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Show ir Mi. r ,;; " '. ' viv'rS ;' ' ', v -' "T-.-.' J NAVAJO VILLAGE, "IT HE Navajo Indian reservation, lj lying partly in New Mexico jj and partly in Arizona, over-il over-il laps the Continental divide like a gigantic saddle blanket, and may be briefly described further as a great broken plateau of some 25,000 square miles in area, semi-arid in its climatic features and overgrown quite generally with a hardy growth of vegetation, including many valuable forage plants unsurpassed for grazing purposes a resource long since turned turn-ed to account by its interesting inhabitants, in-habitants, the Navajos, the owners of 2,000,000 sheep, the income from which renders them practically independent of the whites and the benevolent paternalism pa-ternalism of the federal government. At the time of the American occupation occupa-tion of New Mexico in 1848, the Navajos Nava-jos had become quite generally a pastoral pas-toral people, subsisting upon their flocks, which were added to, according accord-ing to accounts of the times, by others stolen from the Pueblos and the Mexican Mex-ican settlers with whom they were not infrequently at enmity. During the '60's when the tribe was at war with the United States their herds and property were ruthlessly killed and j destroyed and the men, women and children carried off in captivity to Fort Sumner. Children Belong to Mother. Following their release and return to the reservation, the United States government, in 1869, gave them 30,-000 30,-000 sheep and 2,000 goats, which by careful husbanding they have increas. ed to the present extensive dimen-sons, dimen-sons, becoming the principal possession posses-sion of each family and its chief means of support, the flocks of the more thrifty, in many instances, numbering several thousand head, thus enabling the possessors to live in comparative ease or affluence even. It is, indeed, the exception rather than the rule to find a family without a herd of sheep. They, in fact, are the royal road to power and influence in the tribe, one's rank being automatically regulated by the size of his flock, the greater one's possessions the more exalted his position. As among other primitive peoples, woman's standing in the Navajo tribe is high, descent and inheritance being in her line, the children belonging to the mother and her clan. By tribal prerogative she is the principal property prop-erty owner, the lands, houses, crops and sheep being hers exclusively, ana it is on her that their care and management man-agement largely devolve. The scarcity of water and grass at certain seasons, the difference in altitude alti-tude of the various sections, the consequent conse-quent attendant climatic variations and the peculiar character of the plant life on the reservation make it necessary neces-sary to move the flocks during certain seasons. For these reasons, to which must be coupled the itinerant proclivities pro-clivities of the tribe, the Navajo has no permanent abode, his movements being regulated to a very great extent by the waxing and waning of the pastures, pas-tures, a state of affairs that fits In well with Navajo disposition to wander, inherited in-herited from his forbears, who lived by hunting and plundering, the change from a roving hunter to a nomadic herdsman being an easy and perhaps a natural one. Ranges Divided. In the summer months the family repair with their flocks to the high mountainous areas, where thrive magnificent mag-nificent belts of timber consisting of yellow pine, fir, spruce, scrub oak, plnon, juniper and cedar. Flourishing within thes9 timbered tracts are numerous nu-merous grassy stretches that furnish excellent pasturage for the herds. Then, too, the climate Is more congenial con-genial and water more abundant than on the lower semi-arid sections elsewhere. else-where. i As a rule, whether on the summer or winter pasture lands, the family oc. cupy the same locality, in each case year after year, the range being divided di-vided in some manner among the various va-rious clans that constitute the Navajo tribe, and again subdivided among the families, where it is handed down through some system of entail from one generation to another. In a secluded se-cluded place remote from springs, watering wa-tering Bites and trails near a small arable tract, the summer hogan is situated, sit-uated, near which are the corrals for the sheep and ponies. The size of the flocks owned by the Individual families vary considerably in some cases. The number possessed by the smallest holders is rarely less, than 250 head. While the more wealthy have as many as 2,000 or more. Some of the wealthiest hold at their disposal dis-posal from 6,000 to 10,000 head, but instances of this kind are few and are not known to exist in but ten or twelve cases. Of seventy-seven herds counted near Keams canyon, Arizona, the average sized flock was found to be very nearly 700 head, which is probably a fair estimate for other sections sec-tions of the reservation. If there i3 any difference elsewhere It will exceed these figures rather than fall below them. A herd of this size will easily support an average Navajo family of two adults and three children. The wool sold direct to the traders as It Is taken from the sheep should bring $300. If made into blankets it will exceed this amount by two or three times. Adding to this the returns from the sale of a few lambs or of the matured animals, it is obvious that the ordinary Navajo family can live easily off the income from their flocks, considering that they are at no eash outlay, except for their clothing, flour, coffee and a few other domestic necessities ne-cessities exclusive of meat, which is supplied from the herd. While no definite, figures are obtainable, it seems very probable that the Navajos have on an average 100 sheep per capita for every man, woman and child on the reservation, which is amply sufficient to solve the bread-and-butter problem for them for generations gen-erations to come, granting, of course, that they do not lose their herds from epidemics or from unfavorable range conditions |