Anthrop. pap. 

 No. 79] 



THE RAMAH NAVAHO — KLUCKHOHN 



351 



lected. Twelve pairs of twins (all except one of like sex) have been 

 born since 1874.'* 



Of those who had reached adulthood by 1950, there is a presumption 

 that seven men and five women are infertile because all of these had 

 married at least two different individuals and failed to have children. 

 Three other men and one woman had a single marriage of 3 years 

 or more duration without conception resulting. Lack of fertility 

 seems to attach to a limited number of family lines. Four of the men 

 and two of the women who have had two or more marriages, and all 

 three of the men with a single marriage, are closely related, all being 

 descendants of the Chiricahua Apache women who married at Ramah, 

 Three of the other women with two or more marriages who are infertile 

 are full sisters. 



MARRIAGES AND AFFAIRS 



Fertility is increased by the early age of marriage. Before the 

 Ramah Navaho went to school in any numbers, girls were, with very 

 few exceptions, married within a year or two after their first menstru- 

 ation. Even in the 1940-50 decade, nine were married at 16 or under, 

 but the average age of first marriage had cHmbed to 17.7.'* Prior to 

 1910 (and in a sizable number of cases thereafter), it was rare for a 

 boy to be unmarried at 19, and some were married at 15 and 16. In 

 the 1940-50 period, the average age of first marriage was 19.9.'* 

 Total cases of first marriages occurring from January 1, 1940, to 

 September 1, 1950, are as shown in table 4. 



Table 4. — Total cases of first marriages occurring January 1, 1940, to September 



1, 1960 



Fertility is also increased by the existence of polygyny. In the 

 1871-1950 period, there were 51 polygynous marriages at Ramah. 

 Forty-seven of these involved only two wives at any particular time. 

 The remainder involved three wives simultaneously. Some of these 

 marriages have been polygynous for only comparatively short periods 

 because of death or divorce. In other instances, the older wife had 

 passed the reproductive age at the time of the second marriage or 

 very shortly thereafter. The pressure of missionaries and (occasion- 



'» This is even higher than the figure reported by Jeffreys (1953) in his survey of African twin data. 



" In these estimates, only cases are used where the ages of the individuals are quite reliably determined. 



