96 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[Bull. 197 



In the first place, the percentage of 40.6 as quoted above referred 

 explicitly to the age group 5 to 19, inclusive. Even the crudest ad- 

 justments of these data to obtain the proportion aged 6 to 18 would 

 suggest a percentage of about 35 rather than 40. Secondly, the 

 calculations made from the data for the Tuba City School District are 

 themselves subject to considerable bias, since the total population 

 pertained to the census date of April 1, 1940, whereas the count of 

 children aged 6 to 18 was derived from ration books that were issued, 

 for the most part, during the years 1943 and 1944. Thus the resultant 

 percentage takes no account of the population increase that occurred 

 in the area m the 3- or 4-year interval between the 1940 census and 

 the issuance of the ration books. 



The issuance of a series of ration books to the Navahos in the 

 reservation area during World War II provided the officials of the 

 agency with an additional source of population data (table 21).^° In 

 interpreting the figures obtained from this source, three considerations 

 are especially pertinent. 



(1) The issuance of ration books would certainly motivate wide- 

 spread public cooperation, and thus promote a relatively complete 

 count of the population. By the same token, however, there would 

 exist a considerable motivation toward duplicate registration and/or 

 claims of fictitious dependents and the like. It is, of course, impossible 

 to ascertain to what extent these factors might have been operative 

 among the Navaho at this time, but the resultant figures should be 

 viewed with extreme caution. 



(2) The figures given for the number of Navahos in military serv- 

 ice, and especially for the number of Navahos working and living 

 away from the Navaho administration area, are estimates. The 

 estimates of the latter group are especially subject to error. 



Table 21. 



-Total Navaho population as estimated from a count of ration books 

 issued in the Navaho administrative area — 19^3-^4 ^ 



' Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1947. 



2 This estimated total is the sum of the first, third, and fourth columns, minus the second column. 

 8 The number of Whites who received Ration Book No. 3 in October 1943 was not reported. Their number 

 is estimated by me as 2,400 for purposes of comparison in the table. 



so The counts based on the issuance of these ration books are summarized briefly in 

 Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1947, p. 6. 



