Navajo Culture

Navajo Culture

Introduction

Navajo tribe is the second most populous tribe among all of the North American Indian tribes in the United States of America. It has about 300, 000 people and most of them are inhabited in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. The Navajo people also used the name Dine for their existence (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2013). Dine refers to a term in Navajo language which means people. A little over a thousand years ago, Navajo Indians used to live in the western part of Canada and belonged to the Athapaskansm an American Indian group. With the course of the time, they started travelling to south and most of them settled along the Pacific Ocean. Today the tribe is commonly known as the Northwest Coast Indian tribe. The primary mode of their subsistence changed with time as their society used to be horticulture and then moved towards being foragers and then pastoralists (Sonneborn, 2006). Due to this kind of subsistence, they remained nomadic which also influenced their gender relations, beliefs and values and family dynamics.

Discussion

Mode of Subsistence

In response to the new challenges and opportunities, the economy and society of the Navajo people is continuously evolving since they first arrived in the Southwest part of the country. Owing to this fact, it becomes difficult to mark their traditional mode of subsistence and economy. At the time of reservation i.e. from 1868 to 1960, their existence was dependent upon the amalgamation of animal husbandry, farming and trade of various products (Sonneborn, 2006). The maize civilization was thought to the most fundamental and important among all their economic ambitions, despite of the fact that it used to make little contribution their diet. They sued to raise sheep and goats which not only provided them with sufficient amount of food and milk along with the wool, hides and lams but also used as an exchangeable object at the time of trading for manufactured goods around the Navajo country. Sale or exchange of numerous kinds of crafts products, particularly pinon nuts and rugs, was the additional source of income.

A few numbers of Navajo people were also employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and also in off-reservation ranches and towns in the early 1900s, but the wage factor did not contributed much for their economy until after World War II. It was by the 1980s that the wage work started contributing about 75% of the Navajo income, however, their traditional ways of farming and livestock economy were also maintained all through the reservation. With the passage of time, Navajo moved from raiding lifestyle to become agricultural and pastoral society which utilizes the natural resources around them. They depend on their newly gained knowledge of agriculture and herding for subsistence (Sonneborn, 2006). Thus shift to a pastoral society also provided them with an opportunity to become one among the most modernized Native American societies of the United States.

Gender Relations

The sex-based categories of Navajo people are reflected in the language they used to assign people ...