerated culture change affecting the whole 

 area. Twelve Ramah Navahos were in the armed forces for various 

 periods (Vogt, 1951). A much larger number of men, sometimes 

 accompanied by their wives and children, were employed for weeks or 

 months outside the Ramah area. This began the habit of wagework 

 away from Ramah for weeks or months which has been followed by 

 many in the economically difficult years since 1946 and especially 

 following the droughts of 1950 and 1951. 



Nevertheless, all who observed other than superficially the daily 

 lives of Ramah Navahos in the 1950 epoch agree that most of these 

 lives, apart from material circumstances and small changes in social 

 organization, were far more similar to those of their grandparents 

 than to those of theu' contemporary non-Indian neighbors. One is 

 tempted to say that in the intangible realm almost the only major 

 and general consequence of contact with Anglos was the distrust and 

 bitterness engendered by reason of the land struggle and sharp 

 practices on the part of traders and other non-Indians. This resulted, 

 in fact, in a sizable amount of antagonistic acculturation: That is, 

 some Navahos consciously and deliberately returned to heightened 

 participation in such ancient Navaho customs as the sweat bath. 



The prime barrier to Navaho acculturation in thought ways and 

 values was, of course, linguistic. To appreciate reaUsticaUy this 

 factor and others, one must enlarge the historical perspective with 

 various concrete details. The first Ramah Navaho went to school at 

 Fort Defiance in about 1886. He attended, however, for only a year 

 and returned to become one of the area's leading ceremonial practi- 

 tioners. To the end of his life his total EngHsh and Spanish vocabu- 

 laries combined did not amount to 100 words. His kinsman who went 

 to Fort Defiance the next yeair stayed only a few months. There is a 



