Johnston] NAVAHO POPULATION 113 



Indians living outside of reservations, special care should be taken to obtain 

 accurate answers to item 9 [Race]. [Bureau of the Census, 1950, pp. 33-34.] 



In interpreting the above instructions, it should be borne in mind 

 that the enumerators were not instructed to ask any question on race 

 unless they were in doubt, or were seeking to determine the race of 

 some unrelated, absent member of a given household. Thus, persons 

 residing outside the confines of the selected Indian reservations were 

 ordinarily classified as Indians only if the enumerator so decided on 

 the basis of the appearance of the individual or individuals he person- 

 ally contacted, or on the basis of his personal knowledge of the local 

 community. This procedure could be expected to yield a certain 

 amount of misclassification in communities containing significant num- 

 bers of Mexicans and Indians, or in communities containing admix- 

 tures of Indians, Whites, and/or Negroes, or, finally, in communities 

 containing small numbers of scattered Indian families.'^* 



Furthermore, it is apparent that when the enumerator did ask the 

 race of a respondent, he w^ould be forced to rely largely on the response 

 given. In practice, this was especially true with respect to questions 

 on blood quantum. Any individual who claimed to be an Indian 

 would be likely to claim at least the minimum blood quantum of one- 

 fourth Indian blood, in view of the legal significance of this quantum 

 for purposes of inclusion on the rolls of many Indian tribes. It must 

 therefore be stressed that, in practice, no objective check is provided 

 on the judgment of the enumerator or on the assertions of the 

 respondent. 



In regard to the enumeration of Navahos, however, it should be 

 recognized that the above limitations apply to a relatively small frac- 

 tion of the total population. Even as late as 1960, the vast majority 

 of Navahos residing in the Southwest could be readily identified as 

 Navahos by anyone familiar with the region and its inhabitants. The 

 relative accuracy with which Navahos could be identified in the 1950 

 census was further enhanced by the fact that most of the Indian agency 

 areas in Arizona and New Mexico were among those selected for spe- 

 cial Indian enumeration, using the Indian reservation schedule. Thus 

 the vast majority of Indians residing in these States were identified 

 by tribe as well as by race. As a result, there is little likelihood that 

 significant numbers of Indians were misclassified in regard to their 

 tribal affiliation, and the relative number of Indians whose tribal 

 affiliation m as not specified was very small. 



With respect to the coverage of the enumeration in the Navajo 

 Agency area, a number of limitations must be noted. 



"* This basic weakness Is well recognized by a number of authorities on census procedures 

 as they pertain to the collection of data on ethnic or racial composition. See, for example, 

 Hadley, 1952 b, and Beale, 1954. 



