No^TOr" ^^^' "^-^^ RAMAH NAVAHO — KLUCKHOHN 359 



The Ramah genealogies show four violations (out of 399 marriages) 

 of the first prohibition and five violations of the second. Transgres- 

 sions of the third and fourth regulations have been more frequent but 

 cannot be enumerated exactly because of disagreement among the 

 Navaho themselves as to which of the clans should be considered 

 linked. Indeed many Navahos under 40 years of age in 1950 could not 

 name with confidence the clans linked to their own, let alone to those 

 of their fathers. 



The first known violation of clan exogamy occurred in 1932 and 

 was a serious one because a man who was Bitter Water clan (father's 

 clan: Meadow) married a woman of Meadow clan whose father was of 

 Bitter Water clan. There was a great local scandal, and strenuous 

 efforts were made to prevent the marriage and to break it up after it 

 occurred. By 1950, the prohibition against marrying into the clan 

 group of one's father or mother could be considered operative only in 

 the case of a small number of very conservative famiHes. 



Of the more than 50 Navaho clans, 25 have been represented in the 

 Ramah genealogies, but a number of these by only one or a very few 

 individuals who married in from other Navaho bands. As of 1948, 

 19 clans were represented in the Ramah population. Four of these 

 were represented by single in-marrying males, and only six had 

 memberships comprising more than 16 individuals. These six clans 

 included 97 percent of the total population: The four largest clans 

 comprised 77 percent, the two largest about 40 percent. (Kluckhohn 

 and Griffith, 1950; Spuhler, 1953.) 



MARRIAGE 



In theory — and to a considerable (though decreasing) extent in 

 practice — the first marriage is celebrated with a simple ceremony 

 that has often been described in the literature. Prior to 1940, well 

 over 90 percent of first marriages and approximately 75 percent of 

 later marriages were arranged by the families of the two prospective 

 spouses — or, in the case of males in middle age and beyond, by the 

 man's direct negotiation with the family of his prospective wife. 

 Marriages in the 1940-50 decade were arranged in only 60 percent 

 (roughly) of the cases, though in a good many of the instances where 

 the initiative was taken by the principals, the families eventually 

 became involved in the exchanges of property which normally accompa- 

 nied arranged (socially sanctioned) marriages. Many of the "affairs" 

 represent only philandering. Others, however, are cases where man 

 and woman were drawn to a stable relationship, but marriage was 

 opposed by their relatives on economic gTOunds or violation of clan 

 or clan group exogamy. A sizable proportion of the affairs become 

 recognized marriages on the birth of children. 



