ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT LXXI 



localities in which the water supply, tillable land, and hunting 

 possibilities were such as to serve the needs of small groups 

 but not of large assemblages; so that the interaction of envi- 

 ronment produced a scattered but fairly sedentary poi)ulation, 

 shifting abodes only with seasonal or secular changes in water 

 supply, or with the more lasting exigencies of the chase. 

 Under these conditions there was a strong tendency toward 

 the maintenance of family groups as primary social units, and 

 as nuclei for ideas, arts, and ancillary institutions. After the 

 Spanish invasion, the Navaho acquired horses and sheep, with 

 some other domestic animals, and rapidly became pastoral, 

 and in some measure nomadic to meet the seasonal conditions; 

 yet the impress of widely distributed but sedentary life 

 remained to mold tliought and shape daily habit. 



A characteristic of the Navaho Indians is the retention of 

 maternal organization in the form of the clan. As explained 

 by Mr Mindeleff, descent is in the female line, while the chil- 

 dren and much of th'e j)roperty are regarded as pertaining to 

 the mother. This persistence of the most primitive known 

 form of society is in harmony with the environmental condi- 

 tions, and attests the deep-rooted conservatism born of sed- 

 entary life; it stands in strong contrast to the advanced 

 org-anization of the roving- Kiowa. Yet the Navaho reveal 

 the beginnings of social reconstruction along typical lines. 

 While most of the property, including the sheep and the 

 goats, belongs to the matrons, the larger stock are regarded as 

 the property of the men; i. e, among the Navaho, as among 

 the peoples of the Old World, the possession of herds of such 

 sort as to require strength and vigor for their management led 

 to a transfer of responsibility from the matron to the patriarch. 

 Several other social factors among the Navaho similarly mark 

 the economic transition normally attending the change from 

 maternal to paternal organization; and they are peculiarly 

 significant as affording a well-recorded and practically con- 

 temporary example of one of the three great transformations 

 in the course of social development. 



Intimately connected witli the kinship group of a seaentary 

 people is the family domicil — indeed, among most of the 

 aboriginal tribes of America the domicil reflects the social 



