Johnston] 



NAVAHO POPULATION 21 



harvest in stock, which they easily captured, and in refugees which 

 they acquired from the Pueblo villages. The extensive intermingling 

 which followed had an impact upon every aspect of Navaho culture. 

 It brought new teclmiques in agriculture, weaving, and pottery- 

 making, as well as important modifications in social organization, 

 language, and even in Navaho myth and ritual (Underhill, 1956, p. 41 ; 

 Spencer, 1947, p. 128). The Spanish rulers of the period were evi- 

 dently hopeful that in borrowing so many traits from the Pueblo, 

 the Navaho w^ould eventually also adopt the settled agrarian way of 

 life of the Pueblo. However, the Navaho never fully surrendered 

 the cultural values of an earlier era. In their gradual expansion into 

 the more arid regions to the south and west of their original territory, 

 the Navaho adopted a more nomadic pastoral way of life, relegating 

 their agricultural activities to a place of secondary importance. It 

 is at this time that the horse became an item of much prestige among 

 the Navaho, and the raiding forays made possible by their possession 

 of horses became an important source of both material gain and social 

 prestige among them. The Navaho were never as exclusively devoted 

 to raiding and other warlike activities as their neighbors, the Ute, 

 Comanche, and Apache, but they did acquire a lasting reputation 

 for their repeated forays among the more settled Pueblo peoples as 

 well as among the Whites who were beginning to arrive in this region 

 in significant numbers. By the time the U.S. officials and settlers 

 arrived to displace the Mexican authorities in 1846, the Navaho were 

 adept at mounting raiding expeditions in order to supplement their 

 herds and flocks and to capture occasional slaves. 



It is interesting to note that neither the Spanish nor the American 

 authorities appreciated the true significance of the raiding practices 

 of the American Indians. These raids were generally interpreted 

 as the deliberate expression of a hostile attitude on the part of some 

 Indian "authority." The purely local and spontaneous character of 

 the raid was never clearly recognized among members of a culture 

 wherein violence against foreigners must be instigated, organized, and 

 sanctioned by higher authority. Thus the Americans, like their 

 Spanish predecessors, sought to eliminate these hostile activities by 

 first dispatching diplomatic missions to the Navaho. These missions 

 were invariably "successful." Some wealthy or influential Navaho 

 could always be persuaded to affix his mark to a treaty signifying 

 his peaceful intentions, and that of his people. However, it was seldom 

 appreciated that when such a Navaho expressed his peaceful intentions 

 toward the Americans or other outsiders, he spoke for his family and 

 perhaps for his grazing communuity, but not for his "nation." Fur- 

 thermore, he expressed merely his momentary attitude, and did not 

 necessarily feel committed thereby in his future actions. Navaho 

 social organization simply did not contain a system of authority 



