MINDELEFF] THE NAVAHO HABITAT ATT 
DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY 
The Navaho reservation comprises an extensive area in the extreme 
northeastern part of Arizona and the northwestern corner of New 
Mexico (plate Lxxx11). The total area is over 11,000 square miles, of 
which about 650 square miles are in New Mexico; but it would be diffi- 
cult to find a region of equal size and with an equal population where 
so large a proportion of the land is so nearly worthless. This condition 
has had an important effect on the people and their arts, and especially 
on their houses. 
The region may be roughly characterized as a vast sandy plain, arid 
in the extreme; or rather as two such plains, separated by a chain of 
mountains running northwest and southeast. In the southern part of 
the reservation this mountain range is known as the Choiskai moun- 
tains, and here the top is flat and mesa-like in character, dotted with 
little lakes and covered with giant pines, which in the summer give it 
a park-like aspect. The general elevation of this plateau is a little less 
than 9,000 feet above the sea and about 3,000 feet above the valleys or 
plains east and west of it. 
The continuation of the range to the northwest, separated from the 
Choiskai only by a high pass, closed in winter by deep snow, is known 
as the Tunicha mountains. The summit here is a sharp ridge with pro- 
nounced slopes and is from 9,000 to 9,400 feet high. On the west 
there are numerous small streams, which, rising near the summit, 
course down the steep slopes and finally discharge through Canyon 
Chelly into the great Chinlee valley, which is the western of the two 
valleys referred to above. The eastern slope is more pronounced than 
the western, and its streams are so small and insignificant that they 
are hardly worthy of mention. 
Still farther to the northwest, and not separated from the Tunicha 
except by a drawing in or narrowing of the mountain mass, with no 
depression of the summit, is another part of the same range, which bears 
a separate name. It is known as the Lukachukai mountains. Here 
something “of the range character is lost, and the uplift becomes a 
confused mass, a single great pile, with a maximum altitude of over 
9,400 feet. 
Northwest of this point the range breaks down into Chinlee valley, 
but directly to the north is another uplift, called the Carriso moun- 
tains. Itis a single mass, separated from the range proper by a com- 
paratively low area of less than 7,000 feet altitude, while the Carriso 
itself is over 9,400 feet above the sea. 
The western and northwestern parts of the reservation might also be 
classed as mountainous. Here there is a great mesa or elevated table- 
land, cut and gashed by innumerable canyons and gorges, and with a 
general elevation of 7,500 to 8,000 feet. Throughout nearly its whole 
extent it is impassable to wagons. 
