No.^79r* ^^^' '^^^ RAMAH NAVAHO — KLUCKHOHN 341 



however, are unique as far as the Anglos and Spanish-Americans are 

 concerned. Local folklore names a number of individuals as "speak- 

 ing good Navaho." In fact, only four Mormons can carry on a simple 

 conversation in pidgin Navaho. A few other traders and stockmen 

 know perhaps 300 terms for numerals, objects, and the like. They 

 can bargain for crops and livestock or for workers, can ask distances, 

 and talk about births and deaths. Two or three Spanish-Americans 

 also fall into this group. Other Anglos and Spanish-Americans are 

 limited to, at most, a small handful of stock phrases. 



This language barrier has sharply restricted the influence of non- 

 Navahos even upon those Navahos who have for longer or shorter 

 periods seen Pueblos, Anglos, or Spanish-Americans daily. The net 

 result is that the Ramah Navaho, in spite of living among and sur- 

 rounded by non-Navahos, are less acculturated than certain reserva- 

 tion Navahos who have been much more deeply affected by schools 

 and missionaries. The first school for Navahos in the Ramah area 

 was not built until 1943, whereas the reservation was dotted with 

 schools by 1910. For about 10 years (roughly 1876-86) the Mormons 

 made strenuous missionizing attempts, but the results did not reach 

 below the surface, at any rate as far as fundamental ideas were con- 

 cerned. Thereafter Mormon missionary work languished at a per- 

 functory level not to be resumed actively until 1946 when a full-time 

 mission team was assigned to work among the Ramah Navaho.* This 

 was probably in competitive response to the activities of a Fundamen- 

 talist missionary who took up residence near Ramah in 1944 (Rapoport, 

 1954). This missionary venture was the first (other than a few brief 

 and casual visits) since the early Mormon endeavor. 



The psychological test administered by the Research in Indian 

 Education Program (1942-43) indicated that the Ramah Navaho 

 were midway in acculturation between the remote Navajo Mountain 

 band and the Shiprock group on the Navajo Reservation (Leighton 

 and Kluckhohn, 1947). This judgment accords with relevant spe- 

 cific data and with the general impressions of anthropologists and 

 non-Ramah Navahos. Reservation Navahos who have visited in the 

 Ramah area or worked with Ramah Navahos on the railroads or else- 

 where often make comments to the effect that the Ramah group strikes 

 them as conservative or "backwoodsy." 



All in all, the Ramah Navaho are as representative of the Navaho 

 people as a whole as any other single local Navaho population. One 

 of the characteristics of the Navaho in general is the heterogeneity of 



* In April 1952, 100 Navaho men, women, and children were carried on the rolls of the Mormon church 

 in Ramah. The records show, however, that only six of these had been confirraed or blessed prior to 1948 . 

 Five had risen In the hierarchy to the rank of deacon, two to priest, and only one to elder. All evidence 

 indicates that the affiliation of most of the 100 had been, to say the least, highly nominal. 



