100 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BaU. 188 



in Slionto Canyon early in 1955, resulting in a severe beating of one 

 of the parties involved — ^the assignee. In this particular case the 

 community's sympathies were distinctly with the other party, who 

 was attempting to establish a preemptive claim upon unused land. 

 A. former Chief of Law and Order on the Navaho Reservation (1935- 

 42) has informed the writer that disputes over cornfield tenure were 

 the principal source of civil disorder with which he was asked to deal 

 during his period in office. 



Supplementary fields are not involved in such conflict. They are 

 clearly under the control of specific residence groups, and are con- 

 sidered as "belonging" to them. Consequently formal assignments 

 to them are not obtained. 



Traditional oivnership, like legal ownership, is largely in the name 

 of individuals. The title thus conferred is, however, always a re- 

 stricted one in the case of real estate, since it is subordinate to use- 

 rights and vested interests (see below) . 



Land is not owned according to Navaho tradition (see Reichard, 

 1928, p. 93; Hill, 1937, pp. 21-22) ; it is subject to use-rights and 

 vested interest but remains, in fee, public domain. With the excep- 

 tion of hogans all other resources, real and personal, are thought of 

 as owned by individuals (cf. Kluckhohn and Leighton, 1946, p. 59; 

 Van Valkenburgh, 1937). In terms of formal ownership, hogans 

 are said to belong to the residence group (however they are some- 

 times said to belong to the residence group headman, irrespective 

 of occupancy). 



Use-right, with respect to all restricted estate, is a far more signifi- 

 cant control sanction than formal ownership. It is the primary 

 control to which real estate is continuously subject. By contrast, 

 personal estate is never encumbered by use-rights. 



Use-right (see Reichard, 1928, p. 91; Hill, 1938, pp. 21-23; Kluck- 

 hohn and Leighton, 1946, pp. 59-61) is always a function of member- 

 ship in one or another of Shonto's socioeconomic units (see "Economic 

 Interdependence," below). All members of the group enjoy equal 

 use-rights to whatever productive resources it controls, individually 

 or collectively. Since membership itself rests on more than one basis, 

 however, it is possible teclinically to distinguish between different 

 categories of use-right. 



Those members of a residence group whose membership is heredi- 

 tary (i.e. the wife and children in a matrilocal household, or the 

 husband in a patrilocal household) may be said to enjoy a heredi- 

 tary use-right upon its resources. Those whose membership is estab- 

 lished by marriage into the group enjoy a use-right which is a function 

 of the marriage contract — in other words a contractual use-right. 

 Where hereditary use-right is a birth-right, contractual use-right is 



