16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 197 



omitted from the roll, since none of the registration procedures out- 

 lined above can be gxiaranteed to reach everyone. Third, the possibili- 

 ties of duplicate registration, mistaken identity, or registration with 

 the wrong family or in the wrong jurisdiction, remain serious, espe- 

 cially in a cultural situation where many individuals choose an "official" 

 English name for purposes of registration, without reference to either 

 their parents' tribal names or to the name or names whereby they are 

 themselves known in their own localities. A further complication 

 arises in this connection from the fact that the census office roll is 

 maintained on a patrinomial system while the Navaho traditionally 

 identify themselves matrinomially.^*' Fourth, any effort to maintain 

 a single authoritative listing of all Navahos is greatly complicated by 

 the proliferation of administrative records that has occurred since the 

 basic roll was established in 1928-29. Although many of these records 

 are adequate for the purposes they are intended to serve, few of them 

 cover the entire population, while most of them refer to overlapping 

 segments of the population. Thus the task of reconciling the several 

 records so as to maintain a single all-inclusive register of the popula- 

 tion has become increasingly difficult. Finally, mention must be made 

 of the heightened mobility of the Navaho in recent years. No regis- 

 tration system yet devised can hope to maintain accurate and up-to- 

 date records of the location of individual families or "outfits" of 

 Navahos under present conditions, when many Navahos are finding 

 temporary or permanent employment in a dozen States. Further- 

 more, the intensive construction taking place in certain areas of the 

 reservation is having a profound effect upon patterns of settlement 

 within the reservation itself, so that population distributions recorded 

 in the late 1930's are no longer representative. 



On the basis of the data recorded by the Bureau of the Census and 

 the Navajo Agency "census office" at Window Rock, it is possible to 

 distinguish three "observed" Navaho populations. 



First, the enumerations of the Bureau of the Census provide a 

 figure for the total Navaho population residing in the Navajo Agency 

 area at the time of the enumeration. This area comprises the reserva- 

 tion-proper, together with a wide belt of territory mostly to the east 

 and south of the reservation known to be occupied primarily by Nava- 

 hos, plus a few scattered Navaho communities which are separately 

 identified in the census enumerations. 



2« In examining these rolls, I have observed the frequent presence of several English 

 surnames, in addition to the parents' Navaho names, within the same family. For ex- 

 ample, one son may be listed as "John Jones," another as "Jim Broven," while the 

 father's surname Is "Yazzle" or "Begay." The practice of adopting common English 

 surnames, which Is apparently fairly widespread among the younger generation, obviously 

 complicates the task of identifying new additions to the roll with the proper families. 

 The problem of nomenclature, combined with the failure of the rolls to recognize the 

 Navaho system of matrilineal descent, has made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, 

 to maintain these rolls. 



