344 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 1S6 



with lava rock) for grinding stones to prepare food and sand-painting 

 minerals. Clay was until recently used for pottery and (like red 

 ocher) for pigment. Alum is used as a dye mordant. 



The use of animal products is or was more extensive, although 

 hide and sinew are the chief parts of the animal used in the con- 

 struction of objects. Bone was used only for awls and for reamers 

 and arrow straighteners. Horn was used only for arrow straighteners 

 and as containers for medicine. Hides were used for clothing, armor, 

 shields, bedding, hafting tools, carriers, waterbags, and lines. They 

 were boiled to form glue and used for sewing in the form of thongs. 

 Sinew was used for sewing and for the bowstring as well as for the 

 backing of the sinew-backed bow. Rabbitskins were used in bedding; 

 squirrelskins and other furs in bags and in ceremonial equipment. 

 Mountain lion skin was used only for medicine bags, quivers, and 

 war caps. 



The other main category of materials is that of fibers (vegetable 

 and wool). Wool plays a major role but is used mainly for articles 

 that were once made of hides: bedding, shirts, sacks, cords, and 

 threads. On the other hand, it is not used for ceremonial articles 

 which must be made of buckskin. Flexible plant fibers, roots, and 

 leaves were used in basketry and matting and in the making of tem- 

 porary ropes and paintbrushes. 



Some materials are gathered and stored against future need (wool, 

 buckskin, dyes, coils of basket material, sacks of sand-painting 

 pigments). In general, however, only materials which have to be 

 imported from a distance or which are seasonal are likely to be kept 

 on hand. Processing of most materials is minimal. The main ex- 

 ceptions are silverwork, rugs, pottery, and tanning. The tendency 

 is for the Navaho to be a tool-using rather than a tool-making people. 



Sexual division of labor was clear cut on only a few points. Both 

 men and women may weave® and do silverwork. In Navaho theory, 

 house construction (except for plastering) and working with buckskin 

 are male tasks, but over the past 20 years we have observed women 

 participating in both these occupations. Ritual objects are made 

 only by men, and in the past the manufacture of hunting and war 

 equipment was exclusively male. Only women made baskets and 

 pottery (except for clay hunting pipes which were made by men). 



The use of tenses in the foregoing paragraphs has been difficult 

 and not fuUy precise because of culture change. A full listing by items 

 would achieve accuracy but be intolerably long. But let me give a 

 few illustrations. No shield has been made by the Ramah Navaho 

 in this century and probably not since Fort Sumner. Pottery has 



• Only two Kamah men are known to have done weaving. 



