Johnston] NAVAHO POPULATION 11 



undoubtedly distribute themselves ever more widely. Furthermore, 

 insofar as these Navahos experience the assimilation processes common 

 to other ethnic minorities, they may lose many of the characteristics 

 which enable them to be readily identified either as Indians in general 

 or as Navahos in particular. 



Finally, the de jure population must exclude all persons who do 

 not meet the minimum eligibility requirements, even if they are on 

 record as having received services accorded Navahos in the past. The 

 relative isolation of the Navaho until recent years makes it unlikely 

 that significant numbers of non-Navahos have, in fact, appeared on the 

 several administrative records of the Navajo Agency. However, the 

 anticipated advantages of such inclusion may become an important 

 factor to consider in the near future, since many individuals may seek 

 to establish themselves as Navahos in order to share in the benefits 

 accruing from such a status.^^ 



The second theoretical Navaho population whose estimation would 

 be useful can be defined operationally as the number of persons who 

 are actually making use of specified rights or services available to 

 them in their capacity as Navahos at any given time. Such a popu- 

 lation can be approximated by referring to the appropriate admin- 

 istrative records, so that it can be designated, in general, as the "ad- 

 ministrative" Navaho population. The records of the several admin- 

 istrative offices of the Navajo Agency contain information on a 

 number of such populations, such as the population of Navahos 

 registered with the Arizona State Employment Service, or those 

 applying for grazing permits, etc. In theory, it would be possible 

 to compile a "master register" of persons carried on any of these 

 several administrative records, and thus arrive at an estimate of the 

 total administrative Navaho population. In practice, however, such 

 a compilation would involve an enormous expenditure of clerical ef- 

 fort in order to match individuals appearing on more than one record 

 so as to avoid duplication. Furthermore, the vagaries of Navaho 

 nomenclature might well defeat any attempt to develop a reliable 

 technique for matching names appearing on one record with those 

 appearing on another. 



The third theoretical population whose estimation would be useful 

 is difficult to define. It can be termed the population of "cultural" 

 Navahos; i.e., those persons whose primary identification remains 

 with the traditional ways of life of Navaho culture. One possible 

 operational criterion for estimating this population would be the 



"Beale (1954, p. 2) points out that there are over 2 million people of Mexican an- 

 cestry in the Southwestern United States, many of whom are of partial Indian descent. 



In the last special enumeration of the Indian population in 1930, the enumerators in 

 Arizona, New Mexico, and California were cautioned about the problem of differentiating 

 between Mexican laborers and Indians, since "some Mexican laborers may endeavor to pass 

 themselves as Indians" (Bureau of the Census, 1937, p. 1). 



780-568—66 2 



