Johnston] 



NAVAHO POPULATION 103 



duplications, the overall bias would be in the direction of under- 

 enumeration. However, the extent of this bias cannot be determined. 



When one considers the possible relevance of the above problems 

 to the situation of the Navaho Indians, the enumeration of the Nava- 

 ho in 1890 must be regarded, a priori, as particularly unsatisfactory. 

 The question of "permanent" residence was always especially com- 

 plex when viewed in the context of typical Navaho patterns of land 

 use, and there is considerable evidence to indicate that the Navaho 

 were increasingly mobile at this time. The decade of the 1880's had 

 witnessed an unprecedented increase in their stock holdings, so that 

 Navaho outfits and smaller groups were forced to range farther afield 

 in search of water and pasturage. In general, the dichotomy of "on- 

 reservation" and "off-reservation" w^as particularly inapplicable in 

 the case of the Navaho, many of whom moved freely across reservation 

 boundaries. 



It is apparent also that the personnel assigned to carry out the 

 enumeration were entirely insufficient. A single agent, D. L. Shipley, 

 was given the task of carrying out the enumeration of the entire Navajo 

 Keservation. He apparently conducted this task with the assistance 

 of four or five persons, and did not complete his enumeration until 

 August, 1891, over a year after the beginning of the census. As was 

 the case with earlier surveys, Shipley's enumeration was relatively 

 complete in the area immediately surrounding Fort Defiance, but the 

 available figures suggest that his coverage of the population in the 

 farther reaches of the reservation was progressively inadequate with 

 the increasing distance from the agency headquarters. In this con- 

 nection, it should be noted that large portions of the western and 

 southern parts of the present Navajo Keservation were not yet an- 

 nexed, although many Navahos were in fact residing, either tempo- 

 rarily or permanently, in these areas at this time. Furthermore, most 

 of the northern part of the present reservation did not become a part 

 of the official reservation area until 1884, so that the agent in charge 

 of the 1890 enumeration did not possess reliable knowledge of the 

 settlement patterns in this area. See map 3 (p. 24) for an outline 

 of the area in question. 



The available records of the 1890 Navaho census do not specify the 

 precise nature of the difficulties encountered, but apparently these 

 difficulties included some errors in the delineation of enumeration 

 districts. One of the few critical references I found states simply 

 that the enumeration was "taken on a faulty system" (Hodge, 1910, 

 pp. 41-45). 



A comparison of the summary population figures for the Navaho 

 at this time reveals the magnitude of the possible error in the 1890 

 census. In table 22, the official results of the 1890 census are shown. 



