78 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 197 



7,790 Navahos were reported to be residing on the reservation assigned 

 to them (immediately surrounding Fort Defiance), but an additional 

 2,000 were said to be "roaming with other tribes." This would imply 

 a total Navaho population of about 10,000.^^ 



This crude estimate of the number of Navahos living away from the 

 confines of the reservation assigned to them is particularly significant 

 in explaining the sudden increases that subsequently occurred from 

 time to time in the reported estimates of the total Navaho population. 

 The reports for 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874 all mention the existence of 

 some Navahos off the reservation, but no estimate of their number is 

 included in the totals given. The report for 1875, on the other hand, 

 represented an increase of 2,700 over the report of the previous year, 

 without making any explicit reference to Navahos residing off their 

 reservation. It is likely that this increase represents the reporting 

 agent's estimate of the off'-reservation population, which he merely 

 added to the estimated number of reservation Navahos as given in the 

 report of the previous year. A similar adjustment appears to have 

 been made at the discretion of the reporting officials in later years as 

 well. 



The actual figures given for the years 1871 to 1875 provide but a 

 single clue to the possible number of Navahos captured by Mexicans 

 and other settlers prior to the Fort Sumner period. The report of 

 1872 mentions an increase of 880 persons over the count of the previous 

 year, and attributes most of this increase to the return of captives by 

 the Mexicans. It can probably be safely inferred that additional hun- 

 dreds of Navahos were gradually making their way back to their 

 former lands throughout the period immediately following the Fort 

 Sumner episode. Still other Navahos appear to have established them- 

 selves in a number of areas outside even the present confines of the 

 reservation, while a few may well have lost their identity as Navahos 

 and merged with the Mexican or Pueblo population.^^ 



Further examination of the reports for these years reveals some- 

 thing of the casual and arbitrary procedures exployed in reporting the 

 population of the Navaho. In 1872, Thomas V. Keams, Special 

 Agent for the Navaho, carried out a count of the population under his 

 jurisdiction. He apparently followed the procedures employed by 

 the military authorities, completing his count in connection with a 

 distribution of ration tickets at Fort Defiance. Keams arrived at a 

 total of 3,300 women, 2,912 men, and 2,902 children ; 9,114 persons in 

 all. The reporting agent in the following year, J. D. Gould, merely 



=2 Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1871, Doc. No. 124. The figure of 7,790 Is quoted as being 

 from the report of 1869, as is the estimate of 2,000 Navahos living off the reservation at 

 this time. The discrepancy between this total and that of 8,181 is not explained. 



33 See footnote 28, p. 76. Cf. Gould, 1874, p. 271. Gould reported the latest count of 

 Navahos on the reservation as 9,114, but went on to state that there were a number of 

 Indians off the reservation ; some under a subehief, Ague Grande, living at the foot of 

 Mesa Calabasa, others near Cubero and Cebolleta (Cebolla). 



