Johnston] NAVAHO POPULATION 121 



Since the first special enumeration of Indians in 1890, it has been 

 the traditional practice of the Bureau of the Census to obtain informa- 

 tion on reservation Indians by means of special schedules at 20-year 

 intervals. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the plans for the 1970 

 census will provide for an entry of tribal affiliation for all Indians, 

 wherever they are residing, and will delineate all major reservation 

 areas as areas requiring special procedures and appropriate census 

 schedules. 



THE SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE 



For the period 1936 to 1940, a third major source of information on 

 the population of the Navaho is to be found in the results of the 

 Human Dependency Sui'vey, conducted by the Human Dependency 

 and Economic Surveys Section of the Soil Conservation Service, U.S. 

 Department of Agriculture.^" This survey was carried out as a part 

 of a systematic and integrated description of the 19 land management 

 units (or districts) comprising the Navajo and Hopi Reservation areas 

 (Soil Conservation Service, 1938; Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1941 b). 

 The chief i^urpose of the Human Dependency Survey was to obtain 

 information on the number and distribution of the inliabitants of each 

 land management district, together with their patterns of land use and 

 settlement, their stock holdings, means of livelihood, and general eco- 

 nomic condition. Demographic information was collected as an in- 

 tegral part of this research. These findings were correlated with 

 estimates of the carrying capacity of each district and of its potential 

 for further development as indicated by available soil, water, and other 

 natural resources.^^ 



A major procedural innovation of the Human Dependency Survey 

 was the recognition of the "consumption group" rather than the con- 

 ventional biological or nuclear family as a basic socioeconomic unit of 

 organization among the Navaho and Hopi residents of the area. As 

 the following definition indicates, the consumption group is, in most 

 instances, practically identical with the biological family, but its use as 



""> Dr. John Provinse was the director of the Section of Conservation Economics in the 

 Navaho-Hopi area during most of tliis period. Mr. J. Nixon Hadley, to whom I am 

 indebted for much of the information concerning both the organization and the results of 

 this survey, was the immediate supervisor of the staff of field enu'merators. 



A similar survey was undertaken among the Rio Grande Pueblo Indians, under the 

 sponsorship of the Southwestern Regional Office of the Soil Conservation Service. On the 

 basis of the experience gained in these two surveys, a number of similar studies were 

 carried out on other Indian reservations. A special operating unit was established to 

 supervise these later surveys, termed the "Committee for Technical Cooperation with the 

 Bureau of Indian Affairs," or "T.C.B.I.A." 



'"■ The vital importance of the information sought in this survey was plainly Indicated 

 in the detailed report by Meriam et al., 1928. The need for improved statistics on popula- 

 tion and vital trends among the several Indian tribes is well summarized on pp. 170 ff. 

 of Meriam's report. 



